“I was that woman,” she moaned. “Your father was the man! You----” I cried out, but she would not be interrupted. “You,” she added, wildly, “are my child--and his!” CHAPTER XX I AM THE VICTIM I rose to my feet and stood apart from her. For a moment it was like the end of the world--like the end of all sensation. I was trembling in every limb. I believe that I gasped for breath. She sat and looked at me. When I spoke my voice seemed to come from a long distance. I did not recognize it. My sense of my own identity seemed confused. “I am the victim, then--the unhappy victim of your miserable theories!” I cried. “And you are--oh! my God!--you are the weak spot in a faith of which I was once an ardent disciple,” she said, quietly. “You made all the difference. When you came I knew that I had sinned. All my arguments seemed suddenly weak and impotent when I strove to bring them to bear upon the face of your existence.” “You should have married him--at once,” I cried. “It was too late,” she answered. “He had separated himself from me forever by entering a profession which I despised. He had entered the Church.” A horrible thought flashed into my mind. “The other man,” I whispered, with burning cheeks, for she was my mother. She pointed out of the window--pointed along that narrow, hateful path which threaded the plantation. “He is dead,” she faltered. “He died--there!” By this time my sense of horror was almost numbed. I could speak almost calmly. I felt as though I was standing on the world’s edge. Nothing more mattered. The end had come. “My father killed him,” I said, almost calmly. She looked away from me and fixed her eyes upon a particular spot in the carpet. “Ask no questions, child,” she said, sadly. “You know enough now. There were some things which it were wiser for you not to know.” “It is true,” I cried, bitterly. “I have learned enough for one afternoon--I have learned enough to make me miserable forever.” The woman covered her face with her hands. It were as though a spasm of inward pain had distorted her features. She was suffering terribly. Yet at that time I had no thoughts of any pity. I was merciless. “You have learned what has given you pain to hear, and what has given me much pain to confess,” she said, slowly. “Confess,” she repeated, slowly, and with unutterable bitterness. “That is a hateful word. I never foresaw the time when I should have to use it--to my own daughter! When one is young one is proud.” “You were short-sighted,” I said, brutally.