The one thing that he could do in return was to give her what she asked.
But it was hard--he was under no illusion as to the desperate determination
that it would demand. The supreme moment of his life had come. For the
first time he was going to fling away the old Peter Westcott altogether.
He could feel it clinging to him. About him, in the air, spirits were
fighting. He had never before needed Courage as he was needing it now. It
seemed to him that he had to stand up to all the devils in the world--they
were thick on every side of him.
Then, with a great uplifting of strength, with a courage that he had never
known before, he picked up Peter Westcott in his hands, held him, that
miserable figure, high in air, raised him, then flung him with all his
strength out, away, far into space, never to return, never to encumber the
earth again.
"I'll go back," Peter said--and as he said it, there was no elation in him,
only a clear-sighted vision of a life of struggle, toil, torment, defeat,
in front of him, something so hard and arduous that the new Peter Westcott
that had now been born seemed small indeed to face it.
But nevertheless he knew that at the moment that he said those words he had
broken into pieces the spell that had been over him for so many years. That
Beast in him that had troubled him for so long, all the dark shadows of
Scaw House .
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