“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.”

“You shan’t have to.  I swear I won’t say another word.”

“Sometimes I think it would be easier for you if I went.”

“It wouldn’t.  It would be simply damnable.  You can’t go, Anne.  That would make Maisie think.”

iii

After weeks of rest Maisie passed into a period of painless tranquillity.  She had no longer any fear of her illness because she had no longer any fear of Jerrold’s knowing about it.  He did know, and yet her world stood firm round her, firmer than when he had not known.  For she had now in Jerrold’s ceaseless devotion what seemed to her the absolute proof that he cared for her, if she had ever doubted it.  And if he had doubted her, hadn’t he the absolute proof that she cared, desperately?  Would she have so hidden the truth from him, would she have borne her pain and the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she had not cared for him more than for anything on earth?  She had been more afraid to sleep alone than poor Colin who had waked them with his screaming.  Jerrold knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or Colin’s wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him that she had drawn the courage that made her face, night after night, the horror of her torment alone.  If he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have than that?

So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for Jerrold, and in his love for her, while Anne and Jerrold were tortured by their love for each other.  They were no longer sustained in their renunciation by the sight of Maisie’s illness and the fear of it which more than anything had held back their passion.  Without that warning fear they were exposed at every turn.  It might be there, waiting for them in the background, but, with Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even remorse had lost its protective poignancy.  They suffered the strain of perpetual frustration.  They were never alone together now.  They had passed from each other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh with flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they had nothing of each other but sight, sight that had all the violence of touch without its satisfaction, that served only to excite them, to torture them with desire.  They might be held at arm’s length, at a room’s length, at a field’s length apart, but their eyes drew them together, set their hearts beating; in one moment of seeing they were joined and put asunder.