"I'm sure she liked whipping them. Women who shut themselves out from
life develop cruelty. I can quite understand how she would like to
hear them cry."
"Tell me more about the nuns."
"No, Owen, I wouldn't speak ill of the nuns. Don't press me to speak
ill of them. You don't know, Owen, what might have become of me had
it not been for the convent. I don't know what might have become of
me. I might have drifted away and nothing have ever been heard of me
again." A dark look gathered in her face, "vanishing like the shadow
of a black wing over a sunny surface," Owen said to himself, "Now
what has frightened her? Not her love of me, for that love she always
looked on as legitimate." He remembered how she used to cling to that
view, while admitting it to be contrary to the teaching of the
Church. Did she still cling to this belief? "Probably, for we do hot
change our instinctive beliefs," he said, and longed to question her;
but not daring, and, thinking a lighter topic of conversation
desirable, he told her he would like to teach Eliza how to make
coffee.
"There is only one way of making coffee" he said, and he had learned
the secret from a friend, who had always the best coffee.
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