“Anne!” cried Richard Latham. “What are you doing? What do you mean? Anne, Anne—what do you know?”
“I know that if there were any one whom you wanted, Richard Latham, she would be a happy, a blessed woman.” Anne spoke hardly above a whisper, yet her words were clearly audible in the intense quiet of the room. Richard bent toward her, but pulled himself back.
“Do you mean—Anne, stop this! I love you. What right have you——”
“Perfect right, Richard,” said Anne, and lifted his hand to lay it on her bowed head.
“Oh, my God!” cried Richard, with a sob in his throat.
Then he leaped to his feet and caught her up in his arms and held her tight, kissing again and again her soft masses of hair, her closed eyes, at last her lips.
“Oh, my God, my good kind God,” he said, hoarsely. “How can it be true?”
CHAPTER XIII
The Ill Wind
IT was with no small satisfaction that Kit learned that his aunt and Helen were to spend that day and the greater part of the next one in the large city three hours distant, returning to Cleavedge only in time for dinner. There was upon Kit an unwrapping profundity of isolation, a peace with which the elder and younger woman were in ill-accord; it was a relief to know that duty would not summon him out of his personal atmosphere to breathe theirs.