It was like a scar on
his own body, a repulsive sore which he wished to keep out of sight,
even from the eyes of the man who had been his salvation. The growth of
this revulsion within him had kept pace with his physical improvement,
and if at the end of these ten days Father Roland had spoken of the
woman who had betrayed him--the woman who had been his wife--he would
have turned the key on that subject as decisively as the Missioner had
banned further conversation or conjecture about Tavish. This was,
perhaps, the best evidence that he had cut out the cancer in his breast.
The Golden Goddess, whom he had thought an angel, he now saw stripped of
her glory. If she had repented in that room, if she had betrayed fear
even, a single emotion of mental agony, he would not have felt so sure
of himself. But she had laughed. She was, like Tavish, a devil. He
thought of her beauty now as that of a poisonous flower. He had
unwittingly touched such a flower once, a flower of wonderful waxen
loveliness, and it had produced a pustular eruption on his hand. She was
like that. Poisonous. Treacherous. A creature with as little soul as
that flower had perfume. It was this change in him, in his conception
and his memory of her, that he would have given much to have Father
Roland understand.
Pages:
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182