CHAPTER IX
STUNNED 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
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