Ryan

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There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in the forest.

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It would be pleasant to inflict an ultimate indignity upon the young Fiali. He threw himself down; this time he was vociferous and leisurely in his enjoyment. Eventually he slept.

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...light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

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I wondered what his name was, for I was certain he had one now, certain he'd arrived somewhere he belonged. African hut or whatever, I hope Holly has, too.

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They did not quite get the beat right, but even now I can hear them, in another country and a long time later, even as I tell you this.

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But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love.

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...and in a world of infinite possibilites where all journeys share a common end, perhaps they are together, taking the evening air on a ruined veranda among the hollyhocks and oleanders, the doctor sipping his scotch and the paperhanger his San Miguel, gentlemen of leisure discussing the vagaries of life and pondering deep into the night not just the possibility but the inevitability of miracles.

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"You killed the woman I love! And for that, you're going to die!"

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But that our cause, our very life and future hopes and past pride, should have been thrown into the balance with men like that to buttress it - men with valor and strength but without pity and honor. Is it any wonder that heaven saw fit to let us lose?

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It eluded us then, but that's no matter...

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This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again?

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My name is Ruth.

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"I did it thirty minutes ago."

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I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

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"Some can't be that simple," she said. "I know I never could."