"I glory in your spunk, Marcia."
"Then you do not believe it, Cale?"
"Believe!" He spoke in utter scorn, and I laughed out almost hysterically; the tension was relieved too quickly.
"Look here, Marcia Farrell, or whatever your name happens to be, he is no more your father than I am." He lifted both fists and brought them down on the table with the solidity of a stone-breaker's hammer. "It's God's truth, I am tellin' you."
I laughed again in the face of this statement that so suddenly buttressed, as with adamant, my broken life, my wrecked hopes.
"Can you prove it, Cale?" I, too, leaned across the table, my hands gripping the edge.
"Prove it? Wal, I guess I ain't takin' any chances at jest this cross roads. I ain't makin' any statements that I can't take my oath on."
"Prove it, then, Cale—in mercy to me, prove it."
He looked at me with inexpressible pity. His eyes filled.
"You poor child! As if you had n't had enough, 'thout bein' murdered this way. What in thunder was the Doctor thinkin' of?"