An expression of adoring love and pity flitted over Anne’s face. Then it was gone, and she said:
“There is no profit in that sort of recrimination, you know. The instrument for measuring and comparing mental suffering has not been invented. It is hard enough for me. Be satisfied of that! Do you want me to be miserable?”
Suddenly she let herself go, as if she deliberately threw away reserve.
“Kit,” she began, her voice deep with love and longing, “it is costing me so much that in simple mercy you must never again add to it by seeking me. After a while we will be friends—meet as friends. Always we shall be friends, even before we may safely meet. That is a great word were we not longing to speak another, greater word, that is forbidden us. I shall marry Richard and do my best to love him as a wife should, as any one who knew him would love him, one would think, best of all! Listen to me, dear: If you were a man who in sober, sane choice could want me to break my promise to this man, I should never have loved you. Shall we be selfish, Kit, cruel, false, trying to justify ourselves with pretty words? Kit, you are so dear to me that I want to help you to keep your honour bright! I should not have seen you to-day but that I knew in seeing you I could help you to see something far greater than I. I can’t cure your grief, Kit, your lonely longing, nor my own! For a time we must suffer. But I know we shall win out, because we are doing our best. I came to beg you to make the renunciation that is the true, manly course. I don’t want you to do right only because I stand by my word. Say to me—and mean it, Kit, because in compelling your will to this you will gain peace of mind—say to me: ‛Anne, keep your word to Richard Latham and God bless you! I would not have you make me happy by defrauding him.’ Tell me this, Kit; tell me you see it is right!”
Kit stood silent beside her, his head bowed, his hands clinching and relaxing. The tiny waves of the river’s slow flow lapped softly on the white sand; a sparrow emphasized the stillness with his lovely brief song.
“It is right, Anne,” poor Kit said at last.
“And”—Anne put out her hands to him almost as a mother would put out her hands to the child who feared to walk—“And I don’t want you to make me happy by defrauding Richard Latham. Marry him, Anne, Anne, Anne, my darling, marry him! And God bless and keep you, as He surely does!”
Kit threw back his head, holding both her hands crushed in his.
Anne’s face was alight with triumph; her eyes glowed and warmed Kit’s heart.
“I’ll be all right. This is right,” Kit said. “I’ve been crazed, Anne, but don’t worry over me; I’ll be all right, little Captain!”