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“Do you ever tell Sandor that?”

“I tried, but while Papa lived, it would have been disrespectful to say his words were not all truth By the time he died, his beliefs were settled so deeply inside Sandor, I could not sway the back There were things I did not know at the tiainst my father’s words”

Ellie reached out and touched Hera’s arm “It must have been hard for you”

“It was I was raised to be a good girl…to hold e, but the love I had with Sandor’s father…it was overwhel like it since You will think me a fool, but he has always been the husband of my heart”

“I don’t think it is foolish at all I’ve heard of love like that” And for the first tis that deep with a man

That kind of love had always been her idyll, but now, seeing Hera’s pain, the hurt in those beautiful brown eyes so fresh it could have happened yesterday, Ellie’s own heart twinged with both sympathy and fear Co with a terror that Ellie’s own feelings were already as at risk as Hera’s had been

She was no naïve sixteen-year-old with her first lover, but she had a suspicion that the kind of love Hera was talking about transcended age and even experience

Hera’s sloith a re her joy as well as hurt “To feel it is beyond any other riches this world has to offer To have it returned, a gift of uniinable pleasure We both felt it He loved me as much as I loved him”

“Yet he left” Ellie didn’t say it because she doubted Hera, but because she could not understand walking away fro so special Still, belatedly, she realized, she should not have said the words aloud “I’m sorry I should not have said that”

“Why not? It is the truth But only part of the truth Papa caught us together and he beat et up” Tears filled Hera’s eyes “I tried to stop him, but Papa slapped me hard and Jimmy told me to leave He could not stand for me to be hurt I would not listen to my papa, but I listened to Jimmy It wounded his pride for me to see him beaten like that also, I could tell He would not raise his hand to ht to do what he did, but he drove Jimmy off the island”

“So, he didn’t leave you voluntarily?”

“No He had no way of knowing I had beco boy on holiday with his friends He tried to see me once after that”