“You are laughing!” said Winifred, flushing angrily. “And it is not kind. You may suppose we care about it.”
“But I am not laughing,” said Anthony, in a low voice. When she looked at him, and saw that he was very grave, her hand began to tremble a little. He had become suddenly despairing with the conviction that it was an impossible thing to say, “I was engaged this morning to another woman, and yet I have always loved you;” he felt as if he dared not treat her so, and yet that he could not leave her.
“I don’t understand it,” Winifred began to say slowly. “Do you mean that she has been so heartless and cruel? O, I don’t think so, it is a mistake; you fancy things sometimes which people do not intend in the least! Have you been to Underham? Have you seen Miss Lovell yourself?”
“I have seen Mr Bennett. I assure you it was put in the plainest possible English. Young Warren is the lucky fellow.”
Perhaps her anger was useful, as it occasionally is, in keeping off other emotions. She threw back her head, with a gesture she sometimes used, a flush was on her cheek, and her eyes sparkled.
“How can you speak like that!” she said passionately. “I hate that people should pretend not to care for what hurts them. Why can’t you let us be sorry for you?”
“Because I am not sorry for myself, Winifred,” he said in a changed, deep tone. He took her hand in his, and held it close, and looked down into her eyes. “Because I have known for some time that the maddest mistake I ever made in my life was when I asked Ada Lovell to marry me. Because I feel as if a weight were lifted off my heart. Because I can breathe now, and live,—yes, and love,—I must say it, Winifred, my darling—”
For she had caught back her hand, and was standing, drawn to her full height, with her breath coming quickly, and no softening in her eyes. The words fell away from his lips. He, too, stood still and silent, looking at her with a dreary sinking of his heart. So this was the end.
“You are right,” he said, quietly, in another moment. “I ought to have known better. Well,—at least you will say good by? Things don’t straighten themselves in the way we are fools enough to dream they will. Good by, Winifred. Come, you’ll say good bye?”
He stood still for another minute, waiting, and a lark that had been singing jubilantly overhead dropped swiftly down in a hush of tender silence. Winifred scarcely dared move, Anthony’s tone heaped pain upon her heart, tears rushed into her eyes, but she said “Good bye,” putting out her hand, at which he caught.