Chapter 31 - Page 2

in the same strange voice of energy, "I wouldn't unless you consented."

"To see him?" Anna tried to gather together her startled thoughts. "What use would it be? What could you tell him?"

"I want to tell him the truth," said Sophy Viner.

The two women looked at each other, and a burning blush rose to Anna's forehead. "I don't understand," she faltered.

Sophy waited a moment; then she lowered her voice to say: "I don't want him to think worse of me than he need..."

"Worse?"

"Yes--to think such things as you're thinking now...I want him to know exactly what happened...then I want to bid him good-bye."

Anna tried to clear a way through her own wonder and confusion. She felt herself obscurely moved.

"Wouldn't it be worse for him?"

"To hear the truth? It would be better, at any rate, for you and Mr. Darrow."

At the sound of the name Anna lifted her head quickly. "I've only my step-son to consider!"

The girl threw a startled look at her. "You don't mean-- you're not going to give him up?"

Anna felt her lips harden. "I don't think it's of any use to talk of that."

"Oh, I know! It's my fault for not knowing how to say what I want you to hear. Your words are different; you know how to choose them. Mine offend you...and the dread of it makes me blunder. That's why, the other day, I couldn't say anything...couldn't make things clear to you. But now must, even if you hate it!" She drew a step nearer, her slender figure swayed forward in a passion of entreaty. "Do listen to me! What you've said is dreadful. How can you speak of him in that voice? Don't you see that I went away so that he shouldn't have to lose you?"

Anna looked at her coldly. "Are you speaking of Mr. Darrow? I don't know why you think your going or staying can in any way affect our relations."

"You mean that you have given him up--because of me? Oh, how could you? You can't really love him!--And yet," the girl suddenly added, "you must, or you'd be more sorry for me!"

"I'm very sorry for you," Anna said, feeling as if the iron band about her heart pressed on it a little less inexorably.

"Then why won't you hear me? Why won't you try to understand? It's all so different from what you imagine!"

"I've never judged you."

"I'm not thinking of myself. He loves you!"

"I thought you'd come to speak of Owen."

Sophy Viner seemed not to hear her. "He's never loved any one else. Even those few days...I knew it all the while...he never cared for me."

"Please don't say any more!" Anna said.

"I know it must seem strange to you that I should say so much. I shock you, I offend you: you think me a creature without shame. So I am--but not in the sense you think! I'm not ashamed of having loved him; no; and I'm not ashamed of telling you so. It's that that