第61章

OWEN FORD'S CONFESSION

"I'm so sorry Gilbert is away," said Anne. "He had to go--Allan Lyons at the Glen has met with a serious accident. He will not likely be home till very late.

But he told me to tell you he'd be up and over early enough in the morning to see you before you left. It's too provoking. Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree for your last night here."She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seat Gilbert had built. Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against the bronze column of a yellow birch. He was very pale and his face bore the marks of the preceding sleepless night. Anne, glancing up at him, wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength it should. Had he worked too hard over his book? She remembered that for a week he had not been looking well.

"I'm rather glad the doctor is away," said Owen slowly. "I wanted to see you alone, Mrs. Blythe.

There is something I must tell somebody, or I think it will drive me mad. I've been trying for a week to look it in the face--and I can't. I know I can trust you--and, besides, you will understand. A woman with eyes like yours always understands. You are one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. Mrs.

Blythe, I love Leslie. LOVE her! That seems too weak a word!"His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance. He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. His whole form shook. Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast. She had never thought of this! And yet--how was it she had never thought of it? It now seemed a natural and inevitable thing. She wondered at her own blindness.

But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds. Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance human conventions and laws--but not HERE, surely. Leslie had kept summer boarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened. But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVING Leslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years. Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this! Why hadn't Miss Cornelia thought of it? Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound the alarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentment against Miss Cornelia. Then she gave a little inward groan. No matter who was to blame the mischief was done. And Leslie--what of Leslie? It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.

"Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?" she asked quietly.

"No--no,--unless she has guessed it. You surely don't think I'd be cad and scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs.

Blythe. I couldn't help loving her--that's all--and my misery is greater than I can bear.""Does SHE care?" asked Anne. The moment the question crossed her lips she felt that she should not have asked it. Owen Ford answered it with overeager protest.

"No--no, of course not. But I could make her care if she were free--I know I could.""She does care--and he knows it," thought Anne. Aloud she said, sympathetically but decidedly:

"But she is not free, Mr. Ford. And the only thing you can do is to go away in silence and leave her to her own life.""I know--I know," groaned Owen. He sat down on the grassy bank and stared moodily into the amber water beneath him. "I know there's nothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, `Good- bye, Mrs. Moore.

Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,'

just as I would have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife I expected her to be when I came.

Then I'll pay my board money like any honest boarder and go! Oh, it's very simple. No doubt--no perplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!

And I'll walk it--you needn't fear that I won't, Mrs.

Blythe. But it would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares."Anne flinched with the pain of his voice. And there was so little she could say that would be adequate to the situation. Blame was out of the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man's stark agony. She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and regret. Her heart ached for Leslie!

Had not that poor girl suffered enough without this?