“I have practised a gross fraud upon you about the tea,” said he, smiling; “but here is a chance for a few minutes alone with you—a chance I shall take whenever I can get it.” He would have taken her hand, but something in her face stopped him. She had protested and denied him the day before, when he told her of his love; but it had not stood materially in his way. Now, however, he saw in an instant there was something of great import that made a barrier between them.
“I wished very much to see you alone and soon; I came here to–day for that purpose,” she said. She spoke calmly, but Baskerville saw that it was with difficulty she restrained her agitation. “Yesterday,” she went on, “I told you what I feared about my father—“
“And I told you,” Baskerville interrupted, “that I would marry you if I could, no matter who or what your father is.”
“You were most generous. But you don’t know what I know about my father—I only found it out myself last night. I had an interview with him. There was something in a newspaper about his divorcing my mother.”
“If he does and you will marry me, I shall engage to treat your mother with the same respect and attention I should my own. Mrs. Clavering is one of the best of women, and I have the greatest regard for her.”
Anne raised to him a glorified, grateful face. The poor, despised mother for whom she had fought and was still fighting, the helpless, unfortunate woman who seemed to be in everybody’s way except in hers—the offer of kindness and consideration went to Anne Clavering’s heart. She wished to say something in the way of thanks to Baskerville, but instead she burst into a sudden passion of tears. Baskerville, with a lover’s ardor, would have comforted her upon his breast, but she kept him at a distance.
“No, no!” she pleaded, weeping, “hear me out—let me tell you all.” Baskerville, although at her side, did not perforce so much as touch her hand. Anne continued, strangely recovering her calmness as she proceeded: “I can’t repeat all my father said—I have neither the strength nor the time now; but he told me there was an—an invalidity about his marriage to my mother. She, poor soul, knew nothing of it, for—for our sakes, his children. But it was no marriage. And last night he told me plainly that if I persuaded my mother to resist the divorce, he can prove that she never was—that we are—” She stopped. Her tears had ceased to flow, her face was deathly pale; a heart–breaking composure had taken the place of her emotion.