David Confesses his Love

"I know it, Anna, and you won't give me the right; but how dared that
cub Sanderson speak to you in that way?" He caught her hand, and
unconsciously wrung it till she cried out in pain. "Forgive me, dear,
I would not hurt you for the world; but that man's manner toward you
makes me wild."

She looked up at him from beneath her long, dark lashes; he thought her
eyes were like the glow of forest fires burning through brushwood. "We
will never think of him again, Mr. David. I assure you that I am no
more to Mr. Sanderson than he is to me, and that is--nothing."

"Thank you for those words, Anna. I cannot tell you how happy they
make me. But I do not understand you at all. Even a countryman like
me can see that you have never been used to our rough way of living;
you were never born to this kind of thing, and yet when that man
Sanderson looks at you or talks to you, there is always an undertone of
contempt in his look, his words."

She sank wearily into an armchair. It seemed to her that her limit of
endurance had been reached, but he, taking her silence for
acquiescence, lost no time in following up what he fondly hoped might
be an advantage. "I did not go to the Putnams to-night, Anna, because
you were not going, and there is no enjoyment for me when you are not
there."