"Why did n't he use his own name?"
"It is his own. He sloughed off thet part of it thet hindered him from cuttin' loose from all thet old life, he said, an' made the new one legal."
"Did he know me?"
"I don't know for sure. He ain't the kind to rake over a heap of dead ashes for the sake of findin' one little spark. But, Marcia, I believe he knew you from the minute he first see you there in the passageway."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because you are the livin' image of your mother, as I told you once before. But you act different. An' he loved her so, he could n't help but seein' her in you—"
"Oh, my God!"
I think it was a groan rather than an exclamation. My head dropped on Cale's hand, as it lay over mine. The flashlight of intuition showed me the truth: this man, my mother's husband, the man who was dearer to me than life itself, was again loving her, whom he had loved only to lose, in me—her daughter! He was loving me because of her, not because of myself.
Oh, I saw it in every detail! I saw every ugly feature in every act of the whole tragedy; and I saw myself the dupe of that Past from which I had tried so hard to escape.
I raised my head. My decision was made. I looked at Cale defiantly. I think every fibre of me, moral, physical, mental, spiritual, revolted then and there against being made longer a mere shuttlecock for the battledores of Fate.