Presently his cheeks turned pale.
More than once he put it down, for it seemed impossible to go on, but
with courage he took it up again and read on to the end.
"God--God in Heaven!" he broke out when he had finished it. For a long
time he walked the floor, trembling in body and shaking in spirit. "Now I
understand everything," he said at last aloud in a husky tone. "Now I see
what I could not see--ah yes, I see at last!"
For another time of silence and turmoil he paced the floor, then he
stopped short. "I'm glad they both are dead," he said wearily. Thinking
of Barode Barouche, he had a great bitterness. "To treat any woman
so--how glad I am I fought him! He learned that such vile acts come home
at last."
Then he thought of John Grier. "I loathed him and loved him always," he
said with terrible remorse in his tone. "He used my mother badly, and yet
he was himself; he was the soul that he was born, a genius in his own
way, a neglecter of all that makes life beautiful--and yet himself,
always himself. He never pottered. He was real--a pirate, a plunderer,
but he was real. And he cared for me, and would have had me in the
business if he could. Perhaps John Grier knows the truth now! . .
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