She leaned on her arm, still looking up at him. “Yes; I’ve been unhappy; horribly unhappy. Beyond anything you can imagine. Beyond anything you’ve ever guessed.” This did not seem to surprise him. He continued to return her gaze with the same tranquil eyes. “But I rather think I _have_ guessed,” he said. Something in his voice seemed to tell her that after all she had not been alone in her struggle; it was as if he had turned a key in the most secret ward of her heart. Oh, if he had really guessed--if she were to be suddenly lifted beyond that miserable moment of avowal into a quiet heaven of understanding and compassion! “You have guessed--you’ve understood?” Yes; his face was still unperturbed, his eyes were indulgent. The tears rushed to her own; she wanted to sit down and cry her heart out. Instead, she got to her feet and went to him with outstretched hands. She must thank him; she would find the words now; she would be able to tell him what that perfect trust was to her, or at least what it would be when the present was far enough away for anything on earth to help her. “Oh, Fred--you knew all the while? You saw I tried to the utmost, you saw I couldn’t do anything to stop it?” He had her hands in his, and was holding them against his breast. “Stop it--the marriage? Is that what’s troubling you?” He was speaking now as if to a frightened disconsolate child. “Of course you couldn’t stop it. I know how you must have loathed it; all you must have suffered. But Anne’s happiness had to come first.” He did understand, then; did pity her! She let herself lie in his hold. The relief of avowal was too exquisite, now that all peril of explanation was over and she could just yield herself up to his pity. But though he held her she no longer saw him; all her attention was centred on her own torturing problem. She thought of him only as of some one kinder and more understanding than any one else, and her heart overflowed. “But wasn’t it just cowardice on my part? Wasn’t it wicked of me not to dare to tell her?” “Of course it wasn’t wicked. What good would it have done? It’s hard that she made the choice she did; but a girl with a will like Anne’s has to take her chance. I always felt you’d end by seeing it. And you will, when you’re less tired and overwrought. Only trust me to look after you,” he said. Her tears rose and began to run down. She would have liked to go on listening without having to attend to what he said. But again she felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and she tried to smile back at him. “I do trust you ... you do help me. You can’t tell the agony of the secret....” She hardly knew what she was saying. “It needn’t be a secret now. Doesn’t that help?” “Your knowing, and not loathing me? Oh, _that_--.” She gave a faint laugh. “You’re the only one of them all who’s not afraid of me.” “Afraid of you?”