“Anne! What are you saying?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, never mind now; maybe we’d better race first, because we’ll be so warm we’ll need to sit down; then we could talk,” said little Anne, comfortably. “I came to tell you about it. Kit said if you knew you wouldn’t let her; he said it wasn’t fair to you. So I thought I’d tell you. Anne loves Kit, so does he—I mean they both do.”
Anne was getting frightened; Richard’s face was ghastly white.
“How can you, a child, know this?” Richard spoke with difficulty.
“Why, it was one morning at our house. They kind of looked at each other and began to say they loved each other such a lot, and Anne cried: ‛No, no, no. Richard!’ And Kit had to go away. She made him. And she cried terrible. And Kit says it’s wrong to marry you when she’d rather not, but she just will, and Antony says she’s a trump, but you can see Joan’s so sorry she can’t tell what a trump is. And Anne, you know, looks dreadful, white and thin—— Oh, I forgot!” Little Anne checked herself, shocked that an allusion to Mr. Latham’s blindness had escaped her. Of all things she most dreaded to say anything that might hurt Richard Latham. Richard put out a hand, gropingly. He found little Anne’s shoulder and held it tight. He swayed slightly as he turned to go up the garden, slowly, like an old man. He leaned on the frightened child who walked beside him, looking up at him with dilated eyes.
“I want to find the bench,” said Richard, whom little Anne had always seen going confidently about the garden.
Little Anne led him to the bench and Richard dropped on it heavily.
“Tell me again. I can’t understand. Anne, my Anne, loves Christopher Carrington? And he loves her, and they both know this? And she is marrying me because she thinks she must? It this what you are telling me? It can’t be true! You are only little Anne. You can’t know!”
Richard’s voice, faint at first, gathered strength as he spoke; it ended in a groan. Because this was little Anne, too young to imagine the story, too clear-brained to distort it, he knew that it was true. A thousand tiny proofs of it seemed to pierce his memory even as he denied it.
“Yes, I do know!” little Anne insisted, nodding her head hard. “I was there when they found out. They kept saying how s’prised they were. Kit wants to talk it over; that’s what he’s doing now, but Anne won’t ever change, Joan said. He couldn’t talk it over, ’cause Anne wouldn’t see him till now. He said you wouldn’t let her marry you if you knew she’d rather not; Kit said that. He said it wasn’t fair to you. So I came around to let you know. Won’t you let her marry you? Can’t she sit in the box that play night?” Richard Latham started up and fell back with a cry. His head dropped on the back of the garden bench; he was shaking.