"When I married you," she resumed, "I had reason to hope that should children be born to us, you would love them equally with your first; I had a right to hope it. What have I done that—"
"Stay, Anne! I can bear anything better than reproach from you."
"What have I and my children done to you, I was about to ask, that you take this aversion to them? lavishing all your love on the others and upon them only injustice?"
Val bent down, agitation in his face and voice.
"Hush, Anne! you don't know. The danger is that I should love your children better, far better than Maude's. It might be so if I did not guard against it."
"I cannot understand you," she exclaimed.
"Unfortunately, I understand myself only too well. I have a heavy burden to bear; do not you—my best and dearest—increase it."
She looked at him keenly; laid her hands upon him, tears gathering in her eyes. "Tell me what the burden is; tell me, Val! Let me share it."
But Val drew in again at once, alarmed at the request: and contradicted himself in the most absurd manner.
"There's nothing to share, Anne; nothing to tell."