Georgian seemed to wonder also, for she gave him a long and piercing look
before she spoke. But once she had begun her story, she forgot to look
anywhere but at the man whose forgiveness she sought and for the
restoration of whose sympathy she was unconsciously pleading.
Her first words settled one point which up to this moment had disturbed
Ransom greatly.
"You must forget Anitra's story. It was suggested by facts in my own
life, but it was not true of me or mine in any of its particulars.
Nor must you remember what the world knows, or what my relations say
about my life. The open facts tell little of my real history, which
from childhood to the day I believed my brother dead was indissolubly
bound up in his. Though our fathers were not the same and he has
old-world blood in his veins, while I am of full American stock, we loved
each other as dearly and shared each other's life as intimately as if the
bond between us had been one in blood as it was in taste and habit. This
was when we were both young. Later, a change came. Some old papers of his
father fell into his hands. A new vision of life,--sympathies quite
remote from those which had hitherto engrossed him, led him further and
further into strange ways and among strange companions. Ignorant of what
it all meant, but more alive than ever to his influence, I blindly
followed him, receiving his friends as my friends and subscribing to such
of their convictions as they thought wise to express before me.
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