Understanding at last that she was safe from the law, the
expression of her gratitude was as vehement as her terror had been
intense. But the new phase of passion was not the less repugnant. Not
that there was anything strange in the violent revulsion of feeling.
Born and trained among a race who fear to forgive, Eive was familiar
by report at least with the merciless vengeance of cowards. Whatever
they might have done later, few would have promised mercy in the very
moment of escape to an ordinary assassin; and if Eive understood any
aspect of my character, that she could best appreciate was the
outraged tenderness which forbade me to look on hers as ordinary
guilt. Acutely sensitive to pain and fear, she had both known the
better to what terror might prompt the injured, and was the more
appalled by the prospect. Her eagerness to accept by anticipation
whatever degradation and pain domestic power could inflict, when
released by the terrible alternative of legal prosecution from its
usual limits, breathed more of doubt and terror than of shame or
penitence. But at first it keenly affected me.
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