"Yes," replied Anne. In her mind surged to and fro one constant repetition: "Ah, my dear child, do you not see that I can not help loving you? and that you—love me also?" "Do you not see that I can not help loving you? and that you—love me also?"
"They improve things, after all," said Heathcote. "The last time I went over this road the train-boy was a poor little cripple, and therefore one couldn't quite throw his books on the floor." This was in allusion to the progress of a brisk youth through the car for the purpose of depositing upon the patient knees of each passenger a paper-covered novel, a magazine or two, and a song-book.
—"And that you—love me also," ran Anne's thoughts, as she looked out on the gliding fields.
There was a silence. Then Heathcote moved nearer.
"Anne," he said, in a low tone, "I was very much disturbed when I found that you had gone. From the little I was able to learn, I fear you were harshly treated by that hard old woman who calls herself your aunt."
"Not according to her view of it," said Anne, her face still turned to the window.
"I wish you would look at me, instead of at those stupid fields," said Heathcote, after a moment, in an aggrieved tone. "Here I have escaped from Caryl's under false pretenses, told dozens of lies, spent a broiling morning at a hole of a place called Lancaster, melted myself in the hot city, and bought tickets for all across the continent, just for the chance of seeing you a moment, and you will not even look at me."
But she had turned now. "Did you go out to the half-house?" she said, with a little movement of surprise.
"Yes," he answered, immediately meeting her eyes, and holding them with his own. (They had not precisely the kind of expression which is appropriate to the man who has decided to perform the part of "merely a kind friend." But then Heathcote always looked more than he said.)
"I am very sorry," she murmured—"I mean, sorry that you have followed me."