Hello ^^

This chapter is a bit different from the others. I wanted to show a bit more of Lillian´s past and hope that it gives you a chance to get to know her better and understand what made her become the woman she was in Freedom and is today.

Then I have a question for you which has nothing to do with this story, actually. A few months ago I wrote a version of "Freedom" from Connor´s point of view. It was based on a project on the German fanfiction site and I wasn´t really sure, if I should translate it, too. Would you be interested or is it not necessary? If I do the translation, it would mean that I would take turns in updating this story and the other and so you would have to wait a bit longer for each update. The project has 30 chapters. Just let me know what you think. ^^


Memories

Connor returned from his hunt for Ray in the late evening without success. My brother really had had some of his men in reserve who had been supposed to stop Connor so that he could flee. Once again he had proved what a smart and cowardly dog he was. Luckily Connor had stayed unharmed from his short encounter with Ray´s men, but his anger for my brother had reached its climax. It was almost seizable, but I didn´t feel different. Today I had seen another side of my beloved brother but that I hadn´t been able to recognize him at the same time, made me angry, as well as it made me feel afraid. I didn´t know what I should feel for him. Could I feel affection for a man who had played with a child´s life? With the life of my child?

I still remembered how he had held the crying Emily out of the window and obviously had enjoyed to put Connor under pressure with that. This image didn´t want to leave my head and followed me even in my sleep. In the middle of the night I woke up, covered in sweat, trembling and crying. Struggling for breath I curled up on my side and buried my face in my pillow, when an arm wrapped around my hip.
"Did you have a nightmare?", I heard Connor´s voice beside my ear and nodded.
"I dreamt that he dropped her", I said with a shaky voice, after I had taken the pillow from my face. "He dropped her and I saw how she...how she hit..." I stopped and pressed my hands against my forehead, my eyes closed and struggling with this pain, which had been too real in my dream. "I don´t want to have these images in my head."
My voice was nothing more than a whimper when said images flooded my mind again. A falling Emily who hit the ground and lay dead, with broken skull and dislocated extremities in her own blood. At the same time I saw Ray´s spiteful smile and heard his question for Connor, what would happen to a little body when it was dropped several metres. I never wanted to learn it but although it hadn´t happened, these images seemed to be too real and were unbearable.

Crying quietly I buried my face in the pillow again and felt ridiculous at the same moment, because I was so terrified by a dream. Emily was fine. She was laying in her cradle and slept peacefully. Probably she hadn´t even noticed what Ray had done, while she had lain in his arms. But I couldn´t hold back my tears which were certainly connected to my disappointment about my brother. Connor didn´t say anything about it. He kept his arm around me and I felt his breath in my nape as he leaned his forehead against the back of my head. In this moment I was glad that he wasn´t someone who was throwing wise words around and wanted to tell me that everything about Ray was going to be alright. I had finally realized that it wasn´t possible and Connor knew that this realization wasn´t easy for me. Even after several minutes, I wasn´t able to calm down, relax and fall asleep again, but when Emily´s crying sounded, I bit my bottom lip and forced myself to hold back my tears. I raised my face off the pillow and wanted to stand up, but Connor had already pre-empted me. I heard his bare feet on the wooden floor when he went to Emily´s cradle and his silhouette was visible in the moonlight that was falling through the curtains, when he stopped in front of it. Sniffing quietly I sat up and ran my hands over my tear stained eyes while Connor bent down to Emily and lifted her. He spoke quietly to her and carried her to me. I lightened the oil lamp on the bedside table and blinked as the light hit my still irritated eyes. But I couldn´t suppress a chuckle when I looked at Emily, who was moving her head back and forth against her father´s chest, growling quietly and obviously frustrated searching for something she wouldn´t find by Connor.

"Somebody is hungry", I said with a smirk and laid the pillow against the headboard, to lean comfortably against it, before I opened the laces of my nightgown´s neckline and Connor handed me Emily carefully. A pleased expression appeared on the little face, when I gave Emily my breast and she was finally able to satisfy her nightly hunger. Connor came back into the bed in the meantime and pushed his own pillow into his back to sit next to me and wrap an arm around me. Sighing quietly I leaned my head against his shoulder and when Emily looked up to me with her big brown eyes, the images of the nightmare vanished into the back of my mind. But I couldn´t forget. In the contrary. While I looked down to this wonderful little being in my arms, that could have been taken away from me today, I felt a wish, which would have been totally impossible for me yesterday.
"Could you teach me how to shoot?", I asked quietly and felt how surprised Connor was about this question.
"Why do you want to learn it?", he asked confused.
"Why not? I´m sure other women can do it, too."
"Yes, but normally you are reluctant when you have to use violence."
"But I did it anyway. I defended myself against Ray´s men and knocked this man in the brothel down", I murmured and was annoyed when I shivered with the thought of the latter. Even though I had been forced to defend myself, I had struggled with myself for long because of this incident. In the meantime Connor sighed quietly and carefully changed his position, while he started talking again.
"To knock somebody down or to strike somebody at all is not comparable with shooting a bullet at someone. It is too easy to kill with it and I doubt that you want that."
Basically he was right. The thought of killing someone was unacceptable to me. I still felt bad when I remembered how I had been forced to kill two years ago. I had stabbed a man, Walter Tibbet, with a rapier before he had been able to do the same to me. It had been self-defence, but it hadn´t made it better for me. But nevertheless I had another perspective on this issue today. The perspective of a mother.
"I want to be sure that I can defend and protect Emily to the bitter end", I said grimly but full of determination. "I don´t want something happen to her just because I wasn´t able to prevent it. If I have to kill, so that she is safe, I would do it." I raised my head off Connor´s shoulder to look at him. "You´re doing the same basically, don´t you?"
Connor looked me over while I waited for an answer. I hoped that he understood my intentions, because after all he would do everything to protect the people who were close to him. I wanted to do so, too. Never again I wanted to watch how Emily was in danger, while knowing that I hadn´t been able to prevent it. I wouldn´t have a permanent access to a weapon, but to know that I could handle it, if it was the case, would give me this feeling of safety which I didn´t want to miss.

Connor looked at Emily, who was still satisfying her hunger, unmoved by our conversation.
"Let me think about it", he asked me and even though I didn´t know why he wanted to delay a certain decision, I nodded. He shortly touched my forehead with his lips, before we became silent again and waited until our daughter had ended her meal. She uttered a quiet, gurgling noise when I lifted her to my shoulder and stroked gently over her back. But when I wanted to stand up and lay her into her cradle, Connor held me back.
"Let her stay here", he said quietly and laid his pillow between us onto the mattress, before he patted it.
"I think it´s better if she would sleep in her own bed", I objected. "What if we hurt her accidentally?"
Connor shook his head and gently took Emily off my arms. She yawned heartily when she shortly came to rest at Connor´s shoulder, before he carefully bedded her on the pillow.
"It will be alright for today", he said calmly. "Maybe you will sleep better, if she is laying next to you and I do not think that we will hurt her somehow."
A bit sceptical I watched him laying down again and stroking over Emily´s cheek with his forefinger, when he curiously turned her head into his direction and tried to grab his comparatively huge hands with her tiny ones shortly afterwards. I smirked about this sight and lay down, too. I turned off the light, turned on my side and lightly stroked over Emily´s belly, who uttered a quiet gurgle. Connor was right. Now in the dark I felt better with having her by my side. But while I stroked her gently and listened how she became more and more calm and finally fell asleep, I made another decision which would have been unimaginable before.
"Can I ask you for another favour?", I asked quietly and felt for Connor, who was only a dark shadow next to Emily. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently, which I took as a confirmation to keep talking. I did it without further ado.
"When you meet Ray, you don´t have to hesitate for my sake. Do whatever you have to do to stop him. A man who would have accepted my child´s death, doesn´t deserve my mercy."


Connor set off to Boston by dawn of the next day. Despite Ray´s visit we were both certain that the gang´s plans for the State House hadn´t changed. If they should really attack it in the next two days, I hoped that Connor and his brothers were able to set a trap for them and end all this. I had been serious about my words. Although I still had inconsistent feelings towards my brother, he had lost my protection against Connor. I actually could have forgiven him that he had threatened me with a weapon, but not that he had played with Emily´s life. If he had dropped her, I certainly would have pre-empted Connor in punishing Ray in every possible way and it was a bit eerie to me that this thought wasn´t bothering me at all. But although when I looked at Emily now, one day later, I was certain that I would defend her to the end.
But Ray had given me more to think about. My father´s signet ring. After Connor had shown me the broken wax seal with my family´s emblem in New York, I hadn´t thought about it again. Of course I had always asked myself who was using our emblem and why. After I had heard about Ray, these questions had been moved into the back of my mind and I had doubted that Ray was using the seal for himself, since he always had insisted that he didn´t want to be a Jarvis. I had also doubted that Raymond Jarvis was actually my brother after all. But even after I had finally knew that it was him, I hadn´t thought of the seal. I had forgotten it. Until yesterday.

Now I was sitting in the rocking chair on the balcony, Emily sleeping in her cradle next to me and turned the golden piece of jewellery between my fingers. It was my father´s ring, there was no doubt about it. But how did Ray get it? It had disappeared after my father´s death and everybody had thought that it had been stolen. There was no way that Ray had got it somehow. Unless he had...
My fist closed around the ring and I pressed it almost painfully firmly against my forehead. There was no explanation for where Ray had got the ring from. It was just impossible but nevertheless I had the feeling that something was wrong. That there was something I had to remember. But the day when I had lost my parents was eighteen years ago by now. I hadn´t thought about it for a long time because it was just too painful. I hadn´t wanted to accept the memories but nevertheless I leaned back in the chair now, closed my eyes and searched my memories and I really began to remember. As if everything had happened just yesterday.


July 1767

"Lillian! Pull yourself together at last", mother hissed at me and I immediately stopped kicking my legs which were dangling some centimetres over the shining polished wooden floor. I was tempted to push my bottom lip forward but now I met my father´s warning gaze over the table, before he turned to the fat Mr. Fallon again, who was talking lively about his last hunting trip.
"A twelve-pointer! Can you believe it, Jarvis? It´s rare to see such a magnificent animal. I would have shot it, if my rifle had fired, you can believe that."
"Of course you would", father said with a polite smile on his lips and indicated to the maid Tara that she should top up the glasses of our guest and his wife with wine.
"We should go on a hunt together one day", Fallon suggested and made my father squinch up his face lightly. I knew that he wasn´t a man for hunting.
"There are enough weapons fired in this world", he used to say. "We shouldn´t have fun with it."
So he stayed with a polite smile and turned the conversations to the business again, the actual reason for this dinner.

I hated business dinners. It always meant that I had to sit still for hours, be silent and behave correctly of course. My thoughts always wandered to the things I could do in the meantime and which would be more fun to do. Reading books, playing with my dolls or maybe strolling through the garden with Ray. Where was he anyway? Inconspicuously I let my gaze roam over the servants standing by the opposite wall and waiting for orders. I saw Wanda, Ray´s mother, but Ray was nowhere to be seen. Maybe my father had told him to stay away from the guests. He probably feared that they could see that Ray was his son. But I didn´t think that Ray was looking like my father at all.

A quiet sigh escaped my lips which earned me a light slap on my knee.
"Lillian", my mother whispered warningly and gave a smile to Mrs. Fallon, who was sitting in front of us and looked as grim as always. It seemed like she belonged to those people who had never smiled or even laughed in their entire life. When I raised my eyes, she looked at me directly and I was tempted to lower my head again, to escape her gaze. But I kept sitting straight and grabbed my glass with water instead, to take a deep sip. I hoped so much that this dinner was going to be over soon.
"Mrs. Jarvis", the old Fallon started to speak all of the sudden and I shivered involuntarily with the sound of her harsh voice. As if you were rubbing a stone over a washboard.
"Tell me, your daughter is certainly receiving a musical education, doesn´t she? I recently visited the Olsens and their daughter Lynette has an enchanting voice. I asked myself if Lillian could show us her abilities."
"You don´t want that", it burst out of me, before my mother was able to answer. Mrs. Fallon´s gaze fell on me and she indignantly raised an eyebrow about my cheeky behaviour. I wasn´t impressed by it at first. "Lady Bonham says that it sounds like you´re rolling a cart over a cat´s tail when I´m singing. No singing lessons could change that. Furthermore she thinks that it is more important that a woman is smart. Lynette Olsen can sing beautifully, but she is stupid like bread."
"Lillian!"
Silence spread over the room. Even the men had interrupted their conversation and the adults stared at me.
"Sorry", I murmured and lowered my head.
"What Lillian actually wanted to say", my mother began with a forced smile, after she had given me a look from the side."Is that she is not good in singing, but loves to play the cembalo."
"Really?", Mrs. Fallon asked and looked at me again. Maybe she doubted that I was capable of doing anything at all after my faux pas. I lowered my eyes to my plate and was relived as the adults weren´t interested in listening to my cembalo play.

For the rest of the evening I stayed on my seat in an exemplary manner and only spoke when I was asked to. Nevertheless I could feel my mother´s anger and after we had bid farewell to our guests, she sent me to my room where I was supposed to wait for her. I knew that I had to expect a reprimand. Even my governess Babette was looking at me with an indignant expression the whole time while she was preparing me for bed, but she didn´t say anything about my behaviour at the table. After all she knew that my mother was going to take care of it. When my mother came, Babette left the room and mother stand up in front of me with her arms crossed.
"What on earth do you think you are doing?", she asked me angrily and her French accent became evident. As always when she was angry. "You are behaving like one of those ordinary brats on the streets. You are cheeky, have no manners and it seems like you are searching for every opportunity to refuse everything we are trying to teach you. Do you have to shame me like that? Do you want others to mock us because of you?" She took a step forward and slapped my chin lightly, which I had held down. "Regarde-moi!"
I raised my eyes and looked guiltily into her reproachful dark eyes. "Non, maman", I murmured. "I am sorry. I promise, I will do better."

My mother snorted and didn´t seem to be ready to accept my apology. "I have heard that so often already. I do not know what to do with you. When I think that you have learned, you lose your good behaviour again from one moment to the other. Although Babette is doing her best and we are not sending you to Lady Bonham for nothing either."
She was silent for a moment and went to the window that was leading to the garden. Wordlessly I watched her and the longer she was silent, the bigger my bad conscience became. I was often annoyed by her strictness, but I didn´t want her to be angry with me. But I had to wait until she said something again, or she would become even angrier.
"I think your father and I have to think of something for you", she murmured. "You do not behave like that by yourself. I know that you can be a good girl. I think we should not send you to your grandparents anymore. They are giving you too much freedom and every time you come back, I see new sides about you which we have to drive out of you again."
"But that´s..." My protest ended when my mother turned around to me and glared at me even more angrily.
"You are doing it again!", she called out. "I should put you across my knee because of your disrespectfulness."
The heels of her shoes clattered loudly on the wooden floor as she went past me to the door. "We will talk about it tomorrow. I have to calm myself first. You are jangling my nerves."

I winced when the door shut behind her. I knew that I had to apologize, but I had to wait until tomorrow. My mother was a woman with a fiery temperament. It always took a while until she calmed down again. But beside that she was gentle and loving, which made it even worse for me that she was angry with me. Silent and ashamed I waited until the door opened again and Babette came in. She was a strictly religious Catholic and always thought that she had to make sure that I said my prayers before going to bed. She always punished my objections, that it was none of her business what I was talking about with God, with unpleasant slaps on my nape. So I always restricted myself to the Lord´s prayer and slipped underneath the blanket afterwards. Then Babette used to withdraw to the armchair in the corner of my room and attended to some handiwork until I had fallen asleep. I didn´t know why she was doing that. I was nine years old and refused to accept that someone was watching over my sleep as if I was a baby. But objections weren´t allowed anyway.

So I listened to the regular clatter of her knitting needles while I tried to fall asleep. But I had barely closed my eyes, when it knocked on the door and my father stepped in shortly afterwards. He asked Babette to leave the room and while she left, I sat up in bed and gave my father an insecure look. Normally he never came to wish me a good night. He rarely visited me in my room at all and so I almost feared that he was going to reprimand me for my behaviour during the dinner, too. But to my surprise he smiles gently at me and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"You know that you behaved wrong today, don´t you?", he asked and I nodded.
"I´m sorry."
Father bent his head slightly and so he had accepted my apology at least.
"Your mother is already calming down again. You disappointed her, but I think if you apologize to her, it will be fine again."
The gaze of his grey eyes, which I had inherited from him, roamed over my face and I asked myself, if I should say something. But it was my father who began to speak. He looked down at the golden signet ring on his hand and pulled it off his finger. He grabbed my hand and with wide eyes I watched him laying the cold piece of metal on my palm.
"Do you know the meaning of this emblem?", he asked me and I shook my head while looking at the engraving on the piece of jewellery.
"Your great-grandfather chose it for the business he built and later it became our family emblem, too. The horse which is pacing forward, stands for our sense of duty towards our family and the progress we are making with it. With this progress we can be successful, which is why it is carrying a laurel wreath in its mouth. A simple emblem, but it´s showing the meaning of our family." He nodded at the ring which I was regarding full of respect. "There is only one ring and it´s always passed on to the eldest son and with it the duty to maintain and advance our family and its traditions. If you had a brother, he would receive this duty."
"Why not me?", I asked curiously and father cocked his head with raised eyebrows.
"I hope it´s not necessary to answer this question, isn´t it?"
I nodded slowly. Of course. I was a girl. I could never take over our family´s business and maintain our tradition with it. Although I would have wanted to do so. My father reached out his hand again, took the ring from me and held it in front of my nose.
"But that you can´t wear it, doesn´t mean that you have no responsibility for our family. Once you marry, your husband will inherit our family´s business and continue it. Maybe it will belong to another name then, but it still will be our business and eventually your sons will continue. Then your grandsons and so on. That´s why it is so important to me and your mother that you are aware of your duties. You could have a man by your side in nine years and if you keep behaving like you did today, you will never be a good representative for your husband and our family. Do you understand?"
Of course I did. I had always heard similar sentences from mother, Babette and Lady Bonham, but I had never known that my future marriage was also connected to our family´s legacy. But that didn´t mean that I liked it. I pushed my bottom lip forward.
"But I don´t want a husband", I grumbled and made my father smirk.
"You´re too young to know what you want and what is good for you. When you´re adult, it will be easier for you to understand."
Father put the ring on again and stroked through my hair. A rare gesture.
"I know that you won´t disappoint me", he said, bent forward and kissed my forehead. "Now sleep. Tomorrow you will go to the Olsens with Babette and apologize to Lynette. I´m sure that Mrs. Fallon will gossip and you should pre-empt it."
I nodded morosely. I hated Lynette Olsen, but I had no other choice. Father stood up with a pleased expression and went to the door. He stopped in the doorframe and looked at me.
"Good night, little toad", he said and I smiled brightly about the nickname which I heard as rarely from him as he was showing affection to me.
"Good night, papa."

After Babette had returned, I fell asleep amazingly quickly but my sleep lasted only a few hours. When I woke up it was in the middle of the night and I felt an unpleasant ache in my throat. I was oppressively warm in my room and I was terribly thirsty. Slowly I stood up, lumbered barefooted to the door, opened it a bit and peeked carefully into the dark hallway. There was nobody to be seen and also not to be heard. Certainly everyone was asleep, my parents as well as the staff. Nevertheless I paid careful attention to my steps when I sneaked along the hallway and to the broad staircase leading to the basement. But when I was only a few steps away from it, I stopped. Light fell through the clearance between door frame and door leaf by my father´s study and I could hear his voice. He sounded irritated. I approached the door and glanced curiously through the keyhole. I could see the red justeaucorps of my father who was standing sideway to the door and talked to someone I couldn´t see, gesticulating wildly.
"You will never have any rights! Never! Understand it at last or are you even too stupid for that?"
I winced as I heard my father talking in this harsh tone. I had never seen him like that and it scared me somehow. I knew, when I was caught now, I would be punished strictly. It wasn´t right to eavesdrop and it surely wasn´t right to peek through keyholes. But I was so curious...No. Determined I shook my head. I had already behaved wrong today and my father had made clear to me that I couldn´t allow myself to do so.

So I quickly turned away from the door when I heard father´s voice again. It seemed like the other person didn´t want to say anything, but I didn´t care anyway. I went downstairs and sneaked into the empty kitchen where I filled a cup with water and drank it with slow sips. My gaze roamed through the room and I asked myself if anybody would notice when I took one of the fresh, rosy-cheeked apples which were laying in a bowl. Certainly the cook had planned something with them. But would she notice, if one of them was missing? I put the cup away and just wanted to take one of the apples when a bloodcurdling scream sounded from upstairs. I winced and stormed to the door.
"Murderer! You dirty, little...", I heard the hysterical voice of my mother, but it ended in another stifled scream before it entirely died away. An ice cold shiver ran down my spine and I believed that I couldn´t move. I stared at the staircase and was still staring, when two employees came out of their wing and ran upstairs with lanterns.
"He´s through the window! Quick! Someone has to look after the little miss", I heard one of them call and not until then I moved.
"Maman? Papa?", I called in panic and ran upstairs. I felt that something terrible had happened but before I could reach my father´s study, I ran into the strong arms of Zachary, our equerry.
"Little miss! Are you alright?", he asked me and seized me, when I wanted to push myself past him.
"What happened? Where are they? Where are my parents?"
I even wanted to slap Zachary, so that he let me go, but he kept me in a firm grip and finally lifted me onto his arms, despite my resistance.
"I will bring you to your room, girl", he murmured and went on. But he pressed my head against his shoulder so that I couldn´t look into the study when we past it. I would never learn, if I could be grateful for it or not.

I spent several scared moments in my room, knowing that Zachary was watching the door, so that I couldn´t leave. I could only hear how several people came into the house after some time, talking tensely to each other. When the day dawned, it was Babette who entered my room, with tears in her eyes and deathly pale and telling me that my parents were dead. Killed by a burglar who had been able to escape. I couldn´t really realize this news. It needed three full days and the funeral until it reached my mind and I fell into a whole phase of crying. Many people came to offer their condolences and often I heard them talking about my future. Lillian Jarvis, the poor orphan. I just understood that they wanted to send me to my grandparents at first, but I didn´t care for now anyway. I spent my time in my room and didn´t want to see anyone. For hours I lay in my bed, the blanket pulled over my head and cried to myself. I couldn´t understand why my parents had been taken away from me and I began to feel an incredible anger for the person who had ended their lives and I didn´t let anyone talk to me about it. Until there was a knock on my door one day and someone sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Lilly?", I heard Ray´s hesitant voice and pushed the blanket from my head. My half-brother was terribly pale so that his green eyes looked almost unnatural. He looked sad. Maybe even afraid but I wasn´t surprised. None of the employees knew how to go on, after the household was dissolved. Also Ray didn´t know what was going to happen to him and his mother. Furthermore the events were certainly scaring him as much as me. He always said that he was an adult with his twelve years, but I knew that he was a child just as me.
"Oh, Ray!", I uttered and threw my arms around his neck. I hadn´t seen him for days and now I felt how much I had missed him. He was the only person in this household who had ever really understood me. He wrapped his arms around me and I heard how he took a shaking breath.
"It´s so terrible", I whispered. "Why did this happen? Why did they have to die? I don´t understand it. Why...why am I alone now?"
I burst into tears again and Ray pressed me closer against himself.
"I´m...I´m so sorry, Lilly", he said hoarsely. "I...I wanted..."
"I hate him!", I interrupted him. Actually I hadn´t even noticed that he had said something. I pulled away from the embrace and looked at my brother with glowing eyes and he seemed to be more and more insecure. "I hate the one who killed them! He shall rot in hell! He shall come to a miserable end and I don´t care that Babette says that you shouldn´t utter such curses. He deserves it!"

Ray scrutinized me and whatever he had wanted to tell me, it seemed like he had reconsidered. He lowered his eyes while I looked at the window and suddenly remembered how my mother had stood there in the evening of her death and had been angry with me. I had never been able to apologize for my behaviour. I would never be able to show her that I could do better. I would never be able to show my parents that I could be conscientious. But for them, I wanted to try it. From now on I would behave like a lady and make them proud when they were going to look down at me from heaven. They should be able to say that I was an honour to our family.
"I can´t climb on trees with you anymore, Ray", I said quietly but entirely determined. When I looked at Ray, I saw tears in his eyes. "But we will still be a family. I promise!", I tried to comfort him. He just smiled faintly.


I winced when I heard Emily´s quiet crying. Blinking I opened my eyes and felt that my cheeks were wet and I really was still crying. Irritated I wiped the tears away and opened my hand with my father´s ring in it. I had grabbed it so firmly that it had left an imprint on my palm. But know I knew how it had got into Ray´s possession. I hadn´t seen it over all these years because it had been too absurd, but now that I remembered the events back then, I finally knew that it hadn´t been a burglar who had killed my parents. The real murderer had let me embrace him and maybe had wanted to confess it to me. But he had shown the white feather like a coward when it had become aware to him that I wouldn´t be his little Lilly anymore. But now I certainly wasn´t anyway. Finally.