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Gilbert stepped carefully over Anne’s cat where it lazed in the dregs of sunset. The air and grass were wet with early-spring dew. In his hands were a bunch of pale mayflowers, clenched into a bouquet between nervous fingers.
Anne laid on a boulder with her red hair trailing off one end of it and the hem of a blue muslin skirt off the other. She stared into the sky as she often did, one hand in the air tracing the bough looming above her.
She frowned as he came near, and he tried not to let it affect his nerve, as he’d spent quite enough time gathering it already. He hadn’t seen her unaccompanied for a few weeks. Even the cat had wandered away.
Gilbert sat beside her and offered the flowers to her.
"Don't these remind you of home and our old school day 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.
Gilbert stayed silent during her pause.
"Well, 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, glancing at the house a few dozen yards away. "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. She really was. He’d heard stories of Idlewild told at parties, snippets of her and Diana’s childhood.
"Let us go and see if we can find some more," suggested Anne eagerly, desperately. "I'll call Phil and -- "
"Never mind Phil and the violets just now, Anne," said Gilbert quietly, taking her hand in a clasp as he’d wanted to for—never mind how long. "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?" Gilbert glided a thumb along the back of her freckled hand.
"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 painful pause, during which Anne had not looked up.
"Not -- not in that way. I do care a great deal for you as a friend. But I don't love you, Gilbert."
It was at this moment that Gilbert’s heart broke because of Anne Shirley for the thousandth time.
"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 surely white to the lips but he stared at grey-green eyes, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time he could. Anne shuddered and looked away. There was nothing romantic about this. Could he ever forget Anne’s face? No, he decided. He wouldn’t, even if he could, he didn’t want to. But still, he questioned—
"Is there anybody else?" he asked at last in a low voice.
"No -- no," said Anne firmly. "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."
Gilbert gave a bitter little laugh.
"Friends! Your friendship can't satisfy me, Anne. I want your love -- and you tell me I can never have that."
"I'm sorry. Forgive me, Gilbert," was all Anne said. Why was this the one moment she didn’t talk his ears off, when this was the time he wanted her to?
Gilbert released her hand gently.
"There isn't anything to forgive. There have been times when I thought you did care. I've deceived myself, that's all. Goodbye, Anne."
He pushed himself up and off the boulder, smoothing his hair as he walked slowly and calmly away, willing the anguish to wait until he could feel it safely in his room.