"What is it you wish here?" she asked.
"Will you not shut the door?" he responded, for her fingers were on the
handle. "I cannot speak with the night looking in. Won't you ask me to
your sitting-room? I'm not a robber or a rogue."
Slowly she closed the door. Then she turned, and, in the dim light, she
said:
"But you are both a robber and a rogue."
He did not answer until they had entered the sittin-groom.
"I gave you that which is out against me now. Is he not brilliant,
capable and courageous?"
There was in her face a stern duty.
"It was Fate, monsieur. When he and I went to your political meeting at
Charlemont it had no purpose. No blush came to his cheek, because he did
not know who his father is. No one in the world knows--no one except
myself, that must suffer to the end. Your speech roused in him the native
public sense, the ancient fire of the people from whom he did not know he
came. His origin has been his bane from the start. He did not know why
the man he thought his father seemed almost a stranger to him. He did not
understand, and so they fell apart. Yet John Grier would have given more
than he had to win the boy to himself. Do you ever think what the boy
must have suffered? He does not know.
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