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.