"I cannot go any farther until I rest," she said, sinking down,
exhausted, upon a large flat rock beneath a walnut tree.
Touched with pity at the sight of the heated face, from which the
sweat was dripping, Anna too sat down beside her, and, laying her
curly head in her lap, smoothed the golden hair, hating herself
cordially, as Lucy said: "You've walked so fast I could not keep up. You do not know, perhaps,
how weak I am, and how little it takes to tire me. They say my heart
is diseased, and an unusual excitement might kill me."
"No, oh, no!" Anna answered with a shudder, as she thought of what
might have been the result of her rashness, and then she smoothed the
wet hair, which, dried by the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in
golden masses, which her fingers softly threaded.
"I did not know until that time in Venice, when Arthur talked to me
so good, trying to make me feel that it was not hard to die, even if I
was so young and the world so full of beauty," Lucy went on, her voice
sounding very low and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling
with the rapid beating of her heart. "When he was talking to me I
could almost be willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts
and fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better
with Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is
one reason why you are so good."
"No, no, I am not good," and Anna's hands pressed hard upon the
girlish head lying in her lap. "I am wicked beyond what you can guess.
I led you this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth, though
longer, road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you."
"To worry me. Why should you wish to do that?" and, lifting up her
head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the conscience-stricken Anna, who
could not confess to the jealousy, but who, in all other respects,
answered truthfully, "I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time,
and I wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the poor as
you seemed to think; but I am sorry, oh, so sorry, and you'll forgive
me, won't you?"
A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid
against her own, as Lucy said, "Of course, I'll forgive you, though I
do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease
me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your
voice and saw you in the choir. You don't dislike me, do you?"