e this--you
mustn't! I feel--you make me feel too horribly: as if I were driving you
away..." The words had rushed up from the depths of her bewildered pity.

"No one is driving me away: I had to go," she heard the girl reply.

There was another silence, during which passionate impulses of
magnanimity warred in Anna with her doubts and dreads. At length, her
eyes on Sophy's face: "Yes, you must go now," she began; "but later
on...after a while, when all this is over...if there's no reason why
you shouldn't marry Owen----" she paused a moment on the words-- "I
shouldn't want you to think I stood between you..."

"You?" Sophy flushed again, and then grew pale. She seemed to try to
speak, but no words came. "Yes! It was not true when I said just now
that I was thinking only of Owen. I'm sorry--oh, so sorry!--for you too.
Your life--I know how hard it's been; and mine...mine's so full...Happy
women understand best!" Anna drew near and touched the girl's hand; then
she began again, pouring all her soul into the broken phrases: "It's
terrible now...you see no future; but if, by and bye...you know
best...but you're so young...and at your age things DO pass. If there's
no reason, no real reason, why you shouldn't marry Owen, I WANT him to
hope, I'll help him to hope...if you say so..."

With the urgency of her pleading her clasp tightened on Sophy's hand,
but it warmed to no responsive tremor: the girl seemed numb, and Anna
was frightened by the stony silence of her look. "I suppose I'm not more
than half a woman," she mused, "for I don't want my happiness to
hurt her;" and aloud she repeated: "If only you'll tell me there's no
reason----"

The girl did not speak; but suddenly, like a snapped branch, she bent,
stooped down to the hand that clasped her, and laid her lips upon it in
a stream of weeping. She cried silently, continuously, abundantly, as
though Anna's touch had released the waters of some deep spring of pain;
then, as Anna, moved and half afraid, leaned over her with a sound of
pity, she stood up and turned away.

"You're going, then--for good--like this?" Anna moved toward her and
stopped. Sophy stopped too, with eyes that shrank from her.

"Oh----" Anna cried, and hid her face.

The girl walked across the room and paused again in the doorway. From
there she flung back: "I wanted it--I chose it. He was good to me--no
one ever was so good!"

The door-handle turned, and Anna heard her go.

XXIX