"The marriage—the fact of their marriage was in the way. I never thought of her as a—a person to be removed—oh, I'm not saying it clearly—I never wanted to—do away with her. My letter says—my letter simply asks him to do something about a separation. And that's the letter I never even mailed."
"All right—it sounds a little involved—the letter doesn't sound to me as if you were writing about the 'fact of their marriage,' but let that go for the present. This is from the first one, a letter you did mail: 'I fit no pattern. No one can own me, no one can make me over. I was born a heretic and so live. No one can catch me except if I will.' This time I am frankly puzzled, Miss Blake. It is by chance a quotation from something?"
"No."
"You had been writing affectionately—and poetically, I must say—and then all of a sudden you throw this at him: 'No one can own me—born a heretic and so live.' I'm simply puzzled, Miss Blake. Why in the world were you moved to say to James Doherty: 'No one can catch me except if I will'—why?"
Warner saw the violent tension and forced relaxation of her folded hands. She said: "It must be—it must be it never occurred to me the letter would be examined by a district attorney."
"What?—you mean it's a form of doubletalk? Hidden significance, something that might be damaging if it came to the eyes of that lowest form of life, a district attorney?"
"No—no—no hidden significance." She was turning her head from side to side as if in search of physical escape. "I don't know how you dissect a love-letter. Do it yourself—do it yourself—"
"'No one can catch me except if I will.' And then you were caught, weren't you?"
"Objection!"
"Sustained—sustained. You know better than that, Mr. Hunter. And step back from the stand a little. I will not have the witness abused."