Then Anne recovered sufficiently to remember. She clasped her throat with both hands and fear drove the light from her eyes. “No, no, no! Richard!” she whispered. Little Anne came back, but she stopped short in the doorway, not understanding what she saw, but enthralled by it. Neither Anne nor Kit knew that she was there. “Richard--can’t be helped!” said Kit, fiercely. “How did we know this? You don’t love him; you love me! You didn’t know that; neither did I. I knew that I loved you, but--well, yes! Once I did feel sure that you loved me, but when you were going to marry Richard Latham I gave in, thought I was mistaken. Now you are mine, Anne, Anne!” “No, Kit, never,” Anne checked him with a gesture. “Would you blight Richard’s life? We did not know this awful thing----” “Stop!” Kit cried. “You shall not speak so of it! It is a heavenly, a blessed thing! Out of pity for a blind man, not knowing yourself, you promised to marry him. Do you think that counts against _this_? Would you go on with it, marry a man whom you do not love, when you love another man? A crime! No less! I myself will go to Latham and tell him exactly what has happened. Are we to blame? Did we know this glorious love would leap out of us, leap from one to the other as we looked at each other? When our lips were silent it tore its way out through our eyes. It is a miracle, tremendous, no more guilty than the river hewing its way through the rock of the Grand Cañon! I’ll tell Latham exactly what has happened to us when we were lying quietly upon the knees of the gods. He’ll see it; Latham’s a great man; no one knows that better than I!” “Thank you, Kit Carrington, for your praise of my future husband,” said Anne, tremulous, but fighting for self-control. “You will never tell him these things. When you’ve had time to consider you will know that this is false, specious reasoning and cowardly. Neither of us will do anything selfish or dishonourable. I shall keep my word, Kit, and you will help me keep it. At any cost we will guard our honour. If Richard were another man---- But even then, how could we? But he being what he is, and I being to him what I am--ah, no! He loves me, heaven knows, but it is not that most. Kit, be true and fine as Richard is, and help me, for indeed this is cruelly hard! On my honour, I’d no idea you cared for me, nor did I know that I loved you as I do, oh, as I do!” “Say that again, Anne!” Kit implored her, mercilessly. “At least let me hear it again and yet again! And don’t think this is hard only for you. Kiss me, sweet, and tell me how you love me. Your eyes said it first! You’re not any man’s wife. You shall be mine!” “No, Kit.” Anne put both her hands, palms outward, between her face and Kit. “I am not free, but bound. Richard trusts me, he has my word; he may trust me!” Her deep, quivering voice broke and shrilled. She had reached the end of her endurance.