At one o'clock Bessmer entered with luncheon. Evidently she had received orders to enter into no conversation with the prisoner; but she took the note, and promised to deliver it with her own hands. At two the door opened, and Miss Vanhorn came in.
The old woman's eye took in at a glance the closed trunks and the travelling dress. She had meant to try her niece, to punish her; but even then she could not believe that the girl would really throw away forever all the advantages she had placed within her grasp. She sat down, and after waiting a moment, closed her eyes. "Anne Douglas," she began, "daughter of my misguided niece Alida Clanssen, I have come for a final decision. Answer my questions. First, have you, or have you not, one hundred dollars in the world?"
"Have you, or have you not, three brothers and one sister wholly dependent upon you?"
"Is it just or honorable to leave them longer to the charity of a woman who is poor herself, and not even a relative?"
"Have I, or have I not, assisted you, offered also to continue the pension which makes them comfortable?"
"Then," said the old woman, still with her eyes closed, "why persist in this idiotic stubbornness? In offending me, are you not aware that you are offending the only person on earth who can assist you? I make no promises as to the future; but I am an old woman now, one to whom you could at least be dutiful. There--I want no fine words. Show your fineness by obeying my wishes."
"I will stay with _you_, grandaunt, willingly, gladly, gratefully, if you will take me away from this place."
"No conditions," said Miss Vanhorn. "Come here; kneel down in front of me, so that I can look at you. Will you stay with me _here_, if I yield everything concerning Mr. Dexter?" She held her firmly, with her small keen eyes searching her face.
Anne was silent. Like the panorama which is said to pass before the eyes of the drowning man, the days and hours at Caryl's as they would be, must be, unrolled themselves before her. But there only followed the same desperate realization of the impossibility of remaining; the misery, the jealousy; worse than all, the self-doubt. The misery, the jealousy, she could perhaps bear, deep as they were. But what appalled her was this new doubt of herself, this new knowledge, that, in spite of all her determination, she might, if tried, yield to this love which had taken possession of her unawares, yield to certain words which he might speak, to certain tones of his voice, and thus become even more faithless to Rast, to Helen, and to herself, than she already was. If he would go away--but she knew that he would not. No, _she_ must go. Consciousness came slowly back to her eyes, which had been meeting Miss Vanhorn's blankly.