‘Never.’
‘Come,’ said Anne. ‘Come then an’ try if you can speak truth this once.’ She pointed to the seat by the bee-hives, and in silence they crossed over to it and sat down.
‘Tell me now,’ said Anne.
Dick leant forward and began his story, and a pitiful story it was. Now that he was face to face with the worst he made no attempt at extenuation of his falsity; he might have been reading off the words from a printed page, they came so straight from his lips, his flute-clear voice never hesitated once till the whole was told. Anne on her part listened quietly enough; without the usual exclamatory interruptions which her sex commonly indulge in. When the story was done there was a moment’s silence, before she said, speaking very low—
‘Eh! but I’ve been a bitter fool.’ She rose then and stood looking down at Dick.
‘I’m goin’ now,’ she said. ‘If I’m no man’s wife, at least I’ll be no man’s mistress. An’ for the child, you’d best care for him yourself. You’ll maybe make him as good a man as his father some day.’
Dick sprang up and caught her hand. ‘Anne, Anne,’ he cried, ‘you must see how it is—you must understand—I scarce knew all your feeling for Shepley at first—I thought you had forgot—I thought women forgot always—I had not realised—not until that night you spoke of him—and then, then I could not bear it, and I resolved to tell you truly. I——’
‘Oh, you’ve acted mighty true for certain,’ said Anne quietly.
‘I have indeed told you all the truth——’
‘Yes, now.’