Then, as the thought came over him that possibly Mrs. Meredith played
him false in some way, he groaned aloud, and the great sweat drops
fell upon the table where he leaned his head. But this could not be,
he reasoned. Lucy was mistaken. She had not heard aright. Somebody,
surely, was mistaken, or he had committed a fatal error.
"But I must abide by it," he said, lifting up his pallid face. "God
forbid the wrong I have done in asking Lucy to be my wife when my
heart belonged to Anna. God help me to forget the one and love the
other as I ought. She is a lovely little girl, trusting me so wholly
that I can make her happy, and I will; but Anna! oh, Anna!"
It was a despairing cry, such as a newly-engaged man should never have
sent after another than his affianced bride. Arthur thought so, too,
fighting back his first love with an iron will, and, after that first
hour of anguish, burying it so far from sight that he went that night
to Captain Humphreys and told of his engagement; then called upon his
bride-elect, trying so hard to be satisfied that, when, at a late
hour, he returned to the rectory, he was more than content; and, by
way of fortifying himself still further, wrote the letter which
Thornton Hastings read at Newport.
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