ather'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."

"No. But he'll be at Cheltenham or Cambridge half the time. I must have
one son at home."

"S