An hour ago the walls had stood solid between them.  Now a furious impulse seized him to tear them down and get through to her.  This time he would hold her and never let her go.

His thoughts went the way his passion went.  Then suddenly she turned and they looked at each other and he thought no more.  All his thoughts went down in the hot rushing darkness of his blood.

“Anne,” he said, “Anne”—­His voice sounded like a cry.

They stood up suddenly and were swept together; he held her tight, shut in his arms, his body straining to her.  They clung to each other as if only by clinging they could stand against the hot darkness that drowned them; and the more they clung the more it came over them, wave after wave.

Then in the darkness he heard her crying to him to let her go.

“Don’t make me, Jerrold, don’t make me.”

“Yes.  Yes.”

“No.  Oh, why did we ever come here?”

He pressed her closer and she tried to push him off with weak hands that had once been strong.  He felt her breakable in his arms, and utterly defenceless.

“I can’t,” she cried.  “I should feel as if Maisie were there and looking at us....  Don’t make me.”

Suddenly he let her go.

He was beaten by the sheer weakness of her struggle.  He couldn’t fight for his flesh, like a brute, against that helplessness.

“If I go, you’ll stay here till the rain stops?”

“Yes.  I’m sorry, Jerry.  You’ll get so wet.”

That made him laugh.  And, laughing, he left her.  Then tears came, cutting through his eyelids like blood from a dry wound.  They mixed with the rain and blinded him.

And Anne sat on the little grey bed in her shelter and stared out at the rain and cried.

XIX

ANNE AND ELIOT

i

She knew what she would do now.

She would go away and never see Jerrold again, never while their youth lasted, while they could still feel.  She would go out of England, so far away that they couldn’t meet.  She would go to Canada and farm.

All night she lay awake with her mind fixed on the one thought of going away.  There was nothing else to be done, no room for worry or hesitation.  They couldn’t hold out any longer, she and Jerrold, strained to the breaking-point, tortured with the sight of each other.

As she lay awake there came to her the peace that comes with all immense and clear decisions.  Her mind would never be torn and divided any more.  And towards morning she fell asleep.

She woke dulled and bewildered.  Her mind struggled with a sense of appalling yet undefined disaster.  Something had happened overnight, she couldn’t remember what.  Something had happened.  No.  Something was going to happen.  She tried to fall back into sleep, fighting against the return of consciousness; it came on, wave after wave, beating her down.