een her white bed and the window with a little black cat in
her arms. Her platted hair lay in a thick black rope down her back. He
remembered how he had kissed her; he remembered the sliding of her sweet
face against his, the pressure of her darling head against his shoulder,
the salt taste of her tears. It was inconceivable that he had not loved
Anne then. Why hadn't he? Why had he let his infernal cowardice stop
him? Eliot had loved her.

Then he remembered Colin. Little Col-Col running after them down the
field, calling to them to take him with them; Colin's hands playing;
Colin's voice singing _Lord Rendal_. He tried to think of Queenie, the
woman Colin had married. He had no image of her. He could see nothing
but Colin and Anne.

She was there alone at the station to meet him. She came towards him
along the platform. Their eyes looked for each other. Something choked
his voice back. She spoke first.

"Jerrold------"

"Anne." A strange, thick voice deep down in his throat.

Their hands clasped one into the other, close and strong.

"Colin wanted to come, but I wouldn't let him. It would have been too
much for him. He might have cried or something ... You mustn't mind if
he cries when he sees you. He isn't quite right yet."

"No, but he's better."

"Ever so much better. He can do things on the farm now. He looks after
the lambs and the chickens and the pigs. It's good for him to have
something to do."

Jerrold agreed that it was good.

They had reached the Manor Farm now.

"Don't take any notice if he cries," she said.

Colin waited for him in the hall of the house. He was trying hard to
control himself, but when he saw Jerrold coming up the path he broke
down in a brief convulsive crying that stopped suddenly at the touch of
Jerrold's hand.

Anne left them together.

iv

"Don't go, Anne."

Colin called her back when she would have left them, again after dinner.

"Don't you want Jerrold to yourself?" she said.

"We don't want you to go, do we, Jerrold?"

"Rather not."

Jerrold found himself looking at them all the time. He had tried to
persuade himself that what his mother had told him was not true. But he
wasn't sure. Look as he would, he was not sure.

If only his mother hadn't told him, he might have gone on believing in
what she had called their innocence. But she had shown him what to look
for, and for the life of him he couldn't help seeing it at every turn:
in Anne's face, in the