THE GIRL IN HIS HOUSE
jilted you, I awoke. Terror-stricken, I saw in full what I had done. God had been stronger than I. I wanted her now; and I couldn't have her. The man-love for the woman was obliterated by the father-love for the child. I wanted my flesh and blood.
"I saw her in the apartment. I heard her songs and laughter. I saw her across the table at breakfast and at dinner. I wanted her and couldn't have her. Why? I had told her a terrible lie. To that lie I had added another and another until I had built a barrier as high as the Alps. Too late I saw that now I could never cross it. I had instilled such faith in truth in her that, did I declare myself, I would have filled her heart with poison, disillusioned her, destroyed her faith in everything. My child, my own, that loves not me, but the shadow I was always dreaming of!—the child, had I not been cursed with blindness, that would have loved me in any condition, in any circumstance, drab as I am, because she was the child of love! No, no, no! I could not go to her and declare myself a liar. But God has forgiven me. He has brought you two together. You love her."
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