“If he does and you will marry me, I shall engage to treat your mother with the same respect and attention I should my own. Mrs. Clavering is one of the best of women, and I have the greatest regard for her.”
Anne raised to him a glorified, grateful face. The poor, despised mother for whom she had fought and was still fighting, the helpless, unfortunate woman who seemed to be in everybody’s way except in hers—the offer of kindness and consideration went to Anne Clavering’s heart. She wished to say something in the way of thanks to Baskerville, but instead she burst into a sudden passion of tears. Baskerville, with a lover’s ardor, would have comforted her upon his breast, but she kept him at a distance.
“No, no!” she pleaded, weeping, “hear me out—let me tell you all.” Baskerville, although at her side, did not perforce so much as touch her hand. Anne continued, strangely recovering her calmness as she proceeded: “I can’t repeat all my father said—I have neither the strength nor the time now; but he told me there was an—an invalidity about his marriage to my mother. She, poor soul, knew nothing of it, for—for our sakes, his children. But it was no marriage. And last night he told me plainly that if I persuaded my mother to resist the divorce, he can prove that she never was—that we are—” She stopped. Her tears had ceased to flow, her face was deathly pale; a heart-breaking composure had taken the place of her emotion.
Baskerville, however, had become slightly agitated. He comprehended instantly what she meant. She was not even the legitimate child of James Clavering. Small as the credit of his name might be, it was not hers. Baskerville, as a man of honorable lineage, had a natural shrinking from ignoble birth, but it did not blind him to the inherent honor in Anne Clavering nor turn his heart away from her. He recovered his coolness in a moment or two and was about to speak, when she forestalled him hurriedly.
“So, you see, you must forget all that happened yesterday. I thank you a thousand times for—for—what you once felt for me. If things were different—if I were—but, as you see, it is quite impossible now.”
“And do you suppose,” said Baskerville, after a pause, “that I would give you up—that I could give you up? I am afraid you don’t yet know what love is.”
Their conversation had gone on in tones so low that they might have been discussing the affairs of total strangers. Baskerville made no attempt to take her hand, to beguile her with endearments. It was a moment solemn for both of them, and Baskerville spoke with the calm appeal of a noble and steadfast love. It was not the sweet seduction of passion, but the earnest claim and covenant of love upon which he relied.
Anne remained with her eyes fixed on the floor. Baskerville said no more. He scorned to plead his right, and his silence wrought for him far more than any spoken words. His manner was one of questioning reproach, a reproach most dear to a loving and high-minded woman. The meaning of it came softly but inevitably upon Anne Clavering. It was no light sacrifice for a man of sensitive honor, of flawless repute, to link himself in any way with a woman dowered as Anne Clavering was dowered by her father’s evil-doing, but Baskerville reckoned it as nothing when weighed in the balance against his honorable love. At last the whole beauty of his conduct dawned full upon her; Baskerville knew the very instant when she grasped all that he meant. The color began to mount to her pale cheeks; she sighed deeply and raised her eyes, now softly radiant, to his face.
“You are very, very generous,” she said. “It is good to have known a man so generous, and it is sweeter than I can tell you to have been loved by such a man. But I can be generous, also. It is too great a sacrifice for you. I cannot accept it.”
To this Baskerville only replied: “Tell me but this—one word will settle it forever. Do you love me?”