She did not even turn her head, which was pressed
close to Dain's breast.
He made a movement as if to leave them and stopped. By the dim glow of
the burning-out fire he saw their two motionless figures. The woman's
back turned to him with the long black hair streaming down over the white
dress, and Dain's calm face looking at him above her head.
"I cannot," he muttered to himself. After a long pause he spoke again a
little lower, but in an unsteady voice, "It would be too great a
disgrace. I am a white man." He broke down completely there, and went
on tearfully, "I am a white man, and of good family. Very good family,"
he repeated, weeping bitterly. "It would be a disgrace . . . all over
the islands, . . . the only white man on the east coast. No, it cannot
be . . . white men finding my daughter with this Malay. My daughter!" he
cried aloud, with a ring of despair in his voice.
He recovered his composure after a while and said distinctly--
"I will never forgive you, Nina--never! If you were to come back to me
now, the memory of this night would poison all my life. I shall try to
forget. I have no daughter. There used to be a half-caste woman in my
house, but she is going even now. You, Dain, or whatever your name may
be, I shall take you and that woman to the island at the mouth of the
river myself.
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