“I know.  Because you’re so sorry.  So sorry.  But Jerry’s sorry too.  So sorry that he can’t bear it.”

“But he’s got to bear it.  There it is and he’s got to take it.  He’s only making things worse for himself by holding out and refusing.  Jerrold will never be any good till he has taken it.  Till he’s suffered damnably.”

“I don’t want him to suffer.  I don’t want it.  I can’t bear him to bear it.”

“He must.  He’s got to.”

“I’d do anything to save him.  But I can’t.”

“You can’t.  And you mustn’t try to.  It would be the best thing that could happen to him.”

“Oh no, not to Jerry.”

“Yes.  To Jerry.  If he’s ever to be any good.  You don’t want him to be a moral invalid, do you?”

“No...  Oh Eliot, that’s Uncle Robert’s door.”

Upstairs the door opened and shut and Adeline came to the head of the stairs.

“Oh Eliot, come quick——­”

Eliot rushed upstairs.  And Anne heard Adeline sobbing hysterically and crying out to him.

“I can’t—­I can’t.  I can not bear it!”

She saw her trail off along the gallery to her room; she heard her lock herself in.  She had every appearance of running away from something.  From something she could not bear.  Half an hour passed before Eliot came back to Anne.

“What was it?” she said.

“What I thought.  Gastric ulcer.  He’s had a haemorrhage.”

That was what Aunt Adeline had run away from.

“Look here, Anne, I’ve got to send Scarrott in the car for Ransome.  Then he’ll have to go on to Cheltenham to fetch Colin.”

“Colin?” This was the end then.

“Yes.  He’d better come.  And I want you to do something.  I want you to drive over to Medlicote and bring Jerrold back.  It’s beastly for you.  But you’ll do it, won’t you?”

“I’ll do anything.”

It was the beastliest thing she had ever had to do, but she did it.

From where she drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the tennis courts.  She could see Jerrold playing in the men’s singles.  He stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was turned to her as he stood.

She heard him shout.  She heard him laugh.  She saw him turn to come up the court, facing her.

And when he saw her, he knew.

ii

He had waited ten minutes in the gallery outside his father’s room.  Eliot had asked Anne to go in and help him while Jerrold stood by the door to keep his mother out.  She was no good, Eliot said.  She lost her head just when he wanted her to do things.  You could have heard her all over the house crying out that she couldn’t bear it.

She opened her door and looked out.  When she saw Jerrold she came to him, slowly, supporting herself by the gallery rail.  Her eyes were sore with crying and there was a flushed thickening about the edges of her mouth.