'Very well, it shall. The anticipation will bring me all the sooner to Old Lafer to see Mr. Severn. And I shall write to Mr. Piton. I shall be delighted to assert my ownership at Rocozanne. I've always been jealous of Ambrose.'
She laughed, and murmured that she must be going.
'Yes, I suppose you must,' he said. 'But tell me, are you going away happier than you came? Yes? And not only because Mrs. Severn has been amenable to reason? Have I at last a niche in your life, will it be more than a niche soon? It is so, is it not? Anna, remember you are to learn to be all mine. I shall be jealous of every one at Old Lafer, Mr. Severn, your sister, the whole batch of children.'
Her face showed him what music his eager tones were to her.
She could not herself have been more impetuous. His frankness charmed her. Well it might! It was the surest guerdon of lifelong happiness. He knew she was of the same nature. To such there is no fear of one of those tragedies of life which turns upon a misunderstanding.
Anna quickly re-descended into the hollow. She hoped Mrs. Severn would come out and not oblige her to go up to the cottage. She was anxious to get away while the Mires was still depopulated by the cottagers being out at their peat-stacks and bracken cutting. Besides which Hartas might be at home. She dreaded his familiar garrulousness, and the violence of his menacing hatred for the Admiral which he never lost an opportunity of impressing upon every one.
Mrs. Severn, however, did not come out, but Scilla did. She hurried towards her looking more troubled and anxious than usual, Anna thought. She was very bonny, and had a fresh colour and a quantity of fair hair which her constant flittings into the open air without hat or hood kept in a rough condition that suited her and showed off its colour. Sunbeams seemed to be caught among it. Years ago sunbeams had been in her limpid blue eyes too. But now they were sad, a haunting sorrow and a furtive fear brooded there. Not only was Kit in prison and her baby beneath a little mound in the churchyard, but there were times when she scarcely dared stay in the house with Hartas. Anna had often urged her to leave him and come back to Old Lafer. But she would not. She had promised Kit that she would not. If she broke a promise to him she would lose her hope of keeping him to better ways when his term was up and he was home again.
'Well, Scilla,' said Anna, 'when are you coming to see the children again?'