Gilbert met Ruby Gillis with a smile. He enjoyed her company, mostly, although sometimes she was a bit too presumptuous for him. She seemed to think walking together meant he was "dead gone" on her, in the phrasing of their childhood, and he was far from it. But Ruby was pretty enough, and entertaining, and she kept him from wishing things were different. If he hadn't learned by now that a certain slender red-haired girl wasn't worth his time, he ought to have.

Today, Ruby was prattling on about a new dress, or hat, or something of the kind. She was always getting new things, and Gilbert had little interest in the details of flounces and lace that seemed so dear to Ruby's heart. He wondered why she didn't walk more with the other girls and tell them of these things. Surely they would be more interested than he was.

"Of course, I'll need a black armband, as well," Ruby said, a brief frown crossing her face. She didn't allow the frown to stay for long; Ruby knew her own beauty, and the way merriness and laughter set it off, too well to allow any less cheerful emotion to mar her looks for any extended period of time.

"Why is that?" Gilbert asked, his curiosity piqued. He didn't know of any recent losses in the Gillis clan.

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't have heard." Ruby clung to his arm. "Now, Gilbert, do be nice. I know she isn't your favorite person, but it's a dreadful loss to her."

With a chill in his heart, he realized she must be talking about Anne. "What happened?" he asked hoarsely.

"Matthew Cuthbert; they say he just … fell over. And their bank failed, too." Ruby shook her head, her face unusually serious. Beneath the shallow exterior she liked to play up, she loved Anne as much as the rest of the girls did, Gilbert knew.

"What … what are they going to do?" he asked carefully, trying not to let her see how much the answer mattered. Anne was supposed to go to Redmond this year; she'd won the scholarship, and he had secretly been so proud of her, so happy that she was to have that. If the Cuthberts had lost their money, though, surely that dream was lost to her. He felt it as deeply as if it had been his own dream.

Ruby shrugged. "I guess Anne can't go to college. I don't know why she wanted to, really. She can teach somewhere; I heard White Sands is open. I'm sure they'd take her—she knows enough big words to share with the students."

"I … suppose they would," Gilbert said softly. "Say, Ruby, would you mind if I walked you home? I've got some … errands to run."

She blinked at him in surprise; usually their walks took longer than this. But she didn't love walking, preferring to remain indoors where her showy beauty could shine against the proper backdrop, so she didn't argue with him.

Leaving her at her front door with a distracted smile, Gilbert turned his steps toward the long way around, needing a good long ramble in the woods today to get his thoughts straight. Anne's sorrow shouldn't be his—they had nothing to do with one another. She was stubborn, cold, unforgiving. She had rebuffed every one of the many efforts he'd made to apologize, and still held against him one little prank pulled when he was an arrogant, thoughtless schoolboy. She wasn't worth his sympathy, much less the heartsick sorrow he felt on her behalf right now.

But all that aside, there was something about her, something that sparkled and sang. Something Gilbert had been drawn to from the very beginning, that made him want to be friends with her. Whatever it was in him that recognized that something in her mourned now, mourned the lost chance to go and help her through this crisis in her life, this heart-deep loss that he knew would change her forever. He wanted to be the shoulder she cried on, the friend she turned to, and he would never be.

He thought more of Anne than he did of Matthew Cuthbert, or of Marilla. Before Anne had come to Avonlea, the Cuthberts had been nothing more to him, and to most people, than a pair of elderly siblings who kept to themselves; they weren't anyone he had ever given much consideration to. He thought his father had known them better once, but that had been a long time ago, long before Gilbert was born.

It was Anne whose anguish touched Gilbert most, and he felt a despair that anything he might think to do would be no help. His presence would make things worse rather than better, he knew that. He considered other possibilities, other ways he could somehow ease her pain, at least a little. Flowers? A gift of some sort? She wouldn't appreciate them, not from him; they might make her angry, which was the last thing he wanted.

Then he thought of what Ruby had said, that now that she couldn't go to Redmond, Anne would be likely to teach somewhere. In truth, what else was there for her to do? It was late to be looking for a teaching spot, though. Most of them were already taken. Gilbert himself had agreed to take the Avonlea school.

But it occurred to him that he could go to White Sands just as easily … and he was sure they would take him. Anne would need to be closer to home, to care for Marilla in the days to come; the Cuthberts had been so close to one another that without Anne and without Matthew, Gilbert could only imagine what would become of the older lady, and he couldn't think it would be good.

Yes. He nodded decisively to himself. He would go tomorrow to the school board and withdraw his acceptance of the Avonlea school, and then to White Sands and apply there.

It was less than he wished he could do for her, but for such a small sacrifice on his part it would make such a difference in her life. Gilbert only wished Anne knew how much more he would have been willing to do, and once more he regretted that hasty joke, made before he knew her, that meant they hadn't been able to start off friends. If only he could go back to that day … but time didn't work that way, and neither did his heart, which had yearned to know her better ever since. He thought of her there at Green Gables, suffering, sorrowing, and would have given anything he could to be there to hold her hand through it.