“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?