It was just the shock--"
"I know it was silly, dear, but it will grow quickly and I just had that
feeling to be free--you see, dear--"
"I do see, dear, I do. Zoe, look at me. Doesn't it ever come over you,
on the eve of so much, dear--that perhaps you do need his--your
father's guardianship--"
"Now just because I said _that_. I tell you I'm a devil. I didn't mean
it--not one word--"
"I know you didn't. It cropped out unconsciously. You're not to blame.
He's a good man, Zoe, your father, and his steady hand might do much
where I--may have failed."
"If you talk that way I can't stand it. You tell me so often he's a good
man, I wonder if he really is--"
"You're getting beyond me, Zoe. I wonder if the day isn't inevitable
when you are going to break out more and more into unconscious
reproach."
"Lilly--no--no--"
"Oh, I don't only mean what you said just now. But it's on my mind more
and more, now that you are old enough to decide for yourself. You cannot
be sucked back any more into a life you would not tolerate. You can
choose. That is what I have been waiting for. Doesn't the ache ever come
over you, Zoe, to see your father? Just a natural instinctive ache, if
nothing else--your grandparents--"
"No! No! No! I hate it all as you hated it.
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