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"Please, Jessie, listen to o to the mountains each year after Midsu! But lowcountry folk have always gone into the back country in summer! Only now, you will have your own house to stay in, and the clan as neighbors! There is plenty of roo with you anyone you wish!"

I was staring at hi, , Robbie?" I said "That you want h in the su the rest of the year? Is that the sort of arrangement you believe will please ain made a visible effort to say what ca with you," he said, "because I love you and I cannot be separated froain"

I could not speak I felt stunned

"I love you, lass," he said

"Then the story is true!" I said"It was true!"

"What story?" he said

"You will live withnow?" I said, still amazed by his declaration "You love me, Robbie? You truly want to be ain "Oh, God help me, Jessie, I do!" he said

"I have driven myself beyond exhaustion, beyond endurance, in order not to think of you I tried to put enough distance between us, enough tiht, longing for you! I have since the first time you kissed me, on the road to Gillean!" He strokedthat you were so beautiful, so passionate-you were a child to h I was shocked by what occurred, from that moment on, Jessie, I have loved you I did not know it! I did not knohat love felt like! And then the night I first took you, God in heaven-I was so befuddled! I behaved like a fool I could not think, could not begin to tell you my heart's truth, even when you left Gillean, even ere married, for I did not know myself!"

"And what of Eco?" I said, determined to make him responsible for it all