What right has he to have a son like that when I have nothing but a puling girl ? Remember , Isobel , that if you ever meet that young man you are not to speak to or look at him , or even intimate that you are aware of his existence . He is your enemy and the enemy of your race . You will show him that you realize this . '' Of course that ended it all -- though just what there had been to end would have been hard to say . Not long afterwards I met Alan Fraser again , when I was out for a canter on my mare . He was strolling through the beech wood with a couple of big collies , and he stopped short as I drew near . I had to do it -- Father had decreed -- my Shirley pride demanded -- that I should do it . I looked him unseeingly in the face , struck my mare a blow with my whip , and dashed past him . I even felt angry , I think , that a Fraser should have the power to make me feel so badly in doing my duty . After that I had forgotten . There was nothing to make me remember , for I never met Alan Fraser again . The years slipped by , one by one , so like each other in their colourlessness that I forgot to take account of them . I only knew that I grew older and that it did not matter since there was nobody to care . One day they brought Father in , white-lipped and groaning . His mare had thrown him , and he was never to walk again , although he lived for five years . Those five years had been the happiest of my life . For the first time I was necessary to someone -- there was something for me to do which nobody else could do so well . I was Father 's nurse and companion ; and I found my pleasure in tending him and amusing him , soothing his hours of pain and brightening his hours of ease . People said I `` did my duty '' toward him .
I had never liked that word `` duty , '' XXXXX the day I had ridden past Alan Fraser in the beech wood .
although for like of since that through to toward with