"It is too hard, too hard," he whispered, putting his arms round her.
But she unclasped them. "I have your promise?" she said.
"No."
"Then I take it." And lightly touching his forehead with her lips, she turned and was gone.
When July and Diana came to bring back their foolhardy patient, they found him lying on the earth so still and cold that it seemed as if he were dead. That night the fever appeared again. But there was only Diana to nurse him now; Anne was gone.
Farmer Redd acted as guide and escort back to Peterson's Mill; but the pale young nurse would not stop, begging Dr. Flower to send her onward immediately to Number Two. She was so worn and changed that the surgeon feared that fever had already attacked her, and he sent a private note to the surgeon of Number Two, recommending that Miss Douglas should at once be returned to Number One, and, if possible, sent northward to her home. But when Anne arrived at Number One, and saw again the sweet face of Mrs. Barstow, when she felt herself safely surrounded by the old work, she said that she would stay for a few days longer. While her hands were busy, she could think; as she could not sleep, she would watch. She felt that she had now to learn life entirely anew; not only herself, but the very sky, sunshine, and air. The world was altered.
On the seventh morning a letter came; it was from Heathcote, and had been forwarded from Peterson's Mill. She kept it until she had a half-hour to herself, and then, going to the bank of the river, she sat down under the trees and opened it. Slowly; for it might be for good, or it might be for evil; but, in any case, it was her last. She would not allow herself to receive or read another.
It was a long letter, written with pencil upon coarse blue-lined paper. After saying that the fever had disappeared, and that before long he should try to rejoin his regiment, the words went on as follows:
"I said that I would write and tell you all. When you ran away from me last year, I was deeply hurt; I searched for you, but could find no clew. Then I went back eastward, joined the camping party, and after a day or two returned with them to Caryl's. No one suspected where I had been. From Caryl's we all went down to the city together, and the winter began.
"I was, in a certain way, engaged to Helen; yet I was not bound. Nor was she. I liked her: she had known how to adapt herself to me always. But I had never been in any haste; and I wondered sometimes why she held to me, when there were other men, worth more in every way than Ward Heathcote, who admired her as much as I did. But I did not then know that she loved me. I know it now.