But her revelation had been indeed revelation. Cruel, mistaken, even wrong love might be but love was love and to her marrying must include love. It was a stormy drive home. Anthony sullen, angry, pitiful, pleading, almost broke her down. He did break down her confidence and destroy her joy in her revelation, but against the one final fact he battered in vain. At last at the door of Maud’s cottage he kissed her again, almost angrily.
“Must I give up? I’ll wait—wait—if you say.”
“Please give it up, Anthony. It’s no good.”
He was gone and Horatia, weary and disheveled, sat in her unlit room, watching the road in the moonlight. Soon Maud would be home. She would be angry and disappointed. But she would build other ambitions and not waste the advantages she had gained through this summer. Horatia thought of Marjorie. She would be sorry too. And yet she might understand. Some day Horatia thought, she would tell Marjorie all about it. Now she must go back to her work. Back to The Journal if they wanted her. But perhaps they did not—perhaps not even Jim wanted her. No matter. She was buoyed up by a tremendous surety. She had been faithful to her love—she had made sorrow and she might have to face more of it but she had escaped degradation.
Marjorie found Anthony face downwards on his bed. She had never been sure that he would win and now she knew he had lost. She stole in and sat by him, a wise, white figure in her soft negligee.
“She won’t have me,” he said bitterly.
Marjorie asked no questions—only waited.
“At first she thought she cared—she was so wonderful—but she loves Langley! She found it out when—when I kissed her.”
At the intolerable memory he sprang up and paced the room.
“That’s final,” said his sister, quietly. “She knows.”