"I never said that--never put it that way, even to myself." "I'm sorry, Miss Blake, I think you did." He turned pages slowly. "Not in those exact words perhaps. 'Granted also that Ann is good and sweet and conventionally right. Does that give her the right--' and then the crossed-out words that I think you remember, and then--'to keep you and me apart and prevent my child from having a father?' Miss Blake, how much nearer could you come to saying that she was in the way without actually using the words?" "The marriage--the fact of their marriage was in the way. I never thought of her as a--a person to be removed--oh, I'm not saying it clearly--I never wanted to--do away with her. My letter says--my letter simply asks him to do something about a separation. And that's the letter I never even mailed." "All right--it sounds a little involved--the letter doesn't sound to me as if you were writing about the 'fact of their marriage,' but let that go for the present. This is from the first one, a letter you did mail: 'I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no one can make me over. I was born a heretic and so live. No one can catch me except if I will.' This time I am frankly puzzled, Miss Blake. It is by chance a quotation from something?" "No." "You had been writing affectionately--and poetically, I must say--and then all of a sudden you throw this at him: 'No one can own me--born a heretic and so live.' I'm simply puzzled, Miss Blake. Why in the world were you moved to say to James Doherty: 'No one can catch me except if I will'--why?" Warner saw the violent tension and forced relaxation of her folded hands. She said: "It must be--it must be it never occurred to me the letter would be examined by a district attorney." "What?--you mean it's a form of doubletalk? Hidden significance, something that might be damaging if it came to the eyes of that lowest form of life, a district attorney?" "No--no--no hidden significance." She was turning her head from side to side as if in search of physical escape. "I don't know how you dissect a love-letter. Do it yourself--do it yourself--" "'No one can catch me except if I will.' And then you were caught, weren't you?" "Objection!" "Sustained--sustained. You know better than that, Mr. Hunter. And step back from the stand a little. I will not have the witness abused." "My regrets, your Honor. I had no such intention." _Throws it like a bone to a dog--Terry's no dog--but_--"Miss Blake, I will read to you from the second letter. You had been asking about Doherty's religious views, and then you wrote: 'I wasn't asking about _Ann's_ views, blast you--I know she'd condemn the whole thing without a moment's pause for thought.' Miss Blake, by what reasoning it is possible to reconcile that remark with your alleged intention of asking Mrs. Doherty to agree to a separation? How could you write that about her, and then in the very same letter talk about her meekly agreeing to a separation?"