An exclamation from Langdon forced me to turn in spite of myself. He was half-kneeling, was holding her in his arms. At that sight, the savage in me shook himself free. I dashed toward them with I knew not what curses bursting from me. Langdon, intent upon her, did not realize until I sent him reeling backward to the earth and snatched her up. Her white face, her closed eyes, her limp form made my fury instantly collapse. In my confusion I thought that she was dead. I laid her gently on the grass and supported her head, so small, so gloriously crowned, the face so still and sweet and white, like the stainless entrance to a stainless shrine. How that horrible fear changed my whole way of looking at her, at him, at her and him, at everything!
Her eyelids were quivering—her eyes were opening—her bosom was rising and falling slowly as she drew long, uncertain breaths. She shuddered, sat up, started up. “Go! go!” she cried. “Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring him—”
There she recognized me. “Oh,” she said, and gave a great sigh of relief. She leaned against a tree and looked at Langdon. “You are still here? Then tell him.”
Langdon gazed sullenly at the ground. “I can't,” he answered. “I don't believe it. Besides—he has given you to me. Let us go. Let me take you to the Vivians.” He threw out his arms in a wild, passionate gesture; he was utterly unlike himself. His emotion burst through and shattered pose and cynicism and hard crust of selfishness like the exploding powder bursting the shell. “I can't give you up, Anita!” he exclaimed in a tone of utter desperation. “I can't! I can't!”
But her gaze was all this time steadily on me, as if she feared I would go, should she look away. “I will tell you myself,” she said rapidly, to me. “We—uncle Howard and I—read in the papers how they had all turned against you, and he brought me over here. He has been telegraphing for you. This morning he went to town to search for you. About an hour ago Langdon came. I refused to see him, as I have ever since the time I told you about at Alva's. He persisted, until at last I had the servant request him to leave the house.”
“But now there's no longer any reason for your staying, Anita,” he pleaded. “He has said you are free. Why stay when you would really no more be here than if you were to go, leaving one of your empty dresses?”
She had not for an instant taken her gaze from me; and so strange were her eyes, so compelling, that I seemed unable to move or speak.
But now she released me to blaze upon him—and never shall I forget any detail of her face or voice as she said to him: “That is false, Mowbray Langdon. I told you the truth when I told you I loved him!”
So violent was her emotion that she had to pause for self-control. And I? I was overwhelmed, dazed, stunned. When she went on, she was looking at neither of us. “Yes, I loved him, almost from the first—from the day he came to the box at the races. I was ashamed, poor creature that my parents had made me! I was ashamed of it. And I tried to hate him, and thought I did. And when he showed me that he no longer cared, my pride goaded me into the folly of trying to listen to you. But I loved him more than ever. And as you and he stand here, I am ashamed again—ashamed that I was ever so blind and ignorant and prejudiced as to compare him with”—she looked at Langdon—“with you. Do you believe me now—now that I humble myself before him here in your presence?”
I should have had no heart at all if I had not felt pity for him. His face was gray, and on it were those signs of age that strong emotion brings to the surface after forty. “You could have convinced me in no other way,” he replied, after a silence, and in a voice I should not have recognized.