I was altogether a different creature now, a guiltier thing, less capable of honesty. How could I sit opposite that frail old lady and look into those watery blue eyes that held me safe for so long—and gave me nothing but decency, kindness, truth—and reveal how foul I am, how cruel, how vengeful and perverse, how unworthy I am of Ruth and everything she tried to do for me? How could I tell her that I have destroyed three lives? That I have no moral code, that I’m capable of the worst kind of acts without remorse, and my only concern is for my own skin?
