She looked at me and half rose from her chair, pushing me away from her.
“I was that woman,” she moaned. “Your father was the man! You——”
I cried out, but she would not be interrupted.
“You,” she added, wildly, “are my child—and his!”
CHAPTER XX
I AM THE VICTIM
I rose to my feet and stood apart from her. For a moment it was like the end of the world—like the end of all sensation. I was trembling in every limb. I believe that I gasped for breath. She sat and looked at me. When I spoke my voice seemed to come from a long distance. I did not recognize it. My sense of my own identity seemed confused.
“I am the victim, then—the unhappy victim of your miserable theories!” I cried.
“And you are—oh! my God!—you are the weak spot in a faith of which I was once an ardent disciple,” she said, quietly. “You made all the difference. When you came I knew that I had sinned. All my arguments seemed suddenly weak and impotent when I strove to bring them to bear upon the face of your existence.”