“Oh, yes, I forgot about your being in training for the game, but you did so magnificently, you ought not to mind it.  Why, you made Harvard win the game.  We were all so proud of you.”

“All!  I don’t care about ‘all.’  Were you proud of me?”

“Of course I was,” she answered with the loveliest blush.

“Then it is amply repaid.”

“Let me give you another cup of tea.”

“No, thanks, I don’t care about any more, but if you will let me talk to you about something—­ See here, Anna.  Yes, I mean Anna.  What nonsense for us to attempt to keep up the Miss Moore and Mr. Sanderson business.  I used to scoff at love at first sight and say it was all the idle fancy of the poets.  Then I met you and remained to pray.  You’ve turned my world topsy-turvy.  I can’t think without you, and yet it would be folly to tell this to my Governor, and ask his consent to our marriage.  He wants me to finish college, take the usual trip around the world and then go into the firm.  Besides, he wants me to eventually marry a cousin of mine—­a girl with a lot of money and with about as much heart as would fit on the end of a pin.”

She had followed this speech with almost painful attention.  She bit her lips till they were but a compressed line of coral.  At last she found words to say: 

“We must not talk of these things, Mr. Sanderson.  I have to go back and care for my mother.  She is an invalid and needs all my attention.  Bedsides, we are poor; desperately poor.  I am here in your world, only through the kindness of my cousin, Mrs. Tremont.”

“It was your world till a year ago, Anna.  I know all about your father’s failure, and how nobly you have done your part since then, and it kills me to think of you, who ought to have everything, spending your life—­your youth—­in that stupid little Waltham, doing the work of a housemaid.”

“I am very glad to do my part,” she answered him bravely, but her eyes were full of unshed tears.

“Anna, dearest, listen to me.”  He crossed over to where she sat and took her hand.  “Can’t you have a little faith in me and do what I am going to ask you?  There is the situation exactly.  My father won’t consent to our marriage, so there is no use trying to persuade him.  And here you are—­a little girl who needs some one to take care of you and help you take care of your mother, give her all the things that mean so much to an invalid.  Now, all this can be done, darling, if you will only have faith in me.  Marry me now secretly, before you go back to Waltham.  No one need know.  And then the governor can be talked around in time.  My allowance will be ample to give you and your mother all you need.  Can’t you see, darling?”

The color faded from her cheeks.  She looked at him with eyes as startled as a surprised fawn.

“O, Lennox, I would be afraid to do that.”

“You would not be afraid, Anna, if you loved me.”