"John was a lonely man, and beginning to feel the weight of his years. I was a lonely girl, and to his mind innocent, full with the first bloom of untainted womanhood. I was to be the empty page that he would write upon, the flowering stream beside which he would rebuild his life. He saw nothing but the good in me, and my one desire was to please him, and to give him all that he needed. "But my parents, being blind with wealth and comfort, could not see him as I did, could never know the honest depth of his soul, or the gentle touch of his big, calloused hands as he held me. The need and loving warmth he showered over me quite stole my heart..... They saw only that such a match was beneath me, as the only daughter of a respected landowner, a man of solid means and family background. "So we eloped, John and I, and were married in a chapel by the sea. When my father learned of it he was furious, and disowned me. It was the last time he ever spoke to me, as this will be the very last, I warn you, that I will ever say of him. Child-lusting bastard! Had me in his bed more than once, when we were alone and I could not escape him. "Don't look so shocked. It is always within the most staid, aristocratic families that the heart is most deeply rotted. So don't feel yourself cheated, girl, that you never knew your father---the man you most want to love, but in the end must despise more than any. "But never mind all that. It hardly matters. Good, decent John MacCain and I were married, and lived happily enough for two years. I still bear his name, though it is seldom remembered. But if there is one thing the cruel Christian God will not tolerate---he, too, is called the Father---it is those who find meaning and bounty without him. We had little enough in the world's eyes, and never more than we needed to live day by day. But what of that? We had each other, and the boy, who had come to think of me as his mother. We had the sun and the sea, and the land behind. Our Scotland. "Then one day he took the boy and went out in his boat, as ever, to earn our daily bread. It was as fine an April morning as you could ask, and I saw them off under a gentle sky, with softly lapping waves to put a woman's heart at ease. It need hardly be said that the skies soon darkened, and a gale blew in like thunder--- "Nay, girl, back to your chair; I don't want pity. That was the way of it, and nothing to be said or done now.