“Very good,” she answered, “and so you can tell it to me.  And now, that I think of it, you can tell me, at the same time, why you wanted to find my cousin Junius.  You refused once to tell me that, you know.”

“I remember,” said Lawrence.  “And if you have the least feeling about it I will relate the whole affair, from beginning to end.”

“That, perhaps, will be the best thing to do, after all,” said Annie.  “And suppose we take a walk over the fields, and then you can tell it without being interrupted.”

But Lawrence did not feel that his ankle would allow him to accept this invitation, for it had hurt him a good deal since his walk to Aunt Patsy’s cabin.  He said so to Annie, and excited in her the deepest feelings of commiseration.

“You must take no more walks of any length,” she exclaimed, “until you are quite, quite well!  It was my fault that you took that tramp to Aunt Patsy’s.  I ought to have known better.  But then,” she said, looking up at him, “you were not under my charge.  I shall take very good care of you now.”

“For my part,” he said, “I am glad I have this little relapse, for now I can stay here longer.”

“I am very, very sorry for the relapse,” said she, “but awfully glad for the stay.  And you mustn’t stand another minute.  Let us go and sit in the arbor.  The sun is shining straight into it, and that will make it all the more comfortable, while you are telling me about those things.”

They sat down in the arbor, and Lawrence told Annie the whole history of his affair with Miss March, from the beginning to the end; that is if the end had been reached; although he intimated to her no doubt upon this point.  This avowal he had never expected to make.  In fact he had never contemplated its possibility.  But now he felt a certain satisfaction in telling it.  Every item, as it was related, seemed thrown aside forever.  “And now then, my dear Annie,” he said, when he had finished, “what do you think of all that?”

“Well,” she said, “in the first place, I am still more of the opinion than I was before, that you never were really in love with her.  You did entirely too much planning, and investigating, and calculating; and when, at last, you did come to the conclusion to propose to her, you did not do it so much of your own accord, as because you found that another man would be likely to get her, if you did not make a pretty quick move yourself.  And as to that acceptance, I don’t think anything of it at all.  I believe she was very angry at Junius because he consented to bring your messages, when he ought to have been his own messenger, and that she gave him that answer just to rack his soul with agony.  I don’t believe she ever dreamed that he would take it to you.  And, to tell the simple truth, I believe, from what I saw of her that morning, that she was thinking very little of you, and a great deal of him.  To be sure, she was fiery angry with him, but it is better to be that way with a lover, than to pay no attention to him at all.”