Their arms slackened; they came apart, drawing their hands slowly, reluctantly, down from each other's shoulders.

They sat down, she on her couch and he in Colin's chair.

"Is Colin coming?" she said.

"No, he isn't."

"Well—the lamb's better."

"I never told him about the lamb. I didn't want him to come."

"Is he all right?"

"I left him playing."

The darkness had gone from her brain and the tumult from her senses. She felt nothing but her heart straining towards him in an immense tenderness that was half pity.

"Are you thinking about Colin?" he said.

"No. I'm not thinking about anything but you... Now you know why I was happy looking after Colin. Why I was happy working on the land. Because he was your brother. Because it was your land. Because there wasn't anything else I could do for you."

"And I've done nothing for you. I've only hurt you horribly. I've brought you nothing but trouble and danger."

"I don't care."

"No, but think. Anne darling, this is going to be a very risky business. Are you sure you can go through with it? Are you sure you're not afraid?"

"I've never been much afraid of anything."

"I ought to be afraid for you."

"Don't. Don't be afraid. The more dangerous it is the better I shall like it."

"I don't know. It was bad enough in all conscience for you and Colin. It'll be worse for us if we're found out. Of course we shan't be found out, but there's always a risk. And it would be worse for you than for me, Anne."

"I don't care. I want it to be. Besides, it won't. It'll be far worse for you because of Maisie. That's the only thing that makes it wrong."

"Don't think about that, darling."

"I don't. If it's wrong, it's wrong. I don't care how wrong it is if it makes you happy. And if God's going to punish either of us I hope it'll be me."

"God? The God doesn't exist who could punish you."

"I don't care if he does punish me so long as you're let off."

She came over to him and slid to the floor and crouched beside him and laid her head against his knees. She clasped his knees tight with her arms.

"I don't want you to be hurt," she said. "I can't bear you to be hurt. But what can I do?"

"Stay like that. Close. Don't go."

She stayed, pressing her face down tighter, rubbing her cheek against his rough tweed. He put his arm round her shoulder, holding her there; his fingers stroked, stroked the back of her neck, pushed up through the fine roots of her hair, giving her the caress she loved. Her nerves thrilled with a sudden secret bliss.

"Jerrold, it's heaven when you touch me."

"I know. It's hell for me when I don't."

"I didn't know. I didn't know. If only I'd known."

"We know now."

There was a long silence. Now and again she felt him stirring uneasily. Once he sighed and her heart tightened. At last he bent over her and lifted her up and set her on his knee. She lay back gathered in his arms, with her head on his breast, satisfied, like a child.

"Jerrold, do you remember how you used to hold me to keep me from falling in the goldfish pond?"

"Yes."

"I've loved you ever since then."

"Do you remember how I kissed you when I went to school?"

"Yes."

"And the night that Nicky died?"

"Yes."

"I've been sleeping in that room, because it was yours."

"Have you? Did you love me then, that night?"

"Yes. But I didn't know I did. And then Father's death came and stopped it."

"I know. I know."

"Anne, what a brute I was to you. Can you ever forgive me?"

"I forgave you long ago."

"Talk of punishments—"

"Don't talk of punishments."

Presently they left off talking, and he kissed her. He kissed her again and again, with light kisses brushing her face for its sweetness, with quick, hard kisses that hurt, with slow, deep kisses that stayed where they fell; kisses remembered and unremembered, longed for, imagined and unimaginable.

The church bell began ringing for service, short notes first, tinkling and tinkling; then a hurrying and scattering of sounds, sounds falling together, running into each other, covering each other; one long throbbing and clanging sound; and then hard, slow strokes, measuring out the seconds like a clock. They waited till the bell ceased.

The dusk gathered. It spread from the corners to the middle of the room. The tall white arch of the chimney-piece jutted out through the dusk.

Anne stirred slightly.

"I say, how dark it's getting."

"Yes. I like it. Don't get the lamp."

They sat clinging together, waiting for the dark.

The window panes were a black glimmer in the grey. He got up and drew the curtains, shutting out the black glimmer of the panes. He came to her and lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch and laid her on it.

She shut her eyes and waited.



XIV

MAISIE

i

He didn't know what he was going to do about Maisie.

On a fine, warm day in April Maisie had come home. He had motored her up from the station, and now the door of the drawing-room had closed on them and they were alone together in there.

"Oh, Jerrold—it is nice—to see you—again."

She panted a little, a way she had when she was excited.

"Awfully nice," he said, and wondered what on earth he was going to do next.

He had been all right on the station platform where their greetings had been public and perfunctory, but now he would have to do something intimate and, above all, spontaneous, not to stand there like a stick.

They looked at each other and he took again the impression she had always given him of delicate beauty and sweetness. She was tall and her neck bent slightly forward as she walked; this gave her the air of bowing prettily, of offering you something with a charming grace. Her shoulders and her hips had the same long, slenderly sloping curves. Her hair was mole brown on the top and turned back in an old-fashioned way that uncovered its hidden gold. Her face was white; the thin bluish whiteness of skim milk. Her mauve blue eyes looked larger than they were because of their dark brows and lashes, and the faint mauve smears about their lids. The line of her little slender nose went low and straight in the bridge, then curved under, delicately acquiline, its nostrils were close and clean cut. Her small, close upper lip had a flying droop; and her chin curved slightly, ever so slightly, away to her throat. When she talked Maisie's mouth and the tip of her nose kept up the same sensitive, quivering play. But Maisie's eyes were still; they had no sparkling speech; they listened, deeply attentive to the person who was there. They took up the smile her mouth began and was too small to finish.

And now, as they looked at him, he felt that he ought to take her in his arms, suddenly, at once. In another instant it would be too late, the action would have lost the grace of spontaneous impulse. He wondered how you simulated a spontaneous impulse.

But Maisie made it all right for him. As he stood waiting for his impulse she came to him and laid her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, gently, on each cheek. Her hands slid down; they pressed hard against his arms above the elbow, as if to keep back his too passionate embrace. It was easy enough to return her kiss, to pass his arms under hers and press her slight body, gently, with his cramped hands. Did she know that his heart was not in it?

No. She knew nothing.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she said. "You do look fit."

"Do I? Oh, nothing much."

He turned away from her sweet eyes that hurt him.

At least he could bring forward a chair for her, and put cushions at her back, and pour out her tea and wait on her. He tried by a number of careful, deliberate attentions to make up for his utter lack of spontaneity. And she sat there, drinking her tea, contented; pleased to be back in her happy home; serenely unaware that anything was missing.

He took her over the house and showed her her room, the long room with the two south windows, one on each side of the square, cross-lighted bay above the porch. It was full of the clear April light.

Maisie looked round, taking it all in, the privet-white panels, the lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre of the bay.

"Is this mine, this heavenly room?"

"I thought so."

He was glad that he had something beautiful to give her, to make up.

She glanced at the inner door leading to his father's room. "Is that yours in there?"

"Mine? No. That door's locked. It... I'm on the other side next to Colin."

"Show me."

He took her into the gallery and showed her.

"It's that door over there at the end."

"What a long way off," she said.

"Why? You're not afraid, are you?"

"Dear me, no. Could anybody be afraid here?"

"Poor Colin's pretty jumpy still. That's why I have to be near him."

"I see."

"You won't mind having him with us, will you?"

"I shall love having him. Always. I hope he won't mind me."

"He'll adore you, of course."

"Now show me the garden."

They went out on to the green terraces where the peacocks spread their great tails of yew. Maisie loved the peacocks and the clipped yew walls and the goldfish pond and the flower garden.

He walked quickly, afraid to linger, afraid of having to talk to her. He felt as if the least thing she said would be charged with some unendurable emotion and that at any minute he might be called on to respond. To be sure this was not like what he knew of Maisie; but, everything having changed for him, he felt that at any minute Maisie might begin to be unlike herself.

She was out of breath. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't go so fast, Jerry. I want to look and look."

They went up on to the west terrace and stood there, looking. Brown-crimson velvet wall-flowers grew in a thick hedge under the terrace wall; their hot sweet smell came up to them.

"It's too beautiful for words," she said.

"I'm glad you like it. It is rather a jolly old place."

"It's the most adorable place I've ever been in. It looks so good and happy. As if everybody who ever lived in it had been good and happy."

"I don't know about that. It was a hospital for four years. And it hasn't quite recovered yet. It's all a bit worn and shabby, I'm afraid."

"I don't care. I love its shabbiness. I don't want to forget what it's been.... To think that I've missed seven weeks of it."

"You haven't missed much. We've had beastly weather all March."

"I've missed you. Seven weeks of you."

"I think you'll get over that," he said, perversely.

"I shan't. It's left a horrid empty space. But I couldn't help it. I really couldn't, Jerry."

"All right, Maisie, I'm sure you couldn't."

"Torquay was simply horrible. And this is heaven. Oh, Jerry dear, I'm going to be so awfully happy."

He looked at her with a sudden tenderness of pity. She was visibly happy. He remembered that her charm for him had been her habit of enjoyment. And as he looked at her he saw nothing but sadness in her happiness and in her sweetness and her beauty. But the sadness was not in her, it was in his own soul. Women like Maisie were made for men to be faithful to them. And he had not been faithful to her. She was made for love and he had not loved her. She was nothing to him. Looking at her he was filled with pity for the beauty and sweetness that were nothing to him. And in that pity and that sadness he felt for the first time the uneasy stirring of his soul.

If only he could have broken the physical tie that had bound him to her until now; if only they could give it all up and fall back on some innocent, immaterial relationship that meant no unfaithfulness to Anne.

When he thought of Anne he didn't know for the life of him how he was going through with it.

ii

Maisie had been talking to him for some seconds before he understood. At last he saw that, for reasons which she was unable to make clear to him, she was letting him off. He wouldn't have to go through with it.

As Jerrold's mind never foresaw anything he didn't want to see, so in this matter of Maisie he had had no plan. Not that he trusted to the inspiration of the moment; in its very nature the moment wouldn't have an inspiration. He had simply refused to think about it at all. It was too unpleasant. But Maisie's presence forced the problem on him with some violence. He had given himself to Anne without a scruple, but when it came to giving himself to Maisie his conscience developed a sudden sense of guiltiness. For Jerrold was essentially faithful; only his fidelity was all for Anne. His marrying Maisie had been a sin against Anne, its sinfulness disguised because he had had no pleasure in it. The thought of going back to Maisie after Anne revolted him; the thought of Anne having to share him with Maisie revolted him. Nobody, he said to himself, was ever less polygamous than he.

At the same time he was sorry for Maisie. He didn't want her to suffer, and if she was not to suffer she must not know, and if she was not to know they must go on as they had begun. He was haunted by the fear of Maisie's knowing and suffering. The pity he felt for her was poignant and accusing, as if somehow she did know and suffer. She must at least be aware that something was wanting. He would have to make up to her somehow for what she had missed; he would have to give her all the other things she wanted for that one thing. Maisie's coldness might have made it easy for him. Nothing could move Jerrold from his conviction that Maisie was cold, that she was incapable of caring for him as Anne cared. His peace of mind and the freedom of his conscience depended on this belief. But, in spite of her coldness, Maisie wanted children. He knew that.

According to Jerrold's code Maisie's children would be an injury to Anne, a perpetual insult. But Anne would forgive him; she would understand; she wouldn't want to hurt Maisie.

So he went through with it.

And now he made out that mercifully, incredibly, he was being let off. He wouldn't have to go on.

He stood by Maisie's bed looking down at her as she lay there. She had grasped his hands by the wrists, as if to hold back their possible caress. And her little breathless voice went on, catching itself up and tripping.

"You won't mind—if I don't let you—come to me?"

"I'm sorry, Maisie. I didn't know you felt like that about it."

"I don't. It isn't because I don't love you. It's just my silly nerves. I get frightened."

"I know. I know. It'll be all right. I won't bother you."

"Mother said I oughtn't to ask you. She said you wouldn't understand and it would be too hard for you. Will it?"

"No, of course it won't. I understand perfectly."

He tried to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing, not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread, mercifully and incredibly let off.

But Maisie's sweetness hated to refuse and frustrate; it couldn't bear to hurt him. She held him tighter. "Jerrold—if it is—if you can't stand it, you mustn't mind about me. You must forget I ever said anything. It's nothing but nerves."

"I shall be all right. Don't worry."

"You are a darling."

Her grasp slackened. "Please—please go. At once. Quick."

As he went she put her hand to her heart. She could feel the pain coming. It filled her with an indescribable dread. Every time it came she thought she should die of it. If only she didn't get so excited; excitement always brought it on. She held her breath tight to keep it back.

Ah, it had come. Splinters of glass, sharp splinters of glass, first pricking, then piercing, then tearing her heart. Her heart closed down on the splinters of glass, cutting itself at every beat.

She looked under the pillow for the little silver box that held her pearls of nitrate of amyl. She always had it with her, ready. She crushed a pearl in her pocket handkerchief and held it to her nostrils. The pain left her. She lay still.

iii

And every Sunday at six in the evening, or nine (he varied the hour to escape suspicion), Jerrold came to Anne.

In the weeks before Maisie's coming and after, Anne's happiness was perfect, intense and secret like the bliss of a saint in ecstasy, of genius contemplating its finished work. In giving herself to Jerrold she had found reality. She gave herself without shame and without remorse, or any fear of the dangerous risks they ran. Their passion was too clean for fear or remorse or shame. She thought love was a finer thing going free and in danger than sheltered and safe and bound. The game of love should be played with a high, defiant courage; you were not fit to play it if you fretted and cowered. Both she and Jerrold came to it with an extreme simplicity, taking it for granted. They never vowed or protested or swore not to go back on it or on each other. It was inconceivable that they should go back on it. And as Anne saw no beginning to it, she saw no end. All her past was in her love for Jerrold; there never had been a time when she had ceased to love him. This moment when they embraced was only the meeting point between what had been and what would be. Nothing could have disturbed Anne's conscience but the sense that Jerrold didn't belong to her, that he had no right to love her; and she had never had that sense. They had belonged to each other, always, from the time when they were children playing together. Maisie was the intruder, who had no right, who had taken what didn't belong to her. And Anne could have forgiven even that if Maisie had had the excuse of a great passion; but Maisie didn't care.

So Anne, unlike Jerrold, was not troubled by thinking about Maisie. She had never seen Jerrold's wife; she didn't want to see her. So long as she didn't see her it was as if Maisie were not there.

And yet she was there. Next to Jerrold she was more there for Anne than the people she saw every day. Maisie's presence made itself felt in all the risks they ran. She was the hindrance, not to perfect bliss, but to a continuous happiness. She was the reason why they could only meet at intervals for one difficult and dangerous hour. Because of Maisie, Jerrold, instead of behaving like himself with a reckless disregard of consequences, had to think out the least revolting ways by which they might evade them. He had to set up some sort of screen for his Sunday visits to the Manor Farm. Thus he made a habit of long walks after dark on week-days and of unpunctuality at meals. To avoid being seen by the cottagers he approached the house from behind, by the bridge over the mill-water and through the orchard to the back door. Luckily the estate provided him with an irreproachable and permanent pretext for seeing Anne.

For Jerrold, going about with Anne over the Manor Farm, had conceived a profound passion for his seven hundred acres. At last he had come into his inheritance; and if it was Anne Severn who showed him how to use it, so that he could never separate his love of it from his love of her, the land had an interest of its own that soon excited and absorbed him. He determined to take up farming seriously and look after his estate himself when Anne had Sutton's farm. Anne would teach him all she knew, and he could finish up with a year or two at the Agricultural College in Cirencester. He had found the work he most wanted to do, the work he believed he could do best. All the better if it brought him every day this irreproachable companionship with Anne. His conscience was appeased by Maisie's coldness, and Jerrold told himself that the life he led now was the best possible life for a sane man. His mind was clear and keen; his body was splendidly fit; his love for Anne was perfect, his companionship with her was perfect, their understanding of each other was perfect. They would never be tired of each other and never bored. He rode with her over the hills and tramped with her through the furrows in all weathers.

At times he would approach her through some sense, sharper than sight or touch, that gave him her inmost immaterial essence. She would be sitting quietly in a room or standing in a field when suddenly he would be thus aware of her. These moments had a reality and certainty more poignant even than the moment of his passion.

At last they ceased to think about their danger. They felt, ironically, that they were protected by the legend that made Anne and Colin lovers. In the eyes of the Kimbers and Nanny Sutton and the vicar's wife, and the Corbetts and Hawtreys and Markhams, Jerrold was the stern guardian of his brother's morals. They were saying now that Captain Fielding had put a stop to the whole disgraceful affair; he had forced Colin to leave the Manor Farm house; and he had taken over the estate in order to keep an eye on his brother and Anne Severn.

Anne was not concerned with what they said. She felt that Jerrold and she were safe so long as she didn't know Maisie. It never struck her that Maisie would want to know her, since nobody else did.

iv

But Maisie did want to know Anne and for that reason. One day she came to Jerrold with the visiting cards.

"The Corbetts and Hawtreys have called. Shall I like them?"

"I don't know. I won't have anything to do with them."

"Why not?"

"Because of the beastly way they've behaved to Anne Severn."

"What have they done?"

"Done? They've been perfect swine. They've cut her for five years because she looked after Colin. They've said the filthiest things about her."

"What sort of things?"

"Why, that Colin was her lover."

"Oh Jerrold, how abominable. Just because she was a saint."

"Anne wouldn't care what anybody said about her. My mother left her all by herself here to take care of him and she wouldn't leave him. She thought of nothing but him."

"She must be a perfect angel."

"She is."

"But about these horrible people—what do you want me to do?"

"Do what you like."

"I don't want to know them. I'm thinking what would be best for Anne."

"You needn't worry about Anne. It isn't as if she was your friend."

"But she is if she's yours and Colin's. I mean I want her to be.... I think I'd better call on these Corbett and Hawtrey people and just show them how we care about her. Then cut them dead afterwards if they aren't decent to her. It'll be far more telling than if I began by being rude.... Only, Jerrold, how absurd—I don't know Anne. She hasn't called yet."

"She probably thinks you wouldn't want to know her."

"Do you mean because of what they've said? That's the very reason. Why, she's the only person here I do want to know. I think I fell in love with the sound of her when you first told me about her and how she took care of Colin. We must do everything we can to make up. We must have her here a lot and give her a jolly time."

He looked at her.

"Maisie, you really are rather a darling."

"I'm not. But I think Anne Severn must be.... Shall I go and see her or will you bring her?"

"I think—perhaps—I'd better bring her, first."

He spoke slowly, considering it.

Tomorrow was Sunday. He would bring her to tea, and in the evening he would walk back with her.

On Sunday afternoon he went down to the Manor Farm. He found Anne upstairs in the big sitting-room.

"Oh Jerrold, darling, I didn't think you'd come so soon."

"Maisie sent me."

"Maisie?"

For the first time in his knowledge of her Anne looked frightened.

"Yes. She wants to know you. I'm to bring you to tea."

"But—it's impossible. I can't know her. I don't want to. Can't you see how impossible it is?"

"No, I can't. It's perfectly natural. She's heard a lot about you."

"I've no doubt she has. Jerrold—do you think she guesses?"

"About you and me? Never. It's the last thing she'd think of. She's absolutely guileless."

"That makes it worse."

"You don't know," he said, "how she feels about you. She's furious with these brutes here because they've cut you. She says she'll cut them if they won't be decent to you."

"Oh, worse and worse!"

"You're afraid of her?"

"I didn't know I was. But I am. Horribly afraid."

"Really, Anne dear, there's nothing to be afraid of. She's not a bit dangerous."

"Don't you see that that makes her dangerous, her not being? You've told me a hundred times how sweet she is. Well—I don't want to see how sweet she is."

"Her sweetness doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. If I once see her, Jerrold, nothing'll ever be the same again."

"Darling, really it's the only thing you can do. Think. If you don't, can't you see how it'll give the show away? She'd wonder what on earth you meant by it. We've got to behave as if nothing had happened. This isn't behaving as if nothing had happened, is it?"

"No. You see, it has happened. Oh Jerrold, I wouldn't mind if only we could be straight about it. But it'll mean lying and lying, and I can't bear it. I'd rather go out and tell everybody and face the music."

"So would I. But we can't.... Look here, Anne. We don't care a damn what people think. You wouldn't care if we were found out to-morrow——"

"I wouldn't. It would be the best thing that could happen to us."

"To us, yes. If Maisie divorced me. Then we could marry. It would be all right for us. Not for Maisie. You do care about hurting Maisie, don't you?"

"Yes. I couldn't bear her to be hurt. If only I needn't see her."

"Darling, you must see her. You can't not. I want you to."

"Well, if you want it so awfully, I will. But I tell you it won't be the same thing, afterwards, ever."

"I shall be the same, Anne. And you."

"Me? I wonder."

He rose, smiling down at her.

"Come," he said. "Don't let's be late."

She went.

v

In the garden with Maisie, the long innocent conversation coming back and back; Maisie's sweetness haunting her, known now and remembered. Maisie walking in the garden among the wall flowers and tulips, between the clipped walls of yew, showing Anne her flowers. She stooped to lift their faces, to caress them with her little thin white fingers.

"I don't know why I'm showing you round," she said; "you know it all much better than I do."

"Oh, well, I used to come here a lot when I was little. I sort of lived here."

Maisie's eyes listened, utterly attentive.

"You knew Jerrold, then, when he was little, too?"

"Yes. He was eight when I was five."

"Do you remember what he was like?"

"Yes."

Maisie waited to see whether Anne were going on or not, but as Anne stopped dead she went on herself.

"I wish I'd known Jerry all the time like that. I wish I remembered running about and playing with him.... You were Jerrold's friend, weren't you?"

"And Elliot's and Colin's."

The lying had begun. Falsehood by implication. And to this creature of palpable truth.

"Somehow, I've always thought of you as Jerrold's most. That's what makes me feel as if you were mine, as if I'd known you quite a long time. You see, he's told me things about you."

"Has he?"

Anne's voice was as dull and flat as she could make it. If only Maisie would leave off talking about Jerrold, making her lie.

"I've wanted to know you more than anybody I've ever heard of. There are heaps of things I want to say to you." She stooped to pick the last tulip of the bunch she was gathering for Anne. "I think it was perfectly splendid of you the way you looked after Colin. And the way you've looked after Jerry's land for him."

"That was nothing. I was very glad to do it for Jerrold, but it was my job, anyway."

"Well, you've saved Colin. And you've saved the land. What's more, I believe you've saved Jerrold."

"How do you mean, 'saved' him? I didn't know he wanted saving."

"He did, rather. I mean you've made him care about the estate. He didn't care a rap about it till he came down here this last time. You've found his job for him."

"He'd have found it himself all right without me."

"I'm not so sure. We were awfully worried about him after the war. He was all at a loose end without anything to do. And dreadfully restless. We thought he'd never settle to anything again. And I was afraid he'd want to live in London."

"I don't think he'd ever do that."

"He won't now. But, you see, he used to be afraid of this place."

"I know. After his father's death."

"And he simply loves it now. I think it's because he's seen what you've done with it. I know he hadn't the smallest idea of farming it before. It's what he ought to have been doing all his life. And when you think how seedy he was when he came down here, and how fit he is now."

"I think," Anne said, "I'd better be going."

Maisie's innocence was more than she could bear.

"Jerry'll see you home. And you'll come again, won't you? Soon.... Will you take them? I gathered them for you."

"Thanks. Thanks awfully." Anne's voice came with a jerk. Her breath choked her.

Jerrold was coming down the garden walk, looking for her. She said good-bye to Maisie and turned to go with him home.

"Well," he said, "how did you and Maisie get on?"

"It was exactly what I thought it would be, only worse."

He laughed. "Worse?"

"I mean she was sweeter.... Jerrold, she makes me feel such a brute. Such an awful brute. And if she ever knows—"

"She won't know."

When he had left her Anne flung herself down on the couch and cried.

All evening Maisie's tulips stood up in the blue-and-white Chinese bowl on the table. They had childlike, innocent faces that reproached her. Nothing would ever be the same again.



XV

ANNE, JERROLD, AND MAISIE

i

It was a Sunday in the middle of April.

Jerrold had motored up to London on the Friday and had brought Eliot back with him for the week-end. Anne had come over as she always did on a Sunday afternoon. She and Maisie were sitting out on the terrace when Eliot came to them, walking with the tired limp that Anne found piteous and adorable. Very soon Maisie murmured some gentle, unintelligible excuse, and left them.

There was a moment of silence in which everything they had ever said to each other was present to them, making all other speech unnecessary, as if they held a long intimate conversation. Eliot sat very still, not looking at her, yet attentive as if he listened to the passing of those unuttered words. Then Anne spoke and her voice broke up his mood.

"What are you doing now? Bacteriology?"

"Yes. We've found the thing we were looking for, the germ of trench fever."

"You mean you have."

"Well, somebody would have spotted it if I hadn't. A lot of us were out for it."

"Oh Eliot, I am so glad. That means you'll stamp out the disease, doesn't it?"

"Probably. In time."

"I knew you'd do it. I knew you'd do something big before you'd finished."

"My dear, I've only just begun. But there's nothing big about it but the research, and we were all in that. All looking for the same thing. Happening to spot it is just heaven's own luck."

"But aren't you glad it was you?"

"It doesn't matter who it is. But I suppose I'm glad. It's the sort of thing I wanted to do and it's rather more important than most things one does."

He said no more. Years ago, when he had done nothing, he had talked excitedly and arrogantly about his work; now that he had done what he had set out to do he was reserved, impassive and very humble.

"Do Jerrold and Colin know?" she said.

"Not yet. You're the first."

"Dear Eliot, you did know I'd be glad."

"It's nice of you to care."

Of course she cared. She was glad to think that he had that supreme satisfaction to make up for the cruelty of her refusal to care more. Perhaps, she thought, he wouldn't have had it if he had had her. He would have been torn in two; he would have had to give himself twice over. She felt that he didn't love her more than he loved his science, and science exacted an uninterrupted and undivided service. One life hadn't room enough for two such loves, and he might not have done so much if she had been there, calling back his thoughts, drawing his passion to herself.

"What are you going to do next?" she said.

"Next I'm going off for a month's holiday. To Sicily—Taormina. I've been overworking and I'm a bit run down. How about Colin?"

"He's better. Heaps better. He soon got over that relapse he had when I was away in February."

"You mean he got over it when you came back."

"Well, yes, it was when I came back. That's just what I don't like about him, Eliot. He's getting dependent on me, and it's bad for him. I wish he could go away somewhere for a change. A long change. Away from me, away from the farm, away from Wyck, somewhere where he hasn't been before. It might cure him, mightn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes. It would be worth trying."

He didn't look at her. He knew what she was going to say. She said it.

"Eliot—do you think you could take him with you? Could you stand the strain?"

"If you could stand it for four years I ought to be able to stand it for a month."

"If he gets better it won't be a strain. He isn't a bit of trouble when he's well. He's adorable. Only—perhaps—if you're run down you oughtn't to."

"I'm not so bad as all that. The only thing is, you say he ought to get away from you, and I wanted you to come too."

"Me?"

"You and Maisie and Jerrold."

"I can't. It's impossible. I can't leave the farm."

"My dear girl, you mustn't be tied to it like that. Don't you ever get away?"

"Not unless Jerrold or Colin are here. We can't all three be away at once. But it's awfully nice of you to think of it."

"I didn't. It was Maisie."

Maisie? Would she never get away from Maisie, and Maisie's sweetness and kindness, breaking her down?

"She'll be awfully disappointed if you don't go."

"Why should she be?"

"Because she wants you to."

"Maisie?"

"Yes. Surely you know she likes you?"

"I was afraid she was beginning to—"

"Why? Don't you want her to like you? Don't you like her?"

"Yes. And I don't want to like her. If I once begin I shall end by loving her."

"My dear, it would be the best thing you could do."

"No, Eliot, it wouldn't. You don't know.... Here she is."

Maisie came to them along the terrace. She moved with an unresisting grace, a delicate bowing of her head and swaying of her body, and breathless as if she went against a wind. Eliot gave up his chair and limped away from them.

"Has he told you about Taormina?" she said.

"Yes. It's sweet of you to ask me to go with you——"

"You're coming, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Why ever not?"

"I can't leave the land for one thing. Not if Jerrold and Colin aren't here."

"Oh, bother the old land! You must leave it. It can get on without you for a month or two. Nothing much can happen in that time."

"Oh, can't it! Things can happen in a day if you aren't there to see that they don't."

"Well, Jerrold won't mind much if they do. But he'll mind awfully if you don't come. So shall I. Besides, it's all settled. He's to come back with Eliot in time for the hay harvest, and you and I and Colin are to go on to the Italian Lakes. My father and mother are joining us at Como in June. We shall be there a month and come home through Switzerland."

"It would be heavenly, but I can't do it. I can't, really, Maisie." She was thinking: He'll be back for the hay harvest.

"But you must. You can't go and spoil all our pleasure like that. Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. And mine. I never dreamed of your not coming."

"Do you mean you really want me?"

"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."

"Maisie—why are you such an angel to me?"

"I'm not. I want you to come because—oh because I want you. Because I like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say you care more for the land than Jerrold and me."

"I don't. I—It isn't the land altogether. It's Colin. I want him to get away from me for a time and do without me. It's frightfully important that he should get away."

"We could send Colin to another part of the island with Eliot. Only that wouldn't be very kind to Eliot."

"No. It won't do, Maisie. I'll go off somewhere when you've come back."

"But that's no good to us. Jerrold will be here for the haying, if you're thinking of that."

"I'm not thinking of that. I'm thinking of Colin."

As she said it she knew that she was lying. Lying to Maisie. Lying for the first time. That came of knowing Maisie; it came of Maisie's sweetness. She would have to lie and lie. She was not thinking of Colin now; she was thinking that if Jerrold came back for the hay harvest and Maisie went on with Colin to the Italian Lakes, she would have her lover to herself; they would be alone together all June. She would lie in his arms, not for their short, reckless hour of Sunday, but night after night, from long before midnight till the dawn.

For last year, when the warm weather came, Anne and Colin had slept out of doors in wooden shelters set up in the Manor fields, away from the noises of the farm. A low stone wall separated Anne's field from Colin's. This year, when Jerrold came home, Colin's shelter had been moved up from the field to the Manor garden. In the summer Anne would sleep again in her shelter. The path to her field from the Manor garden lay through three pastures and two strips of fir plantation with a green drive between.

Jerrold would come to her there. He would have his bed in Colin's shelter in the garden, and when the night was quiet he would get up and go down the Manor fields and through the fir plantation to her shelter at the bottom. They would lie there in each other's arms, utterly safe, hidden from passing feet and listening ears, and eyes that watched behind window panes.

And as she thought of his coming to her, and heard her own voice lying to Maisie, the blood mounted to her face, flooding it to the roots of her hair.

"I'm thinking of Colin."

Her voice kept on sounding loud and dreadful in her brain, while Maisie's voice floated across it, faint, as if it came from somewhere a long way off.

"You never think of yourself. You're too good for anything, Anne."

She would never be safe from Maisie and Maisie's innocence that accused, reproached and threatened her. Maisie's sweetness went through her like a thrusting sword, like a sharp poison; it had words that cut deeper than threats, reproaches, accusations. Before she had seen Maisie she had been fearless, pitiless, remorseless; now, because of Maisie, she would never be safe from remorse and pity and fear.

She recovered. She told herself that she hadn't lied; that she had been thinking of Colin; that she had thought of him first; that she had refused to go to Taormina before she knew that Jerrold was coming back for the hay harvest. She couldn't help it if she knew that now. It was not as if she had schemed for it or counted on it. She had never for one moment counted on anything or schemed. And still, as she thought of Jerrold, her heart tightened on the sharp sword-thrust of remorse.

Because of Maisie, nothing would ever be the same again.

ii

In the last week of April they had gone, Jerrold and Maisie, Eliot and Colin, to Taormina. In the last week in May Jerrold and Eliot took Maisie up to Como on their way home. They found Sir Charles and Lady Durham there waiting for her. They had left Colin by himself at Taormina.

From the first moment of landing Colin had fallen in love with Sicily and refused to be taken away from it. He was aware that his recovery was now in his own hands, and that he would not be free from his malady so long as he was afraid to be alone. He had got to break himself of his habit of dependence on other people. And here in Taormina he had come upon the place that he could bear to be alone in. There was freedom in his surrender to its enchantment and in the contemplation of its beauty there was peace. And with peace and freedom he had found his indestructible self; he had come to the end of its long injury.

One day, sitting out on the balcony of his hotel, he wrote to Anne.

"Don't imagine because I've got well here away from you that it wasn't you who made me well. In the first place, I should never have gone away if you hadn't made me go. You knew what you were about when you sent me here. I know now what Jerrold meant when he wanted to get away by himself after Father died. He said he wanted to grow a new memory. Well, that's what I've done here.

"It seemed to happen all at once. One day I'd left them all and gone out for a walk by myself. It came over me that between me and being well, perfectly well, there was nothing but myself, that I was really hanging on to my illness for some sort of protection that it gave me, just as I'd hung on to you. I'd been thinking about it all the time, filling my mind with my illness, hanging on to the very fear of it; to save myself, I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And suddenly, out there, I let go. And the beauty of the place got me. I can't describe the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over everything like gold water. I seemed to remember it as if I'd been here before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash. It was like finding something you'd lost, or when a musical phrase you've been looking for suddenly comes back to you. It was the most utter, indescribable peace and satisfaction. And somehow this time joined on to the times at Wyck when we were all there and happy together; and the beastly time in between slipped through. It just dropped out, as if it had never happened, and I got a sense of having done with it forever. I can't tell you what it was like. But I think it means I'm well.

"And then, on the top of it all, I remembered you, Anne, and all your goodness and sweetness. I got right away from my beastly self and saw you as you are. And I knew what you'd done for me. I don't believe I ever knew, really knew, before. I had to be alone with myself before I could see it, just as I always had to be alone with my music before I could get it right. I've never thanked you properly. I can't thank you. There aren't any words to do it in. And I only know now what it's cost you...."

Did he know? Did he know that it had once cost her Jerrold?

"... For instance, I know you gave up coming here with us because you thought it would be better for me without you."

Colin, too, turning it in her heart, the sharp blade of remorse. Would they never have done punishing her?

And then: "Maisie knows what you are. She told Eliot you were the most beautiful thing, morally, she had ever known. The one person, she said, whose motives would always be clean."

If he had tried he couldn't have hit on anything that would have hurt her so. It was more than she could bear to be punished like this through the innocence of innocent people, through their kindness and affection, their belief, their incorruptible trust in her. There was nothing in the world she dreaded more than Maisie's trust. It was as if she foresaw what it would do to her, how at any minute it would beat her, it would break her down.

But she was not beaten yet, not broken down. After every fit of remorse her passion asserted itself again in a superb recovery. Her motives might not be so spotless as they looked to Maisie, but her passion itself was clean as fire. Nothing, not even Maisie's innocence, Maisie's trust in her, could make her go back on it. Hard, wounding tears cut through her eyelids as she thought of Maisie, but she brushed them away and began counting the days till Jerrold should come back.

iii

He came back the first week in June, in time for the hay harvest. And it happened as she had foreseen.

It would have been dangerous for Jerrold to have left the house at night to go to the Manor Farm. At any moment he might have been betrayed by his own footsteps treading the passages and stairs, by the slipping of locks and bolts, the sound of the opening and shutting of doors. The servants might be awake and hear him; they might go to his room and find that he was not there.

But Colin's shelter stood in a recess on the lawn, open to the fields and hidden from the house by tall hedges of yew. Nobody could see him slip out into the moonlight or the darkness; nobody could hear the soft padding of his feet on the grass. He had only to run down the three fields and cross the belt of firs to come to Anne's shelter at the bottom. The blank, projecting wall of the mill hid it from the cottages and the Manor Farm house; the firs hid it from the field path; a high bank, topped by a stone wall, hid it from the road and Sutton's Farm. Its three wooden walls held them safe.

Night after night, between eleven and midnight, he came to her. Night after night, she lay awake waiting till the light rustling of the meadow grass told her he was there: on moonlit nights a quick brushing sound; in the thick blackness a sound like a slow shearing as he felt his way. The moon would show him clear, as he stood in the open frame of the shelter, looking in at her; or she would see him grey, twilit and mysterious; or looming, darker than dark, on black nights without moon or stars.

They loved the clear nights when their bodies showed to each other white under the white moon; they loved the dark nights that brought them close, shutting them in, annihilating every sensation but that of his tense, hard muscles pressing down, of her body crushed and yielding, tightening and slackening in surrender; of their brains swimming in their dark ecstasy.

They loved the warmth of each other's bodies in the hot windless nights; they loved their smooth, clean coolness washed by the night wind. Nothing, not even the sweet, haunting ghost of Maisie, came between. They would fall asleep in each other's arms and lie there till dawn, till Anne woke in a sudden fright. Always she had this fear that some day they would sleep on into the morning, when the farm people would be up and about. Jerrold lay still, tired out with satisfaction, sunk under all the floors of sleep. She had to drag him up, with kisses first and light stroking, then with a strong undoing of their embrace, pushing back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as she parted them. Then she would wrench herself loose and shake him by the shoulders till she woke him. He woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but with a great stretching of his strong body and a short, sudden laugh, the laugh he had for danger. Then he would look at his wrist watch and show it her, laughing again as she saw that this time, again, they were safe. And they would lie a little while longer, looking into each other's faces for the sheer joy of looking, reckless with impunity. And he would start up suddenly with, "I say, Anne, I must clear out or we shall be caught." And they would get up.

Outside, the world looked young and unknown in the June dawn, in the still, clear, gold-crystal air, where green leaves and green grass shone with a strange, hard lustre like fresh paint, and yet unearthly, uncreated, fixed in their own space and time.

And she would go with him, her naked feet shining white on the queer, bright, cold green of the grass, up the field to the belt of firs that stood up, strange and eternal, under the risen sun.

They parted there, holding each other for a last kiss, a last clinging, as if never in this world they would meet again.

Dawn after dawn. They belonged to the dawn and the dawn light; the dawn was their day; they knew it as they knew no other time.

And Anne would go back to her shelter, and lie there, and live through their passion again in memory, till she fell asleep.

And when she woke she would find the sweet, sad ghost of Maisie haunting her, coming between her and the memory of her dark ecstasy. Maisie, utterly innocent, utterly good, trusting her, sending Jerrold back to her because she trusted her. Only to think of Maisie gave her a fearful sense of insecurity. She thought: If I'd loved her I could never have done it. If I were to love her even now that would end it. We couldn't go on. She prayed God that she might not love her.

By day the hard work of the farm stopped her thinking. And the next night and the next dawn brought back her safety.

iv

The hay harvest was over by the last week of June, and in the first week of July Maisie had come back.

Maisie or no Maisie, the work of the farm had to go on; and Anne felt more than ever that it justified her. When the day of reckoning came, if it ever did come, let her be judged by her work. Because of her love for Jerrold here was this big estate held together, and kept going; because of his love for her here was Jerrold, growing into a perfect farmer and a perfect landlord; because of her he had found the one thing he was best fitted to do; because of him she herself was valuable. Anne brought to her work on the land a thoroughness that aimed continually at perfection. She watched the starting of every tractor-plough and driller as it broke fresh ground, to see that machines and men were working at their highest pitch of efficiency. She demanded efficiency, and, on the whole, she got it; she gave it by a sort of contagion. She wrung out of the land the very utmost it was capable of yielding; she saw that there was no waste of straw or hay, of grain or fertilizers; and she knew how to take risks, spending big sums on implements and stock wherever she saw a good chance of a return.

Jerrold learned from her this perfection. Her work stood clear for the whole countryside to see. Nobody could say she had not done well by the land. When she first took on the Manor Farm it had stood only in the second class; in four years she had raised it to the first. It was now one of the best cultivated estates in the county and famous for its prize stock. Sir John Corbett of Underwoods, Mr. Hawtrey of Medlicote, and Major Markham of Wyck Wold owned to an admiration for Anne Severn's management. Her morals, they said, might be a trifle shady, but her farming was above reproach. More reluctantly they admitted that she had made something of that young rotter, Colin, even while they supposed that he had been sent abroad to keep him out of Anne Severn's way. They also supposed that as soon as he could do it decently Jerrold would get rid of Anne.

Then two things happened. In July Maisie Fielding came back and was seen driving about the country with Anne Severn; and in the same month old Sutton died and the Barrow Farm was let to Anne, thus establishing her permanence.

Anne had refused to take it from Jerrold as his gift. He had pressed her persistently.

"You might, Anne. It's the only thing I can give you. And what is it? A scrubby two hundred acres."

"It's a thundering lot of land, Jerrold. I can't take it."

"You must. It isn't enough, after all you've done for us. I'd like to give you everything I've got; Wyck Manor and the whole blessed estate to the last turnip, and every cow and pig. But I can't do that. And you used to say you wanted the Barrow Farm."

"I wanted to rent it, Jerry darling. I can't let you give it me."

"Why not? I think it's simply beastly of you not to."

At that point Maisie had passed through the room with her flowers and he had called to her to help him.

"What are you two quarrelling about?" she said.

"Why, I want to give her the Barrow Farm and she won't let me."

"Of course I won't let him. A whole farm. How could I?"

"I think you might, Anne. It would please him no end."

"She thinks," Jerrold said, "she can go on doing things for us, but we mustn't do anything for her. And I say it's beastly of her."

"It is really, Anne darling. It's selfish. He wants to give it you so awfully. He won't be happy if you won't take it."

"But a farm, a whole thumping farm. It's a big house and two hundred acres. How can I take a thing like that? You couldn't yourself if you were me."

Maisie's little white fingers flickered over the blue delphiniums stacked in the blue-and-white Chinese jar. Her mauve-blue eyes were smiling at Anne over the tops of the tall blue spires.

"Don't you want to make him happy?" she said.

"Not that way."

"If it's the only way—?"

She passed out of the room, still smiling, to gather more flowers. They looked at each other.

"Jerrold, I can't stand it when she says things like that."

"No more can I. But you know, she really does want you to take that farm."

"Don't you see why I can't take it—from you? It's because we're lovers."

"I should have thought that made it easier."

"It makes it impossible. I've given myself to you. I can't take anything. Besides, it would look as if I'd taken it for that."

"That's an appalling idea, Anne."

"It is. But it's what everybody'll think. They'll wonder what on earth you did it for. We don't want people wondering about us. If they once begin wondering they'll end by finding out."

"I see. Perhaps you're right. I'm sorry."

"It sticks out of us enough as it is. I can't think how Maisie doesn't see it. But she never will. She'll never believe that we—"

"Do you want her to see it?"

"No, but it hurts so, her not seeing.... Jerrold, I believe that's the punishment—Maisie's trusting us. It's the worst thing she could have done to us."

"Then, if we're punished we're quits. Don't think of it, Anne darling. Don't let Maisie come in between us like that."

He took her in his arms and kissed her, close and quick, so that no thought could come between.

But Maisie's sweetness had not done its worst. She had yet to prove what she was and what she could do.

v

July passed and August; the harvest was over. And in September Jerrold went up to London to stay with Eliot for the week-end, and Anne stayed with Maisie, because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house by herself. Through all those weeks that was the way Maisie had her, through her need of her.

And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had called on Mrs. Hawtrey of Medlicote, and Mrs. Hawtrey had asked her to lunch with her on the following Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch on Monday because Anne Severn would be with her, and Mrs. Hawtrey said she was very sorry, but she was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn.

And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not?"

And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, nobody here does ask Anne Severn."

Maisie said again, "Why not?"

Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into it, the whole thing was so unpleasant, but nobody did call on Anne Severn. She was too well known.

And at that Maisie rose in her fragile dignity and said that nobody knew Anne Severn so well as she and her husband did, and that there was nobody in the world so absolutely good as Anne, and that she couldn't possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and so left Mrs. Hawtrey.

The evening Jerrold came home, Maisie, flushed with pleasure, entertained him with a report of the encounter.

"So you've given an ultimatum to the county."

"Yes. I told you I'd cut them all if they went on cutting Anne. And now they know it."

"That means that you won't know anybody, Maisie. Except for Anne and me you'll be absolutely alone here."

"I don't care. I don't want anybody but you and Anne. And if I do we can ask somebody down. There are lots of amusing people who'd come. And Eliot can bring his scientific crowd. It simply means that Corbetts and Hawtreys won't be asked to meet them, that's all."

She went upstairs to lie down before dinner, and presently Anne came to him in the drawing-room. She was dressed in her riding coat and breeches as she had come off the land.

"What do you think Maisie's done now?" he said.

"I don't know. Something that'll make me feel awful, I suppose."

"If you're going to take it like that I won't tell you."

"Yes. Tell me. Tell me. I'd rather know."

He told her as Maisie had told him.

"Can't you see her, standing up to the whole county? Pounding them with her little hands."

His vision of the gentle thing, rising up in that sudden sacred fury of protection, moved him to admiring, tender laughter. It made Anne burst into tears.

"Oh, Jerrold, that's the worst that's happened yet. Everybody'll cut her, because of me."

"Bless you, she won't care. She says she doesn't care about anybody but you and me."

"But that's the awful thing, her caring. That's the punishment. The punishment."

Again he took her in his arms and comforted her.

"What am I to do, Jerry? What am I to do?"

"Go to her," he said, "and say something nice."

"Go to her and take my punishment?"

"Well, yes, darling, I'm afraid you've got to take it. We can't have it both ways. It wouldn't be a punishment if you weren't so sweet, if you didn't mind so. I wish to God I'd never told you."

She held her head high.

"I made you. I'm glad you told me."

She went up to Maisie in her room. Maisie had dressed for dinner and lay on her couch, looking exquisite and fragile in a gown of thick white lace. She gave a little soft cry as Anne came to her.

"Anne, you've been crying. What is it, darling?"

"Nothing. Only Jerrold told me what you'd done."

"Done?"

"Yes, for me. Why did you do it, Maisie?"

"Why? I suppose it was because I love you. It was the least I could do."

She held out her hands to her. Anne knelt down, crouching on the floor beside her, with her face hidden against Maisie's body. Maisie put her arm round her.

"But why are you crying about it, Anne? You never cry. I can't bear it. It's like seeing Jerrold cry."

"It's because you're so good, so good, and I'm such a brute. You don't know what a brute I am."

"Oh yes, I know."

"Do you?" she said, sharply. For one moment she thought that Maisie did indeed know, know and understand so perfectly that she forgave. This was forgiveness.

"Of course I do. And so does Jerrold. He knows what a brute you are."

It was not forgiveness. It was Maisie's innocence again, her trust—the punishment. Anne knelt there and took the pain of it.

vi

She lay awake, alone in her shelter. She had given the excuse of a racking headache to keep Jerrold from coming to her. For that she had had to lie. But what was her whole existence but a lie? A lie told by her silence under Maisie's trust in her, by her acceptance of Maisie's friendship, by her acquiescence in Maisie's preposterous belief. Every minute that she let Maisie go on loving and trusting and believing in her she lied. And the appalling thing was that she couldn't be alone in her lying. So long as Maisie trusted him Jerrold lied, too—Jerrold, who was truth itself. One moment she thought: That's what I've brought him to. That's how I've dragged him down. The next she saw that reproach as the very madness of her conscience. She had not dragged Jerrold down; she had raised him to his highest intensity of loving, she had brought him, out of the illusion of his life with Maisie, to reality and kept him there in an immaculate faithfulness. Not even for one insane moment did Anne admit that there was anything wrong or shameful in their passion itself. It was Maisie's innocence that made them liars, Maisie's goodness that put them in the wrong and brought shame on them, her truth that falsified them.

No woman less exquisite in goodness could have moved her to this incredible remorse. It took the whole of Maisie, in her unique perfection, to beat her and break her down. Her first instinct in refusing to know Maisie had been profoundly right. It was as if she had foreseen, even then, that knowing Maisie would mean loving her, and that, loving her, she would be beaten and broken down. The awful thing was that she did love Maisie; and she couldn't tell which was the worse to bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love for her. And who could have foreseen the pain of it? When she prayed that she might take the whole punishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and precision of torture. God knew what he was about. With all his resources he couldn't have hit on anything more delicately calculated to hurt. Nothing less subtle would have touched her. Not discovery; not the grossness of exposure; but this intolerable security. What could discovery and exposure do but set her free in her reality? Anne would have rejoiced to see her lie go up in one purifying flame of revelation. But to go safe in her lie, hiding her reality, and yet defenceless under the sting of Maisie's loving, was more than she could bear. She had brought all her truth and all her fineness to this passion which Maisie's innocence made a sin, and she was punished where she had sinned, wounded by the subtle God in her fineness and her truth. If only Jerrold could have escaped, but he was vulnerable, too; there was fineness and truth in him. To suffer really he had to be wounded in his soul.

If Jerrold was hurt then they must end it.

As yet he had given no sign of feeling; but that was like him. Up to the last minute he would fight against feeling, and when it came he would refuse to own that he suffered, that there was any cause for suffering. It would be like the time when his father was dying, when he refused to see that he was dying. So he would refuse to see Maisie and then, all at once, he would see her and he would be beaten and broken down.

vii

And suddenly he did see her.

It was on the first Sunday after Jerrold's return. Maisie had had another of her heart attacks, by herself, in her bed, the night before; and she had been lying down all day. The sun had come round on to the terrace, and she now rested there, wrapped in a fur coat and leaning back on her cushions in the garden chair.

They were sitting out there, all three, Jerrold and Anne talking together, and Maisie listening with her sweet, attentive eyes. Suddenly she shut her eyes and ceased to listen. Jerrold and Anne went on talking with hushed voices, and in a little while Maisie was asleep.

Her head, rising out of the brown fur, was tilted back on the cushions, showing her innocent white throat; her white violet eyelids were shut down on her eyes, the dark lashes lying still; her mouth, utterly innocent, was half open; her breath came through it unevenly, in light jerks.

"She's asleep, Jerrold."

They sat still, making no sound.

And as she looked at Maisie sleeping, tears came again into Anne's eyes, the hard tears that cut her eyelids and spilled themselves, drop by slow drop, heavily. She tried to wipe them away secretly with her hand before Jerrold saw them; but they came again and again and he had seen. He had risen to his feet as if he would go, then checked himself and stood beside her; and together they looked on at Maisie's sleeping; they felt together the infinite anguish, the infinite pathos of her goodness and her trust. The beauty of her spirit lay bare to them in the white, tilted face, slackened and smoothed with sleep. Sleep showed them her innocence again, naked and helpless. They saw her in her poignant being, her intense reality. She was so real that in that moment nothing else mattered to them.

Anne set her teeth hard to keep her mouth still. She saw Jerrold glance at her, she heard him give a soft groan of pity or of pain; then he moved away from them and stood by the terrace wall with his back to her. She saw his clenched hands, and through his terrible, tense quietness she knew by the quivering of his shoulders that his breast heaved. Then she saw him grasp the terrace wall and grind the edge of it into the palms of his hands. That was how he had stood by his father's deathbed, gripping the foot-rail; and when presently he turned and came to her she saw the look on his face she had seen then, of young, blind agony, sharpened now with some more piercing spiritual pain.

"Come," he said, "come into the house."

They went together, side by side, as they had gone when they were children, along the terrace and down the steps into the drive. In the shelter of the hall she gave way and cried, openly and helplessly, like a child, and he put his arm round her and led her into the library, away from the place where Maisie was. They sat together on the couch, holding each other's hands, clinging together in their suffering, their memory of what Maisie had made their sin. Even so they had sat in Anne's room, on the edge of Anne's bed, when they were children, holding each other's hands, miserable and yet glad because they were brought together, because what they had done and what they had borne they had done and borne together. And now as then he comforted her.

"Don't cry, Anne darling; it isn't your fault. I made you."

"You didn't. You didn't. I wanted you and I made you come to me. And I knew what it would be like and you didn't."

"Nobody could have known. Don't go back on it."

"I'm not going back on it. If only I'd never seen Maisie—then I wouldn't have cared. We could have gone on."

"Do you mean we can't now?"

"Yes. How can we when she's such an angel to us and trusts us so?"

"It does make it pretty beastly," he said.

"It makes me feel absolutely rotten."

"So it does me, when I think about it."

"It's knowing her, Jerry. It's having to love her, and knowing that she loves me; it's knowing what she is.... Why did you make me see her?"

"You know why."

"Yes. Because it made it safer. That's the beastliness of it. I knew how it would be. I knew she'd beat us in the end—with her goodness."

"Darling, it isn't your fault."

"It is. It's all my fault. I'm not going back on it. I'd do it again to-morrow if it weren't for Maisie. Even now I don't know whether it's right or wrong. I only know it's the most real and valuable part of me that loves you, and it's the most real and valuable part of you that loves me; and I feel somehow that that makes it right. I'd go on with it if it made you happy. But you aren't happy now."

"I'm not happy because you're not. I don't mind for myself so much. Only I hate the beastly way we've got to do it. Covering it all up and pretending that we're not lovers. Deceiving her. That's what makes it all wrong. Hiding it."

"I know. And I made you do that."

"You didn't. We did it for Maisie. Anyhow, we must stop it. We can't go on like this any more. We must simply tell her."

"Tell her?"

"Yes; tell her, and get her to divorce me, so that I can marry you. It's the only straight thing."

"How can we? It would hurt her so awfully."

"Not so much as you think. Remember, she doesn't care for me. She's not like you, Anne. She's frightfully cold."

As he said it there came to her a sudden awful intimation of reality, a sense that behind all their words, all the piled-up protection of their outward thinking, there hid an unknown certainty, a certainty that would wreck them if they knew it. It was safer not to know, to go on hiding behind those piled-up barriers of thought. But an inward, ultimate honesty drove her to her questioning.

"Are you sure she's cold?"

"Absolutely sure. You go on thinking all the time that she's like you, that she takes things as hard as you do; but she doesn't. She doesn't feel as you do. It won't hurt her as it would hurt you if I left you for somebody else."

"But—it'll hurt her."

"It's better to hurt her a little now than to go on humbugging and shamming till she finds out. That would hurt her damnably. She'd hate our not being straight with her. But if we tell her the truth she'll understand. I'm certain she'll understand and she'll forgive you. She can't be hard on you for caring for me."

"Even if she doesn't care?"

"She cares for you," he said.

She couldn't push it from her, that importunate sense of a certainty that was not his certainty. If Maisie did care for him Jerrold wouldn't see it. He never saw what he didn't want to see.

"Supposing she does care all the time? How do you know she doesn't?"

"I don't think I can tell you."

"But I must know, Jerrold. It makes all the difference."

"It makes none to me, Anne. I'd want you whether Maisie cared for me or not. But she doesn't."

"If I thought she didn't—then—then I shouldn't mind her knowing. Why are you so certain? You might tell me."

Then he told her.

After all, that sense of hidden certainty was an illusion.

"When was that, Jerrold?"

"Oh, a night or two after she came down here in April. She didn't know, poor darling, how she let me off."

"April—September. And she's stuck to it?"

"Oh—stuck to it. Rather."

"And before that?"

"Before that we were all right."

"And she'd been away, too."

"Yes. Ages. That made it all the funnier."

"I wish you'd told me before."

"I wish I had, if it makes you happier."

"It does. Still, we can't go on, Jerrold, till she knows."

"Of course we can't. It's too awful. I'll tell her. And we'll go away somewhere while she's divorcing me, and stay away till I can marry you.... It'll be all different when we've got away."

"When you've told her. We ought to have told her long ago, before it happened."

"Yes. But now—what the devil am I to tell her?"

He saw, as if for the first time, what telling her would mean.

"Tell her the truth. The whole truth."

"How can I—when it's you?"

"It's because it is me that you've got to tell her. If you don't, Jerrold, I'll tell her myself."

"All right. I'll tell her at once and get it over. I'll tell her tonight."

"No. Not tonight, while she's so tired. Wait till she's rested."

And Jerrold waited.



XVI

ANNE, MAISIE, AND JERROLD

i

Jerrold waited, and Maisie got her truth in first.

It was on the Wednesday, a fine bright day in September, and Jerrold was to have driven Maisie and Anne over to Oxford in the car. And, ten minutes before starting, Maisie had declared herself too tired to go. Anne wouldn't go without her, and Jerrold, rather sulky, had set off by himself. He couldn't understand Maisie's sudden fits of fatigue when there was nothing the matter with her. He thought her capricious and hysterical. She was acquiring his mother's perverse habit of upsetting your engagements at the last moment; and lately she had been particularly tiresome about motoring. Either they were going too fast or too far, or the wind was too strong; and he would have to turn back, or hold himself in and go slowly. And the next time she would refuse to go at all for fear of spoiling their pleasure. She liked it better when Anne drove her.

And today Jerrold was annoyed with Maisie because of Anne. If it hadn't been for Maisie, Anne would have been with him, enjoying a day's holiday for once. Really, Maisie might have thought of Anne and Anne's pleasure. It wasn't like her not to think of other people. Yet he owned that she hadn't wanted Anne to stay with her. He could hear her pathetic voice imploring Anne to go "because Jerry won't like it if you don't." Also he knew that if Anne was determined not to do a thing nothing you could say would make her do it.

He had had time to think about it as he sat in the lounge of the hotel at Oxford waiting for the friends who were to lunch with him. And suddenly his annoyance had turned to pity.

It was no wonder if Maisie was hysterical. His life with her was all wrong, all horribly unnatural. She ought to have had children. Or he ought never to have married her. It had been all wrong from the beginning. Perhaps she had been aware that there was something missing. Perhaps not. Maisie had seemed always singularly unaware. That was because she didn't care for him. Perhaps, if he had loved her passionately she would have cared more. Perhaps not. Maisie was incurably cold. She shrank from the slightest gesture of approach; she was afraid of any emotion. She was one of those unhappy women who are born with an aversion from warm contacts, who cannot give themselves. What puzzled him was the union of such a temperament with Maisie's sweetness and her charm He had noticed that other men adored her. He knew that if it had not been for Anne he might have adored her, too. And again he wondered whether it would have made any difference to Maisie if he had.

He thought not. She was happy, as it was, in her gentle, unexcited way. Happy and at peace. Giving happiness and peace, if peace were what you wanted. It was that happiness and peace of Maisie's that had drawn him to her when he gave Anne up three years ago.

And again he couldn't understand this combination of hysteria and perfect peace. He couldn't understand Maisie.

Perhaps, after all, she had got what she had wanted. She wouldn't have been happy and at peace if she had been married to some brute who would have had no pity, who would have insisted on his rights. Some faithful brute; or some brute no more faithful to her than he, who had been faithful only to Anne.

As he thought of Anne darkness came down over his brain. His mind struggled through it, looking for the light.

The entrance of his friends cut short his struggling.

ii

Maisie lay on the couch in the library, and Anne sat with her. Maisie's eyes had been closed, but now they had opened, and Anne saw them looking at her and smiling.

"You are a darling, Anne; but I wish you'd gone with Jerrold."

"I don't. I wouldn't have liked it a bit."

"He would, though."

"Not when he thought of you left here all by yourself."

Maisie smiled again.

"Jerry doesn't think, thank Goodness."

"Why 'thank Goodness'?"

"Because I don't want him to. I don't want him to see."

"To see what?"

"Why, that I can't do things like other people."

"Maisie—why can't you? You used to. Jerrold's told me how you used to rush about, dancing and golfing and playing tennis."

"Why? Did he say anything?"

"Only that you took a lot of exercise, and he thinks it's awfully bad for you knocking it all off now."

"Dear old Jerry. Of course he must think it frightfully stupid. But I can't help it, Anne. I can't do things now like I used to. I've got to be careful."

"But—why?"

"Because there's something wrong with my heart. Jerry doesn't know it. I don't want him to know."

"You don't mean seriously wrong?"

"Not very serious. But it hurts."

"Hurts?"

"Yes. And the pain frightens me. Every time it comes I think I'm going to die. But I don't die."

"Oh—Maisie—what sort of pain?"

"A disgusting pain, Anne. As if it was full of splintered glass, mixed up with bubbling blood, cutting and tearing. It grabs at you and you choke; you feel as if your face would burst. You're afraid to breathe for fear it should come again."

"But, Maisie, that's angina."

"It isn't real angina; but it's awful, all the same. Oh, Anne, what must the real thing be like?"

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Yes, two. A man in London and a man in Torquay."

"Do they say it isn't the real thing?"

"Yes. It's all nerves. But it's every bit as bad as if it was real, except that I can't die of it."

"Poor little Maisie—I didn't know."

"I didn't mean you to know. But I had to tell somebody. It's so awful being by yourself with it and being frightened. And then I'm afraid all the time of Jerrold finding out. I'm afraid of his seeing me when it comes on."

"But, Maisie darling, he ought to know. You ought to tell him."

"No. I haven't told my father and mother because they'd tell him. Luckily it's only come on in the night, so that he hasn't seen. But it might come on anywhere, any minute. If I'm excited or anything ... That's the awful thing, Anne; I'm afraid of getting excited. I'm afraid to feel. I'm afraid of everything that makes me feel. I'm afraid of Jerrold's touching me, even of his saying something nice to me. The least thing makes my silly heart tumble about, and if it tumbles too much the pain comes. I daren't let Jerrold sleep with me."

"Yet you haven't told him."

"No; I daren't."

"You must tell him, Maisie."

"I won't. He'd mind horribly. He'd be frightened and miserable, and I can't bear him to be frightened and miserable. He's had enough. He's been through the war. I don't mean that that frightened him; but this would."

"Do you mean to say he doesn't see it?"

"Bless you, no. He just thinks I'm tiresome and hysterical. I'd rather he thought that than see him unhappy. Nothing in the world matters but Jerrold. You see I care for him so frightfully.... You don't know how awful it is, caring like that, and yet having to beat him back all the time, never to give him anything. I daren't let him come near me because of that ghastly fright. I know you oughtn't to be afraid of pain, but it's a pain that makes you afraid. Being afraid's all part of it. So I can't help it."

"Of course you can't help it."

"I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for Jerry. I ought never to have married him."

"But, Maisie, I can't understand it. You're always so happy and calm. How can you be calm and happy with that hanging over you?"

"I've got to be calm for fear of it. And I'm happy because Jerrold's there. Simply knowing that he's there.... I can't think what I'd do, Anne, if he wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They wouldn't stand it. And that makes me care all the more. He'll never know how I care."

"You must tell him."

"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just live in perpetual funk."

"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived."

"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show it. But I'm glad I've told you."

She leaned back, panting.

"I mustn't talk—any more now."

"No. Rest."

"You won't mind?... But—get a book—and read. You'll be—so bored."

She shut her eyes.

Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words ran together, grey lines tangled on a white page. Nothing was clear to her but the fact that Maisie had told the truth about herself.

It was the worst thing that had happened yet. It was the supreme reproach, the ultimate disaster and defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her anything that surprised her. This was the certainty that hid behind the defences of their thought, the certainty she had foreseen when Jerrold told her about Maisie's coldness. It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape, and that his punishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing that Maisie could have done would have been more terrible to Jerrold than her illness and the way she had hidden it from him; the poor darling going in terror of it, lying in bed alone, night after night, shut in with her terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his belief in Maisie's indifference had been his only protection against remorse. How was he going to bear Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the knowledge of it?

Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would be the end of their happiness. After this they would have to give each other up; he would never take her in his arms again; he would never come to her again in the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't go on unless they told Maisie the truth; and they couldn't tell Maisie the truth now, because the truth would bring the pain back to her poor little heart. They could never be straight with her; they would have to hide what they had done for ever. Maisie had silenced them for ever when she got her truth in first. To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they should go on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or that she should keep her knowledge to herself. She would tell Jerrold and end it.

iii

She stayed on with Maisie till the evening.

Jerrold had come back and was walking home with her through the Manor fields when she made up her mind that she would tell him now; at the next gate—the next—when they came to the belt of firs she would tell him.

She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation. The darkness hid them from each other, only their faces and Anne's white coat glimmered through.

"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie."

He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of his hurt mind.

"You haven't told her?" he said.

"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does; she cares awfully. But—she's ill."

"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie."

"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold, pain that terrifies her."

"My God—you don't mean she's got angina?"

"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina. That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come on and you'll see her."

Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came to her in his stillness.

"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings it on."

He spoke at last. "Why on earth couldn't she tell me that?"

"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling didn't want you to be unhappy about her."

"As if that mattered."

"It matters more than anything to her."

"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish thing? Who told her what it was?"

"Some London doctor and a man at Torquay."

"I shall take her up to-morrow and make her see a specialist."

"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or she'll never tell me anything again."

"What am I to say?"

"Say you've been worried about her."

"God knows I ought to have been."

"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of."

"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?"

"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin."

He was silent for a second.

"Anne—she's beaten us. We can't tell her now."

"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight about it we've got to give each other up."

"I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to be said."

His voice dropped on her aching heart with the toneless weight of finality.

"We've got to end it now, this minute," she said. "Don't come any farther."

"Let me go to the bottom of the field."

"No. I'm not going that way."

He had come close to her now, close, as though he would have taken her in his arms for the last night, the last time. He wanted to touch her, to hold her back from the swallowing darkness. But she moved out of his reach and he did not follow her. His passion was ready to flame up if he touched her, and he was afraid. They must end it clean, without a word or a touch.

The grass drive between the firs led to a gate on the hill road that skirted the Manor fields. He knew that she would go from him that way, because she didn't want to pass by their shelter at the bottom. She couldn't sleep in it tonight.

He stood still and watched her go, her white coat glimmering in the darkness between the black rows of firs. The white gate glimmered at the end of the drive. She stood there a moment. He saw her slip like a white ghost between the gate and the gate post; he heard the light thud of the wooden latch falling back behind her, and she was gone.



XVII

JERROLD, MAISIE, ANNE, ELIOT

i

Maisie lay in bed, helpless and abandoned to her illness. It was no good trying to cover it up and hide it any more. Jerrold knew.

The night when he left Anne he had gone up to Maisie in her room. He couldn't rest unless he knew that she was all right. He had stooped over her to kiss her and she had sat up, holding her face to him, her hands clasped round his neck, drawing him close to her, when suddenly the pain gripped her and she lay back in his arms, choking, struggling for breath.

Jerrold thought she was dying. He waited till the pain passed and she was quieted, then he ran downstairs and telephoned for Ransome. He looked on in agony while Ransome's stethoscope wandered over Maisie's thin breast and back. It seemed to him that Ransome was taking an unusually long time about it, that he must be on the track of some terrible discovery. And when Ransome took the tubes from his ears and said, curtly, "Heart quite sound; nothing wrong there," he was convinced that Ransome was an old fool who didn't know his business. Or else he was lying for Maisie's sake.

Downstairs in the library he turned on him.

"Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want truth."

"My dear Fielding, I shouldn't dream of lying to you. There's nothing wrong with your wife's heart. Nothing organically wrong."

"With that pain? She was in agony, Ransome, agony. Why can't you tell me at once that it's angina?"

"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angina's a neurosis, not a heart disease. Get the nervous condition cured and she'll be all right. Has she had any worry? Any shock?"

"Not that I know."

"Any cause for worry?"

He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if she had known. But she didn't know. It seemed to him that Ransome was looking at him queerly.

"No," he said. "None."

"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?"

"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time I was at the front."

"Before that? Years ago?"

"That I don't know. I should say not."

"You won't swear?"

"No. I won't swear. It would be years before we were married."

"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her quiet and happy. She'd better stay in bed for a week or two."

So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat with her, together or in turn. He had a bed made up in her room and slept there when he slept at all. But half the night he lay awake, listening for the sound of her panting and the little gasping cry that would come when the pain got her. He kept on getting up to look at her and make sure that she was sleeping.

He was changed from his old happy, careless self, the self that used to turn from any trouble, that refused to believe that the people it loved could be ill and die. He was convinced that Maisie's state was dangerous. He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve specialist and a heart specialist from London and they all told him the same thing. And he wouldn't believe them. Because Maisie's death was the most unbearable thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the powers that punished him. He was the more certain that Maisie would die because he had denied that she was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything and anticipated nothing. Like most men who refuse to see or foresee trouble, he was crushed by it when it came.

The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable if he had been alone in it; but, day after day, his pain was intensified by the sight of Anne's pain. She was exquisitely vulnerable, and for every pang that stabbed her he felt himself responsible. What they had done they had done together, and they suffered for it together, but in the beginning she had done it for him, and he had made her do it. Nobody, not even Maisie, could have been more innocent than Anne. He had no doubt that, left to herself, she would have hidden her passion from him to the end of time. He, therefore, was the cause of her suffering.

It was as if Anne's consciousness were transferred to him, day after day, when they sat together in Maisie's room, one on each side of her bed, while Maisie lay between them, sleeping her helpless and reproachful sleep, and he saw Anne's piteous face, white with pain. His pity for Maisie and his pity for Anne, their pity for each other were mixed together and held them, close as passion, in an unbearable communion.

They looked at each other, and their wounded eyes said, day after day, the same thing: "Yes, it hurts. But I could bear it if it were not for you." Their pity took the place of passion. It was as if a part of each other passed into them with their suffering as it had passed into them with their joy.

ii

And through it all their passion itself still lived its inextinguishable and tortured life. Pity, so far from destroying it, only made it stronger, pouring in its own emotion, wave after wave, swelling the flood that carried them towards the warm darkness where will and thought would cease.

And as Jerrold's soul had once stirred in the warm darkness under the first stinging of remorse, so now it pushed and struggled to be born; all his will fought against the darkness to deliver his soul. His soul knew that Anne saved it. If her will had been weaker his would not have been so strong. At this moment an unscrupulous Anne might have damned him to the sensual hell by clinging to his pity. He would have sinned because he was sorry for her.

But Anne's will refused his pity. When he showed it she was angry. Yet it was there, waiting for her always, against her will.

One day in October (Maisie's illness lasting on into the autumn) they had gone out into the garden to breathe the cold, clean air while Maisie slept.

"Jerrold," she said, suddenly, "do you think she knows?"

"No. I'm certain she doesn't."

"I'm not. I've an awful feeling that she knows and that's why she doesn't get better."

"I don't think so. If she knew she'd have said something or done something."

"She mightn't. She mightn't do anything. Perhaps she's just being angelically good to us."

"She is angelically good. But she doesn't know. You forget her illness began before there was anything to know. It isn't the sort of thing she'd think of. If somebody told her she wouldn't believe it. She trusts us absolutely.... That's bad enough, Anne, without her knowing."

"Yes. It's bad enough. It's worse, really."

"I know it is.... Anne—I'm awfully sorry to have let you in for all this misery."

"You mustn't be sorry. You haven't let me in for it. Nobody could have known it would have happened. It wouldn't, if Maisie had been different. We wouldn't have bothered then. Nothing would have mattered. Think how gloriously happy we were. All my life all my happiness has come through you or because of you. We'd be happy still if it wasn't for Maisie."

"I don't see how we're to go on like this. I can't stand it when you're not happy. And nothing makes any difference, really. I want you so awfully all the time."

"That's one of the things we mustn't say to each other."

"I know we mustn't. Only I didn't want you to think I didn't."

"I don't think it. I know you'll care for me as long as you live. Only you mustn't say so. You mustn't be sorry for me. It makes me feel all weak and soft when I want to be strong and hard."

"You are strong, Anne."

"So are you. I shouldn't love you if you weren't. But we mustn't make it too hard for each other. You know what'll happen if we do?"

"What? You mean we'd crumple up and give in?"

"No. But we couldn't ever see each other alone again. Never see each other again at all, perhaps. I'd have to go away."