“You needn’t tell me why you’re going,” he said at last.  “I’ve seen Jerrold.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No.  You’ve only got to look at him to see.”

“Do you think Maisie sees?”

“I can’t tell you.  She isn’t stupid.  She must wonder why you’re going like this.”

“I told her.  I told her I was in love with Jerrold.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing.  Only that she was sorry.  I told her so that she mightn’t think he cared for me.  She needn’t know that.”

“She isn’t stupid,” he said again.

“No.  But she’s good.  She trusts him so.  She trusted me....  Eliot, that was the worst of it, the way she trusted us.  That broke us down.”

“Of course she trusted you.”

“Did you?”

“You know I did.”

“And yet,” she said, “I believe you knew.  You knew all the time.”

“If I didn’t, I know now.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“How?  Because of my going away?  Is that it?”

“Not altogether.  I’ve seen you happy and I’ve seen you unhappy.  I’ve seen you with Jerrold.  I’ve seen you with Maisie.  Nobody else would have seen it, but I did, because I knew you so well.  And because I was afraid of it.  Besides, you almost told me.”

“Yes, and you said it wouldn’t make any difference.  Does it?”

“No.  None.  I know, whatever you did, you wouldn’t do it only for yourself.  You did this for Jerrold.  And you were unhappy because of it.”

“No.  No.  I was happy.  We were only unhappy afterwards because of Maisie.  It was so awful going on deceiving her, hiding it and lying.  I feel as if everything I said and did then was a lie.  That was how I was punished.  Not being able to tell the truth.  And I could have borne even that if it wasn’t for Jerrold.  But he hated it, too.  It made him wretched.”

“I know it did.  If you hadn’t been so fine it wouldn’t have punished you.”

“The horrible thing was knowing what I’d done to Jerrold, making him hide and lie.”

“Oh, what you’ve done to Jerrold—­You’ve done him nothing but good.  You’ve made him finer than he could possibly have been without you.”

“I’ve made him frightfully unhappy.”

“Not unhappier than he’s made you.  And it’s what he had to be.  I told you long ago Jerrold wouldn’t be any good till he’d suffered damnably.  Well—­he has suffered damnably.  And he’s got a soul because of it.  He hadn’t much of one before he loved you.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean he used to think of nothing but his own happiness.  Now he’s thinking of nothing but Maisie’s and yours.  He loves you better than himself.  He even loves Maisie better—­I mean he thinks more of her—­than he did before he loved you.  There are two people that he cares for more than himself.  He cares more for his own honour than he did.  And for yours.  And that’s your doing.  Just think how you’d have wrecked him if you’d been a different sort of woman.”