"I am mamma's
daughter, no other person's."
Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she said.
How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so much
unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child,
thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly
held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the
Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in
the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy
as the explanation of abnormal qualities.
Her father raged against himself in that he had given life to so much
moral deformity. And yet it was not from him that she inherited "that
cursed Spanish blood," he said, turning away with a groan, including
Pepita, Leam, all his past with its ruined love and futile dreams, its
hope and its despair, in that one bitter word.
"Don't say that, papa: mamma and I are true. It is you English that
are bad and false," said Leam at bay.
Mrs. Dundas raised her hand, "Hush, hush, my child!" she said in a
tone of gentle authority.
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