Anne laid her head down on the moss and cried miserably. It was unbearable to think that she had brought pain into this afflicted life. True, it would be easy to assuage it. Yet not so easy. She did not love Richard. She held him as one of the dearest of her earthly ties, but she did not love him. She felt sure that if she were to try to make him happy, if she devoted her life to him, that he was far too sensitive not to feel the lack of the right sort of love in his wife; far too high-minded to be less than wretched at being the object of her immolation. A strong word, an absurd one to use in connection with marriage to Richard Latham, Anne knew that most people would say, yet to a girl like her any marriage without the love that marriage implies and demands would be immolation. She cried with all her might into the soft moss.
Presently Anne heard a footstep and raised her head to see Miss Carrington near her, standing looking down on her with sincere amazement, but also with carefully arranged sympathy in her face.
“I suppose there is no use in denying it, but don’t mind me, Miss Carrington. It’s only a bother that will probably prove more bearable than it looks in perspective; most things are less unendurable than you expect them to be when they come to close range,” Anne said, checking her tears.
“My dear child,” said Miss Carrington, coming over to put her arm gently around Anne with an intense desire to get at the cause of her emotion, “you are young, and I am at least elderly. You are alone in Cleavedge. Won’t you trust me, my dear, and tell me what is wrong? I can hold my tongue, I assure you, and I know what it is to be alone.”
“It isn’t myself only, Miss Carrington,” said Anne.
“How could it be? Did you ever hear of a human experience that was? My dear, it’s my opinion that we not only cannot be separated to ourselves in this world, but as a rule we should not have troubles if it weren’t for other people! Won’t you let me try to help?” Miss Carrington persisted.
Anne shook her head. “Thank you, nevertheless,” she said. “This is not the sort of thing that any one else can help, nor I, either, I’m afraid.”
“Let me guess!” Miss Carrington took Anne’s hands, cold from hard weeping, between her silky palms, the soft, cool, frail hands of an old gentlewoman. “Let me guess! At your age there can be but one cause of such violent weeping, so I can easily conjecture. You have just discovered what I have known all along, that Richard Latham loves you.” She hoped that this was a good guess and not that this weeping concerned Kit; she held Anne’s hands fast in spite of her attempts to pull them away, disregarding her protesting: “No, no, no!”
“Known all along?” Anne repeated her last words, startled out of her caution.
“Surely, my dear. My nephew and I have discussed it; we hope that it is true,” Miss Carrington assured her, stretching the small “we” to fit her need. “It frightens you? You are such a dear, maidenly, old-time girl that I suppose we must allow for your first shrinking when you learn that you are loved. Then, of course, it awes you to think that it is a poet, Richard Latham, who loves you, a poet and a blind poet! But, oh, my dear, my dear, how inappropriate are your tears! How blessed, how exalted you are! By his genius, certainly, but by his need of you more. A woman is blessed exactly in proportion to the need of her in those she loves. Mr. Latham not only loves you, as we all saw, devotedly, devoutly—that is the better word!—but he loves you with such complete dependence upon you that it is no exaggeration to say that, though he might not die if he lost you, he would in no real sense go on living if he were deprived of you. To be the life of such a man! To be his inspiration and his repose! Indeed I congratulate you, I would envy you were I not done with life. And I am sure from what I know of you that perfect happiness could not come to you except in the opportunity to devote yourself. You are not ambitious, like, for instance, the handsome girl who will be Kit’s wife. Of course her ambition will help Kit, who is going in for a career. It is a most satisfactory arrangement to me, but it would not do for you! I don’t mind admitting to you that Helen’s ideals are less fine than yours, but I am glad to have her marry Kit. Don’t think I’m underestimating Helen. And of course what has slipped out to you is in confidence; it is not to be made public yet. Dear child, dear little namesake, with all my heart I rejoice that Richard Latham has his compensation in you. We have all feared to conjecture what might happen to him if it were the wrong woman. I can’t say more of you than that you are supremely the right woman. I am deeply thankful. Never another tear, my child! You would have slain our poet if you had failed him; you don’t know how glad I am!”