Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/104

90 I'm incapable of meeting your condition. I 'deny,' I 'renounce,' I 'repudiate' as little as I hope, as I dream, or as I feel that I'm likely ever again even to utter!" Then she brought out in her baffled sadness, but with so little vulgarity of pride that she sounded, rather, a note of compassion for a perversity so deep: "It's because of that that I want her!"

"Because you adore him—and she's his?"

Jean faltered, but she was launched. "Because I adore him—and she's his."

"I want her for another reason," Rose declared. "I adored her poor mother—and she's hers. That's my ground, that's my love, that's my faith." She caught Effie up again; she held her in two strong arms and dealt her a kiss that was a long consecration. "It's as your dear dead mother's, my own, my sweet, that—if it's time—I shall carry you to bed!" She passed swiftly down the slope with her burden and took the turn which led her out of sight. Jean stood watching her till she disappeared and then waited till she had emerged for the usual minute on the rise in the middle of the bridge. She saw her stop again there, she saw her again,