A/N: Wow! Response to chapter one was pretty amazing, even if there were a few curse words and complaints about my angst saturation levels at the moment. I appreciate the support and everyone's feedback.

Bates did not speak to her for three days.

But neither did Anna seek him out. Rather, she kept to the shadows downstairs, avoiding his gaze as much as his presence. She skipped meals on the pretense of having to finish up her work, sometimes grabbing a bite to eat later but usually not. The few occasions when Anna did see her husband, the misery in his eyes was too much for her to bear for very long.

Finally, one morning, he stopped her in the hallway as she passed, her head down and intent upon whatever mission she'd just created in her mind.

"Anna," he said softly, halting her in her tracks as effectively as if he'd grabbed her arm.

Her breath caught in her throat at how gentle his voice sounded in the quiet hallway, how contrite. "Yes?"

"Can we... can we go somewhere and talk? Please?" Almost imperceptibly, Anna nodded. "Tonight after dinner, out in the courtyard?" he suggested.

She nodded again, this time a bit more firmly.

Anna spent the rest of the afternoon and evening preparing herself for that meeting. Physically, she focused on her work but mentally she thought of nothing but what she suspected was about to transpire.

He was going to leave her, perhaps even divorce her. She'd admitted to the crime of adultery and he'd once told her himself that adultery was enough for a man to divorce his wife. But as much as she could not stand the thought of losing him, she could not blame him. John had every right to set her aside. Part of her wished he would, if for his own sake.

He deserved so much better.

Bates waited for her in the courtyard. The weather was crisp and the cold managed to invade even his suit coat. But Anna gave no notice of the temperature as she stepped outside in only her simple black lady's maid's dress. He wanted to tell her to grab her coat, that it was too cold to be out in so little, but he stopped himself. He hadn't the right to tell her to do anything.

She stopped a handful of feet away from him, just out of his arm's reach. Her eyes were focused on the ground at her feet, and her expression betrayed so much sadness and misery that he could have wept from it.

"You wanted to talk," she finally ventured.

While Bates actually had a great deal to say, he first wanted to hear from her.

"The other night, you said you still love me," he stated, swallowing roughly as he thought of the pain from that moment.

Anna looked up at his comment. "Yes, I do," she affirmed simply.

He could see her eyes glimmering with the beginnings of tears. She forcefully blinked them back.

"I have trouble believing that in light of..." He sighed. "In light of..."

Unable to say the words, he let the implication stand. Just speaking the words aloud made the entire situation more real, and he wanted nothing more than for it to fade out of existence.

"In light of my unfaithfulness," Anna completed his sentence.

"Yes."

"I expect you'd have trouble believing anything I have to say," she ventured. "And rightfully so. But it is the truth."

She met his eyes, and he could see in them a true reflection of the woman he'd married. For just a moment, her misery and timidity were gone and she faced him like the woman of conviction he'd always known her to be.

"Then I have something I want to say," he told her.

Anna nodded, and he noticed her shoulders slump in disappointment as though she were expecting him to deliver some horrible pronouncement. Not for the first time, he had trouble believing she could be guilty of the crime to which she'd already confessed.

"Vera was unfaithful to me throughout our marriage," Bates observed softly. "It started right at the beginning. At first, I hated it. I raged at her and demanded that she stop. But then after I was injured at war, I stopped caring. At that time, little mattered to me, and her least of all. She never loved me, not really. So why should it matter if she was unfaithful?"

He watched Anna for her reaction, and he catalogued her response. She shivered slightly and looked at him with sympathetic eyes, just as she always had when he shared with her some snippet from his awful past. But there was more than just pity about her. She looked at him with love, with genuine love.

"It still must have hurt," Anna said quietly. His arms ached to surround her, to give and draw comfort. But he remembered how she'd startled away from him the last time he tried to touch her.

"It would have hurt more if I'd thought she really did love me."

She flinched at his comment, visibly flinched as if he'd struck her. But she stood there, still and rooted, her small form obviously braced and waiting to endure whatever else he threw at her.

As Bates considered what else he needed her to know, she suddenly filled the silence. "I know there is nothing I can say to you to make this better. I only wish there was something I could do to ease the pain I've caused."

He sighed, the breath rattling through is body as though through a cold and empty room. "Tell me what I did to drive you away."

Anna shook her head, steadfast. "You did nothing. I am solely to blame."

But he could not fathom what she was saying. Anna would never do such a thing, not unless he'd driven her to it. She was as he'd told Lord Grantham - without fault. Surely the fault lay with him. Surely he'd failed her in some manner for her to turn to another man. They could not have gone from their happy, loving marriage to this hell in so short a time without something to cause it.

"I know there is something you aren't telling me."

Anna shook her head just a little too quickly. "There isn't-"

"I know you," he went on, staring at the petite woman in front of him. "There's something you are keeping secret."

Something had been eating at her for weeks, and while he thought he had it pegged as guilt over her adultery, now... Bates sensed maybe it was something else. Something he'd done, perhaps?

But a moment later, those thoughts were forgotten as Anna offered, "I'll leave Downton. I'll go far away so you don't have to see me."

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

She looked away, unable to keep her eyes on him. "You've done nothing wrong and shouldn't have to give up your position here." They both knew he would have trouble finding comparable work anywhere else. Few employers would be as forgiving of his limp as Lord Grantham and he'd be left to find other work paying less. "I won't torture you further if my presence is painful. If we must separate, it should be me that goes."

The very thought of being separated from her hurt even worse than her betrayal. Bates tried to imagine living each day without her there by his side, and all he could picture was darkness, empty and meaningless.

"That's just the problem," he told her. "I can't bear the thought of not seeing you again. I can't even a fathom a life without you. I'm so in love with you, Anna, I just don't..."

He broke off with a terminal sigh, too embarrassed to look at her. He did not want to beg. But he would if necessary. Quietly, he asked, "Is there any way we could start over?"

Anna's breath caught in her throat at his open question.

"I love you, Anna," he went on speaking. "And I cannot accept that you were the only one at fault in this. I must have done something to drive you away..."

Her stomach twisted violently at him believing such nonsense. The doubt in his voice felt like a jagged edge on her consciousness, a reminder of the vows they'd made to each other.

"I'll tell you again, you are not to blame," Anna said forcefully, suddenly unable to keep the tears from appearing in her eyes. "I don't know why you persist in this. You've done nothing wrong. I am the guilty party, not you."

"Anna..." Bates shook his head, still disbelieving. "I can't accept that."

"You can't accept that I would do something so horrible?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice stead and certain. "This is a terrible sin, one of the worst I can even conceive of committing. And I can't stand myself for how much pain I've caused you. But I'm not a perfect person. I make mistakes like anyone else."

Her tears burst through and she wiped at them angrily. Pressing on, she said, "If you still love me and can bear to have me with you... If you truly want to start again, then I accept, gratefully. But I will not pretend that you have done anything to deserve how I've treated you."

He watched her silently for a moment, taking in what she'd said. Finally, he responded, "I do want you with me. I want our marriage to work. But I also need to know why this happened. I want to know who he is and why you turned to him."

Unable to meet his gaze, Anna looked away. "He was no one," she said quietly. "And I didn't have a reason."

"Did he force you?"

Her heart beat wildly in her chest even as she reasoned that he was grasping blindly for answers. She had to do this, she reminded herself. It was for him, for her husband. Everything was for him, to keep him safe from the law and away from prison and the hangman's noose. She could do this.

For the first time since she'd admitted her unfaithfulness, Anna told him an outright lie.

"No, he didn't force me. I was willing." She shuddered slightly as she added, "I was so stupid."

"Tell me his name."

His voice was hard and unyielding, and it frightened her.

Anna shook her head. "It won't help you to understand it any better," she said.

"I want to know anyway."

Steadfastly, she refused to answer.

"Was it Green?" Bates demanded, his voice growing sharp with emotion.

"Who?" she asked dumbly.

"Mister Green. Lord Gillingham's valet."

Anna must have reacted somehow because his eyes were instantly boring into her.

"It was him, wasn't it?" he growled, instinctively taking a step towards her. "He seduced you."

She held her ground, taking a moment to wipe the moisture from her cheeks once more as she ignored the gut-wrenching fear that seemed to surround her like a shroud.

"He teased you and flirted with you from the moment he came into this house," Bates went on, growing more angry.

"And I let him," Anna answered regretfully. "I let him because I was flattered by the attention, and I enjoyed seeing you jealous. But I was wrong. I let things get out of control and now..."

While she had not outright admitted that Green was the man, there were no other likely figures. And if she tried to defend the valet to her husband, he would either hear the disgust in her voice or suspect that she was not sorry for the crime to which she'd confessed.

Anna forced herself to look at him again, to let him see the regret in her eyes that was so deep it reached down into her soul. "Now I've made myself unworthy of you and your love. I understand if you can't get past it. Truly, I do."

Losing him would be like cutting out her heart with a knife and trying to live with it outside her body. But if it kept her husband safe...

Shaking his head, Bates commented, "I can't help but forgive you. And I can't help but feel like you hold no blame in this, no matter what you say."

His rough, emotion-filled voice pulled at her. When she'd first allowed this lie to perpetuate, she never thought he'd find fault with himself, not in this. She expected rage from him at her betrayal, not this aching belief that he'd somehow failed her.

"You only say that because you're a good and honorable person," Anna told him strongly. "Your forgiveness is a testament to your worth, not mine. I don't deserve you as my husband."

He stood there waiting for her to say more, but Anna had spoken her peace. Whatever he decided for their future, she would have to accept. And she knew it would be a process, that what she'd done to him would continue to do damage over time, bringing him back again and again to this point of hurt and doubt. She needed to be patient with him, just as he'd been these past weeks with her.

Finally, Bates asked her in a low, uncertain voice, "Will you move back into the cottage?"

TBC