For an instant the two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.
"I wot not how it is with thee," at last began Annys, gravely. "I had given my life that thou didst love the maid. I never looked on her sweet, gentle face that I did not see it in fancy bending over thy child's cradle. She was so wholly thine to me, that until this very day I wist not how dear she was to me."
His friend grasped his hand. "Ay, Robert Annys, I cannot deceive thee. I had thought rather to see any other man dead than that he should possess her. Yet she loves thee, and the power to make her happy hath passed from me to thee. Only," he added, with a touch of sternness in his face, "only see that thou dost make her happy."
"Happy!" he said, "she will be happy if indeed it is as thou sayst and I can make her so. But I am bewildered. I cannot understand it that she should love me, and with thee before her. Thou art better favored than I, thou art younger and stronger. It cannot be; nay, there is some mistake."
"I tell thee there is no mistake. She loves thee."
"Did she tell you so?"
"Yea, that she did."
Then a hundred little scenes rushed back to him, her eyes fastened on his face, her interest in his work, her eager greeting on his return, all lived again for him for a brief moment. And now he knew.
"I am still dazed," he said. "I can scarce credit it, but I think it is true."
Then the thought of his friend's grief came to him.