I would never harm my sister.
No. But the lady presently watching you from over there, she is not your sister.
Good heavens!
What?
No. Her name is Eileen Corrigan, a simple farm girl, as she defined herself to me at the church. And, whatever the papers may say, she did not die in Mayfair two years ago. No. But the real Rosaleen Cloade, she did. Why? Because you murdered her! More than any Cloade, you hated Rosaleen. For in her happy marriage to Gordon Cloade, she had excluded you. Your first love, your little sister, had surrendered herself to another man. But you had already made your own arrangements to deal with her, for you had drawn under your spell a parlourmaid who was young, Irish, and in the service of your sister. Her name? Eileen Corrigan. You had seduced her, had deliberately impregnated her. And had had the baby disposed of.
Not true.
True! Outside of the church, Eileen Corrigan told me that she had been cut off from the mercy of God!
She miscarried.
No, Monsieur! She endured abortion! As it was always your intention that she should. You wanted to crush the very soul of this simple Catholic girl. To make her so terrified by the state of her own life that she would deliver it to you. Maintained by morphine, ruled by terror, Eileen Corrigan would do whatever you told her to do. Why? Why? Because you, Monsieur, offered her salvation if she did. And the fires of hell if she did not.
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