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.”