Gilbert sat down beside her on the boulder and held out his Mayflowers.

“Don’t these remind you of home and our old schoolday picnics, Anne?”

Anne took them and buried her face in them.

“I’m in Mr. Silas Sloane’s barrens this very minute,” she said rapturously.

“I suppose you will be there in reality in a few days?”

“No, not for a fortnight.  I’m going to visit with Phil in Bolingbroke before I go home.  You’ll be in Avonlea before I will.”

“No, I shall not be in Avonlea at all this summer, Anne.  I’ve been offered a job in the Daily News office and I’m going to take it.”

“Oh,” said Anne vaguely.  She wondered what a whole Avonlea summer would be like without Gilbert.  Somehow she did not like the prospect.  “Well,” she concluded flatly, “it is a good thing for you, of course.”

“Yes, I’ve been hoping I would get it.  It will help me out next year.”

“You mustn’t work too hard,” said Anne, without any very clear idea of what she was saying.  She wished desperately that Phil would come out.  “You’ve studied very constantly this winter.  Isn’t this a delightful evening?  Do you know, I found a cluster of white violets under that old twisted tree over there today?  I felt as if I had discovered a gold mine.”

“You are always discovering gold mines,” said Gilbert—­also absently.

“Let us go and see if we can find some more,” suggested Anne eagerly.  “I’ll call Phil and—­”

“Never mind Phil and the violets just now, Anne,” said Gilbert quietly, taking her hand in a clasp from which she could not free it.  “There is something I want to say to you.”

“Oh, don’t say it,” cried Anne, pleadingly.  “Don’t—­please, Gilbert.”

“I must.  Things can’t go on like this any longer.  Anne, I love you.  You know I do.  I—­I can’t tell you how much.  Will you promise me that some day you’ll be my wife?”

“I—­I can’t,” said Anne miserably.  “Oh, Gilbert—­you—­you’ve spoiled everything.”

“Don’t you care for me at all?” Gilbert asked after a very dreadful pause, during which Anne had not dared to look up.

“Not—­not in that way.  I do care a great deal for you as a friend.  But I don’t love you, Gilbert.”

“But can’t you give me some hope that you will—­yet?”

“No, I can’t,” exclaimed Anne desperately.  “I never, never can love you—­in that way—­Gilbert.  You must never speak of this to me again.”

There was another pause—­so long and so dreadful that Anne was driven at last to look up.  Gilbert’s face was white to the lips.  And his eyes—­but Anne shuddered and looked away.  There was nothing romantic about this.  Must proposals be either grotesque or—­horrible?  Could she ever forget Gilbert’s face?

“Is there anybody else?” he asked at last in a low voice.

“No—­no,” said Anne eagerly.  “I don’t care for any one like that—­and I like you better than anybody else in the world, Gilbert.  And we must—­we must go on being friends, Gilbert.”