e, I asked you not to break with Owen too abruptly--and I asked it,
believe me, as much for your sake as for his: I wanted you to take time
to think over the difficulty that seems to have arisen between you. The
fact that you felt it required thinking over seemed to show you wouldn't
take the final step lightly--wouldn't, I mean, accept of Owen more
than you could give him. But your change of mind obliges me to ask the
question I thought you would have asked yourself. Is there any reason
why you shouldn't marry Owen?"

She stopped a little breathlessly, her eyes on Sophy Viner's burning
face. "Any reason----? What do you mean by a reason?"

Anna continued to look at her gravely. "Do you love some one else?" she
asked.

Sophy's first look was one of wonder and a faint relief; then she gave
back the other's scrutiny in a glance of indescribable reproach. "Ah,
you might have waited!" she exclaimed.

"Waited?"

"Till I'd gone: till I was out of the house. You might have known...you
might have guessed..." She turned her eyes again on Anna. "I only meant
to let him hope a little longer, so that he shouldn't suspect anything;
of course I can't marry him," she said.

Anna stood motionless, silenced by the shock of the avowal. She too
was trembling, less with anger than with a confused compassion. But the
feeling was so blent with others, less generous and more obscure, that
she found no words to express it, and the two women faced each other
without speaking.

"I'd better go," Sophy murmured at length with lowered head.

The words roused in Anna a latent impulse of compunction. The girl
looked so young, so exposed and desolate! And what thoughts must she be
hiding in her heart! It was impossible that they should part in such a
spirit.

"I want you to know that no one said anything...It was I who..."

Sophy looked at her. "You mean that Mr. Darrow didn't tell you? Of
course not: do you suppose I thought he did? You found it out, that's
all--I knew you would. In your place I should have guessed it sooner."

The words were spoken simply, without irony or emphasis; but they went
through Anna like a sword. Yes, the girl would have had divinations,
promptings that she had not had! She felt half envious of such a sad
precocity of wisdom.

"I'm so sorry...so sorry..." she murmured.

"Things happen that way. Now I'd better go. I'd like to say good-bye to
Effie."

"Oh----" it broke in a cry from Effie's mother. "Not lik