But she did not heed him.
"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You
haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of _her_ for
a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed
her. And you didn't care."
The Vicar looked at her.
"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care."
"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with
her, Papa. You drove her to it."
Rowcliffe answered.
"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda."
"She was driven," she said.
"'Let no man say he is tempted of God when he is driven by his own
lusts and enticed,'" said the Vicar.
He had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with Gwenda.
And as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the
first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. She knew
from what source his eyes drew their darkness. She understood the
meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce
lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. And she conceived a horror of
his fatherhood.
"No man ought to say that of his own daughter. How does he know what's
her own and what's his?" she said.
Rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. She was
terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. But it was the fierceness and
the madness of pity and of compassion.
She went on.
"You've no business to be hard on her. You must have known."
"I knew nothing," said the Vicar.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280