Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/147



TUNNED by this revelation, Armitage fell back in his chair.

"Doris? Your "

"Not so loud! Only you and I and God must know that. She must never know. Promise!"

"I I promise!"

"Never to see her again. Never to feel the gentle touch of her hand on my forehead!  Not to see her here beside me!  Ah, they talk of hell; but I know, I know!  And she might have been all mine!  Irony!"

There was a pause; and Armitage waited with unbelieving ears.

"I hated her from the day she was born. Her life cost me her mother's. Few people knew that I was married; scarcely any that I had a child. Many an ugly shell contains