"Let me tell you.

I've never told you once during these six happy months--oh, how happy, I fear to think how happy, too much joy, too deep, too wonderful, I'm afraid sometimes--but let me tell you what I see, looking back into those old days--how far away they seem already and not yet three years past--I see a lad so strange, so unlike all I had known, a gallant lad, a very knight for grace and gentleness, strong and patient and brave, not afraid--ah, that caught me--nothing could make him afraid, not Perkins, the brutal bully, not big Mack himself.

And this young lad, beating them all in the things men love to do, running, the hammer--and--and fighting too!--Oh, laddie, laddie, how often did I hold my hands over my heart for fear it would burst for pride in you! How often did I check back my tears for very joy of loving you! How often did I find myself sick with the agony of fear that you should go away from me forever! And then you went away, oh, so kindly, so kindly pitiful, your pity stabbing my heart with every throb.

Why do I tell you this to-day?
Let me go through it.
But it was this very pity stabbing me that awoke in me the resolve that one day you would not need to pity me.

And then, then I fled from the farm and all its dreadful surroundings.