She felt his gaze on her . `` Can you ever forgive me , Gilbert ? '' she said humbly . `` I do n't know that there is much to forgive , '' he answered . `` I have some explanations to make too and , since we 're at it , we might as well get them all over and have done with them . Two years ago I did honestly think I was in love with Anna -- at least when I was round where she was . She had a taking way with her . But , somehow , even then , when I was n't with her she seemed to kind of grow dim and not count for so awful much after all . I used to wish she was more like you -- quieter , you know , and not so sparkling . When I parted from her that last night before I went west , I did feel very bad , and she seemed very dear to me , but it was six weeks from that before her -- your -- letter came , and in that time she seemed to have faded out of my thoughts . Honestly , I was n't thinking much about her at all . Then came the letter -- and it was a splendid one , too . I had never thought that Anna could write a letter like that , and I was as pleased as Punch about it . The letters kept coming , and I kept on looking for them more and more all the time . I fell in love all over again -- with the writer of those letters . I thought it was Anna , but since you wrote the letters , it must have been with you , Alma . I thought it was because she was growing more womanly that she could write such letters . That was why I came home . I wanted to get acquainted all over again , before she grew beyond me altogether -- I wanted to find the real Anna the letters showed me . I -- I -- did n't expect this .
But I do n't care if Anna is married , so long XXXXX the girl who wrote those letters is n't .
as at because before from in on over since that