Anne,
would you accept my love and consent to marry me?
I can't.
I can't marry you.
I can't!
Why can't you?
Because—I don't care enough for you.
So you've just been amusing yourself?
No, no, I haven't.
I did think I cared. Truly I did.
But I know now I don't.
You have ruined my life.
Forgive me.
You can give me no hope?
You are the only woman I can ever love.
I thank you for your friendship, at least.
Goodbye.
Chapter 24
It's the Birthday of Our Happiness
How did it go?
Wait. Wait till you hear what I have to say.
Roy asked me to marry him.
And I refused.
Y-You refused him?
Oh, Phil, don't scold me. You don't understand.
I certainly don't understand.
You've encouraged Roy in every way all this time,
and now you tell me you've refused him.
Then you've just been flirting scandalously with him.
I couldn't have believed it of you.
I didn't! You don't understand!
Then, why?
Oh, I can't explain it to you any more than I could to him.
Well, I suppose there is no use in saying anything to you.
No, there is no need. I've spoiled everything.
Roy despises me, and you despise me,
and I despise myself.
You poor darling.
Forgive me, Anne.
Just come here and let me comfort you.
I've no right to scold you.
Oh, why must things be so complicated and mixed up in real life?
Roy is feeling terribly just now.
I have to listen to his outpourings every day.
But he'll get over it.
He always does.
He's had to give up on love twice before.
And he got back on his feet.
You are the only woman I can ever love.
So I don't think you need worry.
I did want you for a sister, but this won't spoil our friendship, will it?
No, indeed not, Dorothy.
Oh, good! I'll write to you.
Remind me. Your family home is...
In Avonlea on Prince Edward Island.
It's called Green Gables.
Anne! You're home.
What has happened to the old Snow Queen, Marilla?
Oh, it was rotten at the core.
It blew down in the big gale we had in March.
That tree was there ever since Matthew and I were young.
I'll never look from the porch gable window again without a sense of loss.
Well, tell me all the Avonlea news.
There isn't much news except what we've wrote you.
Rachel, have you told Anne the news about Jane?
What's happened to Jane?
Jane Andrews is going to be married to a Winnipeg millionaire.
Dear old Jane! I'm so glad.
She deserves the good things of life.
Oh, Jane's a nice enough girl.
But she isn't in the millionaire class.
Her engagement ring is a diamond cluster so big
that it looks like a plaster on Jane's fat paw.
I think you're being unkind.
Am I, now?
Rachel minds that you're not spoken for by anyone yet.
My just desserts. I've ruined every chance I had.
You mean that fellow Roy?
Yes. I'm going to face the punishment for what I've done.
You tormenting yourself won't do anybody any good.
What has Gilbert Blythe been doing to himself at college?
I saw him when he came home last week,
and he is so pale and thin I hardly knew him.
He studied very hard last winter.
He's going to start the medical course at Redmond,
so I think he's rather run down.
You know he took the Cooper Prize.
It hasn't been taken for five years!
And you took Highest Honors in English.
Jane Andrews could never have managed that.
Mrs. Lynde!
How is Diana?
It is lonely coming home without her here to welcome me.
Diana has something else to think of just now.
You must have heard.
Why don't you go and see her yourself?
My! Isn't he delightful!
Look! Anne's come home.
He looks just like Fred!
Before he came, I wanted a girl, so that I could call her Anne.
But now that little Fred is here, I wouldn't exchange him for a million girls.
"Every little baby is the sweetest and the best."
If little Anne had come, you'd have felt just the same about her.
Yes, Mrs. Allan, you're exactly right.
I can hardly wait till he gets old enough to talk.
I just long to hear him say "mother" with a smile.
...in sickness and in health...
Mother thinks it's terrible.
...in good times and in bad...
She thinks Jo might at least take a church in a decent place.
But the wilderness of the Patterson slums
will blossom like the rose for me if Jo is there.
Oh, Anne,
I'm so happy my heart aches with it.
I'm surrounded by happiness, Matthew.
Yes, of course, Matthew.
I'm happy, too.
"I've tried the world—it wears no more"
"The colouring of romance it wore."
See here, Davy. Not a word to Anne about—
I'm back!
Oh, Anne. You're home.
It's good to see you again.
Come in.
Welcome home, Anne.
I see you're drenched.
How was the wedding?
Oh, Phil was radiant.
Everyone was so nice, I stayed longer than I meant to.
"East, west, home's best."
Davy, have you been growing again lately?
Yeah. I've growed a whole inch since you left.
I'm as tall as Milty Boulter now.
Say, Anne, did you know that Gilbert Blythe is dying?
Davy!
Gilbert is... what?
Like I said, he's dying.
Davy!
Anne, don't look like that— don't look like that!
We didn't mean to tell you so suddenly.
Is it true?
Gilbert is very ill.
He took down with typhoid fever just after you left for Bolingbroke.
The doctor said he'd been terribly run down.
But while there's life, there's hope.
Mr. Harrison said they had no hope of him.
Davy!
Well he did!
Gilbert is dying.
Gilbert is...
If Gilbert goes away from me, I cannot live, either.
Yes, I know now.
I... I...
You're not...
who I want.
You've always loved Gilbert, haven't you?
Since you were children.
It's too late now.
If you hadn't been so foolish, you would have the right to go to him now.
You could have had the bitter solace
of being with him at the last.
But Gilbert will leave this life never knowing that you loved him.
Sad, despondent, thinking you never cared.
No!
No! No!
I love him!
I love... I love Gilbert!
I do love him! I do!
So please...
don't take him from me.
Gilbert will leave this life never knowing that you loved him.
Without Gilbert...
nothing is of any value.
Excuse me...
Excuse...
I beg your pardon!
Don't you work for George Fletcher, who lives next door to the Blythes?
That I do.
Did you come from George Fletcher's this morning?
Sure!
Mr. Fletcher hired another boy to help with the work.
He gets to Bright River on the first train.
I'm going through the woods for a shortcut.
Th-Then...
Did you hear how Gilbert Blythe was this morning?
Gilbert?
He's better.
The worst is behind him.
The doctor says he'll be all right any day now.
Well, I must hurry.
Oh, thank goodness.
I...
I can't thank you enough!
"Weeping may endure for a night"
"but joy cometh in the morning."
Hello, Anne.
Gilbert!
How do you feel?
Much better, thanks to you.
I've come to ask you to go for one of our rambles.
Do you remember the old apple tree we went to see before we left for college?
Yes, of course.
But have you forgotten today is Jane's wedding?
I've got to do something to this dress.
Well, can you go tomorrow afternoon, then?
Yes, I think so.
I'll never forgive Jane for not inviting me to her wedding.
You really can't blame her when you think of all her relations.
The house can hardly hold them all.
Is it true she'll wear so many diamonds
that you can't tell where the diamonds end and Jane begins?
I'll tell you once I've seen her.
Good.
Well, I'll be up tomorrow.
Hope you'll have a nice time tonight.
Thank you.
Gilbert!
Let's go for that ramble now, after all.
What about your dress?
I'll manage it somehow.
Today is too lovely to waste not walking with you.
This moment will never come again.
My!
It's all in bloom!
Yes. I can hardly wait for the fruit come fall.
True.
I feel as though old dreams might return in the midst of all this beauty.
Have you any unfulfilled dreams, Anne?
Of course. Everybody has.
None of us could never fulfill all of our dreams.
And we would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about.
I have a dream.
Although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true,
I persist in dreaming it.
I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it,
a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends,
and...
and you.
I asked you a question over two years ago.
I...
I can't.
If I ask it again today,
will you give me a different answer?
B-But what about Christine?
I thought you loved Christine Stuart.
Christine was engaged to somebody in her hometown.
I knew her brother, and he asked me to look after her for a bit.
I knew college gossip credited us with being in love with each other,
but I didn't care after you told me you could never love me.
And Christine trusted me, anyway.
Anne, there never could be anybody else for me but you.
I've loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.
I don't see how you could keep on loving me when I was such a little fool.
Well, I tried to stop, especially after Gardner came around.
I felt sure there was no chance for me then.
But I couldn't.
Then the day my fever broke, I got a letter from Phil Gordon—Phil Blake, rather.
Phil wrote to you?
Yes.
She told me there was really nothing between you and Roy
and advised me to "try again."
Well, the doctor was amazed at my rapid recovery after that.
Anne?
I can never forget the night I thought you were dying.
Oh, I knew—I knew then—
and I thought it was too late.
But it wasn't for either of us, Anne.
No.
It's the birthday of our happiness.
I've always loved apple blossoms,
and now they will be dearer than ever.
But I'll have to ask you to wait a long time.
It will be three years before I'll finish my medical course.
And even then there will be no diamond sunbursts and marble halls.
I just want you, Gilbert.
Sunbursts and marble halls may be all very well,
but there is more "scope for imagination" without them.
And as for the waiting, that doesn't matter.
We'll just be happy, waiting and working for each other—and dreaming.
Oh, dreams will be very sweet now.
Matthew, we're going to be married.
We took the long way getting here,
but I promise I'll make her happy.
Thank you, Matthew.
I'm so glad I'm your daughter.
Gracious Heavenly Father,
thank you so much for my Green Gables,
for bringing me here to wonderful Green Gables.
Thank you!
Yours respectfully, Anne Shirley.