Anna Lombard, page 99 by Victoria Cross
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vulsion of feeling, a shock almost of loathing passed through me. I pushed her from me and sprung up.
"Anna, I can not believe it is you who are speaking. You must be mad or I am. Englishmen do not share their wives. It must be at an end, as you said."
And hardly knowing what I was doing, I walked from her to the door. But Anna had risen and followed me, and now stood between me and the cliicks.
"Wait! wait! give me time! Love like ours can not be done with or set aside in a few words. I will try I will try to give him up. Let me have time to think. This evening I will tell you. Do not throw me aside. I can not bear it." Her broken, passionate words, still more the agonized look upon her face, turned the terrible impulse of anger to an equally terrible grief. , .. _
"This evening? You will be at the Delanys' dance? I will see you there. Do not speak to me any more now. I can not stand it."
Then, catching again her grief-stricken and pathetic eyes, I drew her up silently to my heart and pressed her there. Taking up the ring from the table, I slipped if; over the delicate, white, trembling finger.
"All remains as it was outwardly," I said. "What has passed is forever buried between ourselves. I shall never throw you aside, my darling. It is for you to decide if you will belong to me entirely, or only as now."
Then, before she could answer, I passed through the chicks and into the hall.
I found my carriage waiting at the door, but sent it home, and left myself free to find my way back on foot. I felt as if the walking would help my shattered thoughts. It was the close of the afternoon, and, therefore, the loveliest part of the Indian day. I turned aside from the broad, red road, down which my carriage disappeared, and entered a winding lane that, in spite of many twists and vagaries, yet maintained a parallel direction with it and would lead me home in the end. It was narrow and grassy, being little trodden except by the bare feet of the natives; and the rose a