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She marveled at the
patience of his strength, and she loved his gentleness, his
sweetness that had a flavor of other-worldliness in it.
He was telling her now of Chadwick Champneys and how his coming had
changed things. But of the price he had had to pay he said nothing.
He tried not to think of the bride his uncle had forced upon him,
though her narrowed eyes, her red hair, her mouth set in a hard red
line haunted him like a nightmare. His soul revolted against such a
mockery of marriage. He could imagine his mother's horror, and he
was glad Maria Champneys slept beside the husband of her youth in
the cemetery beside the Riverton Road. She wouldn't have asked him
to pay such a price, not for all the Champneyses dead and gone! But
Chadwick Champneys had held him to his bargain, had forced him to
give his name, his father's name, of which his mother had been so
proud.
Peter smarted with humiliation. It was as if he had been bought and
sold, and he writhed under the disgrace of such bondage.


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