Jerrold was afraid of Anne, and he saw no end to his fear.  He had been dashed against the suffering he was trying to put away from him and the shock of it had killed in one hour his young adolescent passion.  She would be for ever associated with that suffering.  He would never see Anne without thinking of his father’s death.  He would never think of his father’s death without seeing Anne.  He would see her for ever through an atmosphere of pain and horror, moving as she had moved in his father’s room.  He couldn’t see her any other way.  This intolerable memory of her effaced all other memories, memories of the child Anne with the rabbit, of the young, happy Anne who walked and rode and played with him, of the strange, mysterious Anne he had found yesterday in her room at dawn.  That Anne belonged to a time he had done with.  There was nothing left for him but the Anne who had come to tell him his father was dying, who had brought him to his father’s death-bed, who had bound herself up inseparably with his death, who only moved from the scene of it to appear dressed in black and carrying the flowers for his funeral.

She was wrapped round and round with death and death, nothing but death, and with Jerrold’s suffering.  When he saw her he suffered again.  And as his way had always been to avoid suffering, he avoided Anne.  His eyes turned from her if he saw her coming.  He spoke to her without looking at her.  He tried not to think of her.  When he had gone he would try not to remember.

His one idea was to go, to get away from the place his father had died in and from the people who had seen him die.  He wanted new unknown faces, new unknown voices that would not remind him------

Ten days after his father’s death the letter came from John Severn.  He wrote: 

“...  I’m delighted about Sir Charles Durham.  You are a lucky devil.  Any chap Sir Charles takes a fancy to is bound to get on.  He can’t help himself.  You’re not afraid of hard work, and I can tell you we give our Assistant Commissioners all they want and a lot more.

“It’ll be nice if you bring Anne out with you.  If you’re stationed anywhere near us we ought to give her the jolliest time in her life between us.”

“But Jerrold,” said Adeline when she had read this letter.  “You’re not going out now.  You must wire and tell him so.”

“Why not now?”

“Because, my dear boy, you’ve got the estate and you must stay and look after it.”

“Barker’ll look after it.  That’s what he’s there for.”

“Nonsense, Jerrold.  There’s no need for you to go out to India.”

“There is need.  I’ve got to go.”

“You haven’t.  There’s every need for you to stop where you are.  Eliot will be going abroad if Sir Martin Crozier takes him on.  And if Colin goes into the diplomatic service Goodness knows where he’ll be sent to.”

“Colin won’t be sent anywhere for another four years.”