“Indeed I do not!” cried Anne. “Why do you want to martyr him? And to frustrate that beautiful, ideal love! It’s unbearable! I can’t take the dictation that does this! And really, Mr. Latham, it will frustrate the play as well as the hero’s life. Don’t you think we all want the happy ending? It is always possible to get it in a play or a story! I’m sure the public will rebel, that your play will never succeed if you change your plot. No one ever drew a more ideal love than you have in the acts already written. And to spoil it all, sever these two who have dared for each other, borne for each other with such courage, yet so nobly, so wisely! Oh, why do you want to do it?” “What a little enthusiast!” said Richard. “I am forced to do it. I can’t tell you why, Anne--Miss Dallas--but I’ve wholly lost the power to end it as I at first intended. It’s got to be a tragedy, a bloodless but poignant tragedy. I don’t know any other ending. I’ll make our nice girl happy with the nice youth, but for the man----” He shook his head after a moment’s hesitation. “I know no other end,” he repeated. Anne laid down her pen. Her face wore an uplifted look, unlike the look with which a woman goes to her lover, but nevertheless she arose and went to her lover. She knelt beside him and took his hand. “Why do you know no happy end for him?” she asked. “Anne!” cried Richard Latham. “What are you doing? What do you mean? Anne, Anne--what do you know?” “I know that if there were any one whom you wanted, Richard Latham, she would be a happy, a blessed woman.” Anne spoke hardly above a whisper, yet her words were clearly audible in the intense quiet of the room. Richard bent toward her, but pulled himself back. “Do you mean--Anne, stop this! I love you. What right have you----” “Perfect right, Richard,” said Anne, and lifted his hand to lay it on her bowed head. “Oh, my God!” cried Richard, with a sob in his throat. Then he leaped to his feet and caught her up in his arms and held her tight, kissing again and again her soft masses of hair, her closed eyes, at last her lips. “Oh, my God, my good kind God,” he said, hoarsely. “How can it be true?” CHAPTER XIII _The Ill Wind_ It was with no small satisfaction that Kit learned that his aunt and Helen were to spend that day and the greater part of the next one in the large city three hours distant, returning to Cleavedge only in time for dinner. There was upon Kit an unwrapping profundity of isolation, a peace with which the elder and younger woman were in ill-accord; it was a relief to know that duty would not summon him out of his personal atmosphere to breathe theirs.