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Dad bowed his head "Did you have to do that?"

"Yes," she said "I wanted you to see what I did so I would no longer look like Cathy" She gestured to her wooden rocker "See that chair? I have one in every room in this house" She indicated all the comfortable chairs with fluffy soft cushions "I sit in hard wooden chairs to punish s every day I keep ly and old I aainst my children I despise this veil, but I wear it I can't see well through the veil, but I deserve that too I do what I can to make the same kind of hell for myself as Ithat there will co to atone for ive ain And when you and Cathy can do that, I can go peacefully into e me too harshly"

"Oh," I cried out spontaneously, "I forgive you for whatever you did! I'm sorry you have to wear black all the tied on his arive her, Dad Please don't make her suffer ive my mother, no matter what she did"

He spoke to randood at persuading us to do what you wanted" I'd never heard him speak so coolly "But I'm not a boy anymore," he went on "Now I kno to resist your appeal, for I have a woman who has never let ullible as I once was You want Bart because you think he should have been yours But you cannot have Bart Bart belongs to us I used to think Cathy did wrong when she sought revenge and stole Bart Winslow fro--she did what she had to do And so we have two sons instead of one"

"Christopher," she cried, looking desperate, "you don't want the world to know of your

indiscretion, surely you don't"

"Yours too," he responded coldly "If you expose us, you expose yourself as well And ree and jury would favor--you or us?"

"For your own sakes!" she called as we stepped from her parlor and headed toward the double front doors (he had to pushher), "love ain, Christopher! Let me redeem myself, please!"

Dad whirled about, furious and red-faced "I cannot forgive you! You think only of yourself As you have always thought only of yourself I don't know you, Mrs Winsloish to God I had never known you!"

Oh, Dad, I thought, you're going to be sorry Forgive her, please

"Christopher," she called once more, her voice so weak and thin it sounded old and brittle, "when you and Cathy can love ain, you'll find better lives for yourselves and for your children There is so much I could do to help if only you would let me"

"Money?" he asked with scorn "Are you going to use blackh happiness We have ed to love, and we have not killed anyone to achieve e have"

Killed? Had she killed?

Dad pulled me by my hand as he stalked to the door I said to him on the way home from her mansion, "Dad, it see and listening He was there, I'm sure of it"

"All right," he answered in a tired way "You go back and look for him"