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“Was I grateful that Laura wasn’t there? That she was shut up somewhere far away, where I couldn’t reach her? Also, where she couldn’t reach me.”

This quotation occurs in Part XI, after Iris gives birth and everyone comments on the unexpectedly dark hair of the newborn baby. The quote is significant because it implies that Iris has a secret, and it foreshadows the revelation that Alex, not Richard, is the father of her baby. The quotation shows the close bond between the two sisters since Iris is able to fool everyone else, but she knows that Laura would have quickly caught on. This might be because Laura knew Alex and therefore would have recognized the physical similarities, or it might simply be because Laura knows her sister better than the Griffen family does. The passage also hints at Iris’s possible complicity in Laura’s fate. She ostensibly tries to help her sister, but it is unclear whether she could have done more, and the reader knows that Iris is relieved by Laura’s absence. Iris had reason to be fearful that Laura might uncover her secret, and she was also becoming consumed by jealous anxiety about the possibility of Laura and Alex being lovers. For all these reasons, Iris is potentially complicit in the ill treatment of Laura.

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