Putting one hand to her forehead, she thought with knitted brows, then gave a sharp cry and started back.
"You don't mean—you can't mean me to think that John Angus is my father! No, God couldn't be so cruel to Daddy and to me. Anything, any one but that man! I would rather have never known at all or have had my mother alone and closed my eyes to all the rest."
"Think what you say, Poppea!"
"It is because I am thinking that I say it; I would rather for myself alone have been born outside of what is called wedlock; it would have been more natural and less horrible!"
"But it is not for yourself alone, remember that. If the end lay with ourselves and we could bear all the penalty, there would be many a law that every one of us in our time would push aside or shatter. But we are of the race on whom the charge is laid, Thou shalt not! and when we throw it off, the next in line, who has not felt the pressure of our motive, bears the penalty."
"I am the next and the end, and if I had to suffer, it would be alone."
"Read, little one; read the papers and think awhile in quiet. Then sleep on it; to-morrow you may feel differently."
"To-morrow? There is no to-morrow to hate. You yourself told me years ago that love is the only thing that owns to-morrow."
For a moment Latimer winced, but only for a moment.
"Yes, and love will make the to-morrow yours, the love of your brother Philip!"