Anna shook her head, much more puzzled than penitent.
“What is there to be troubled about?” she cried.
Gregory did not answer at once. He found it impossible to make mention of Oliver in her presence. He fixed his eyes on the little child, who was on his knees now, by Anna’s side, pouring out into her white dress a small handful of scarlet berries, and letting them run like jewels through his fingers, laughing to see them roll.
“Do you not know,” he began again, very slowly, “that we fear for your strength, for your endurance, upon which you will never, yourself, have mercy?”
Anna began to protest a little, her colour deepening at some vague change in his tone and manner.
“Do you not know,” he continued, not heeding her interruption, “that you are the very heart of our life, here in Fraternia? that we all turn to you for our inspiration, our hope, our ideal? Should we not guard you, since without you we all should fade and fail?”
Never before had Anna heard this cadence of tenderness in Gregory’s voice, nor in the voice of man or woman; the whole strength of his protecting manhood, of his high reverence and his strong heart, was in it, but there was something more. What was it? A tremor ran through Anna’s heart. Could she dare to know? She lifted her eyes at last to meet his look, and what she read was what she had never dreamed of, never feared nor hoped—the supreme human love which a man can know. Reading this, she did not fear nor faint nor draw her own look away, but rather her eyes met his, full of awe and solemn joy; for at last, in that moment, her own heart was revealed to itself.
“O Anna!—O Benigna!”
Gregory spoke at last, or rather it seemed as if the whole deep heart of the man breathed out its life on the syllables of those two names.
In the silence which followed Anna sat quite quiet in her place, the sun and the soft shadows of the young oak leaves playing over her face and figure. The child still tossed his red berries with ripples of gleeful laughter over the whiteness of her dress, and not far away could be heard the busy voices of the older children as they ruthlessly broke away the blossoms from their stems. And in the sun and shade and the stillness Anna sat, while wave after wave of incredible joy broke over her spirit. For the first time in her life she knew love, knowing it for what it was. She had not asked to know it, nor mourned that she had missed its full measure, nor dreamed that it could yet be hers; but it had come, not stayed by bonds nor stopped by vows. It was here! The man whose strong spirit, in its freedom and power, had cast its spell upon her mysteriously even before she had seen his face save in a dream, loved her, with eyes to look like that upon her and that mighty tenderness! Life was fulfilled. Let death come now. It was enough!