Every vow of love and constancy he ever made me was a
lie, after he touched your lips, so when he tried the wrong side of
the quagmire, to hide from me the direction in which he was coming, it
reached out for him, and it got him. It didn't hurry, either! It sucked
him down, slow and deliberate."
"Mercy!" groaned Elvira Carney. "Mercy!"
"I don't know the word," said Mrs. Comstock. "You took all that out of
me long ago. The past twenty years haven't been of the sort that taught
mercy. I've never had any on myself and none on my child. Why in the
name of justice, should I have mercy on you, or on him? You were both
older than I, both strong, sane people, you deliberately chose your
course when you lured him, and he, when he was unfaithful to me. When a
Loose Man and a Light Woman face the end the Almighty ordained for them,
why should they shout at me for mercy? What did I have to do with it?"
Elvira Carney sobbed in panting gasps.
"You've got tears, have you?" marvelled Mrs. Comstock. "Mine all dried
long ago. I've none left to shed over my wasted life, my disfigured face
and hair, my years of struggle with a man's work, my wreck of land among
the tilled fields of my neighbours, or the final knowledge that the man
I so gladly would have died to save, wasn't worth the sacrifice of a
rattlesnake. If anything yet could wring a tear from me, it would be the
thought of the awful injustice I always have done my girl.
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