After two long hallways she hardly noticed, she passed by several doors in a third, then was ushered in to the great man's den. Her eyes took in nothing but his seated form, which stamped itself forever in her mind as the living embodiment of evil, and sole object of revenge..... If Henry Purceville had harbored any notions of winning the girl over, or of displaying even the most distant paternal affection, he soon forgot them. Her iron gaze quickly despatched the small stirrings of tenderness (and guilt) which he had felt the night before. But strange to say, the fearless disdain she showed him was not without reward. In truth it was the one emotion he still respected. It at once cut through his predisposition toward women as weak and spineless manipulators, and gave her a separate identity. She was his daughter, and she was not afraid. There could be, for the moment, no thought of killing her. "Well, girl," he said, settling back in his chair as the servant closed the polished doors behind them. "If you have hard words to say to me, say them." "I hate you," she hissed. "And why is that?" His face remained immobile, whatever the underlying emotions. "You raped my mother." "Yes, though she did not ask me to stop. And if I hadn't, you would not exist." The thought staggered her, but she pressed on. "You burned her body! You denied her Christian burial." "Your mother was not a Christian. By the look of her hut, I'd say she fancied herself a Daughter of the Trees. Such as she are not buried, as you must know." "If not for your countrymen, and their accursed King, my cousins....." She struggled. "They would not have been killed in the war." "And if not for your countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war. "No," he continued, raising his hand to stop her. "Don't tell me that you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature's unchanging law. Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead." Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth. "You have an answer for everything. That doesn't make you right. In the eyes of God---" "God ?" he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. "You have reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl."