“Oh, Richard, Richard!” moaned Anne. “Oh, Richard, the lion-hearted!”
“Come, that’s better than to be a dragon, though the lion’s share is supposed to be formidable! Anne, dear, you, being you, do not need to be told that to love means to desire the good of the person beloved. When is Kit—— Did you promise Kit to tell me what might have been the sad story, but now is to be a happy one?” asked Richard.
“I told Kit that I would not see him again till he and I were cured of this unhappy love. It will be cured, Richard! Trust me; I shall love my husband and no one else!” Anne cried.
“Surely. You will not turn from Kit, your husband! Do you imagine that I think of you as fickle, playing with love, my dear?” said Richard.
“Not Kit, not Kit my husband; you, you, Richard!” cried Anne, wildly. “Kit saw it as I did. He couldn’t see it so at first, because he is undisciplined. It is natural to take what you want if you can snatch it. But he did see, and he willingly laid down his—no; he had no claim to lay down—he willingly admitted your claim. And he has said good-bye to me, Richard, and is gone, wholly, completely gone out of my life. Don’t say, don’t think I deceived you! How could I tell you? I knew you would send me away. And I want to stay. I’m going to marry you, Richard, best and most unselfish of men; you, not Kit Carrington; no one but you, only you!”
“Dear Anne,” began Richard with an effort that Anne was sobbing too hard to see, “you cannot marry me, my beloved, because I will not marry you! See to what shocking lengths you drive me! I am blind, indeed, for I did not for an instant suspect that you loved Kit. Thank heaven little Anne healed that form of blindness! I have often felt that you did not fully love me, dear, but I set down much of your reserve to your natural reticence, your innate shrinking from a lover’s arms. I knew that a great love, such as mine was for you, would rise at flood and break down such barriers, but, though I saw that you did not love me like that, I thought that you loved me so much that the tide of it would rise to its flood in you. I loved to think that I should write my name on this white page indelibly. I did not dream that you loved someone else. This justifies me, so forgive me, Anne, for the pain I stupidly caused you.”
“Richard, kill me if you must, but not with such words!” cried Anne, turning to hide her face in her hands on the back of the garden bench. “Will you not listen to me? I want to marry you. I want to marry you! And you were right; I shall love you best. Just as now I hold you higher than any one else, so I shall love you best. I have never for an instant thought of breaking my word to you. I had no more idea of Kit’s feeling for me than you had. Nor did I realize that I cared for him. It was a strange revelation of unsuspected feeling on both sides that overtook us. I have not listened to him, have not dallied with this madness. And Kit is honourable. He was tempted to take his own good, but he is a man. When he considered, he knew that it must be you, not he. He is gone, gone forever. Time will cure him. He has done right and I’ve no fear but that he will be happy. So let us try to put it out of our minds; let us pretend that we had an ugly dream. We are awake now; the dream is over. Richard, dearest Richard, forgive me! Can’t you forgive me and let the dream go by?”
“Anne, child, yes; the dream shall go by! But my dream, which was truly a dream; not your reality,” said Richard, gently taking her hands and drawing her head on his shoulder. “Cry here, faithful true Anne, for I am Richard, your brother. But never Richard, your husband! Nothing this world could offer me, nothing that you could say, would make me marry you, dearest of all women! Consider for a moment: you who are so honourable, so eager to uphold the honour of Kit, whom you love, would you have me marry one whom I knew loved and wanted someone else? Would you? It is beyond possibility. It is best for us both that we never again remotely approach to a suggestion that this might be possible. I tell you again what I have already told you: I am profoundly grateful to little Anne Berkley for averting the horrible tragedy, the dreadful mistake I came near making. Sooner or later I should have found you out, dear, and I’m not sure that I shouldn’t have died of it! So let us be thankful that I was one of little Anne’s beetles and that she set me on my feet to run away in time! Now it is all settled, dear one, and we are tired. I am going into the house. Don’t come just now, Anne.”
Richard arose unsteadily, at the end of his endurance, exhausted by his effort.
Anne looked up at him with the wet eyes of a chastised child.