`` Does SHE care ? '' asked Anne . The moment the question crossed her lips she felt that she should not have asked it . Owen Ford answered it with overeager protest . `` No -- no , of course not . But I could make her care if she were free -- I know I could . '' `` She does care -- and he knows it , '' thought Anne . Aloud she said , sympathetically but decidedly : `` But she is not free , Mr. Ford . And the only thing you can do is to go away in silence and leave her to her own life . '' `` I know -- I know , '' groaned Owen . He sat down on the grassy bank and stared moodily into the amber water beneath him . `` I know there 's nothing to do -- nothing but to say conventionally , ` Good-bye , Mrs. Moore . Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer , ' just as I would have said it to the sonsy , bustling , keen-eyed housewife I expected her to be when I came . Then I 'll pay my board money like any honest boarder and go ! Oh , it 's very simple . No doubt -- no perplexity -- a straight road to the end of the world ! `` And I 'll walk it -- you need n't fear that I wo n't , Mrs. Blythe . But it would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares . '' Anne flinched with the pain of his voice . And there was so little she could say that would be adequate to the situation .
Blame was out of the XXXXX -- advice was not needed -- sympathy was mocked by the man 's stark agony .
Mrs. care kindness life lips nothing question silence situation summer