His voice shook, but he controlled it, and she was aware of the effort. “I don’t want to talk of anything except just to tell you what, even with the gap between us hopelessly widening, I think you should know. If I could have fairly accepted this living, without harming another man, I had a wild dream of trying whether my love could have won some crumb of hope. I would have waited years, a lifetime, but I meant to try to win your heart at last. That is at an end. Since I have been in town I have made inquiries—to stay at Huntsdon would be impossible—I—I am not strong enough—I have accepted an offer of work in London. Forgive me for troubling you. It seemed to me that this much I might say. You may trust to my giving you no more annoyance. I am very grateful to you for letting me speak.”
He stood looking down upon her, and all Fanny’s composure had returned, and with it her powers of teasing. She leaned back in the chair, and glanced up at him with a wicked smile in her eyes.
“Oh, don’t thank me. If you only knew how glad I am to hear your plans!”
“They please you?”
She evaded the question.
“I admire your rapidity. It is all settled then? Perhaps you don’t return to Huntsdon at all?”
“It is necessary until my successor comes.” He spoke quietly, but his face was that of a man braced to meet strokes. Suddenly he put out his hand. “Good-bye, Lady Fanny.” She rose, without taking his hand, and leaned against the window.
“You have decided so much that I should like to know if you have fixed upon a house?”
“A house? Where? In London?”
“In your new parish, of course.”