didn't mind having
him.

Jerrold wanted to know why he didn't want to go back and Colin told him.

"Hasn't it occurred to you that I've hurt Anne enough without beginning
all over again? All these damned people here think I'm her lover."

"You can't help that. You're not the only one that's hurt her. We must
try and make it up to her, that's all."

"How are we going to do it?"

"My God! I don't know. I shall begin by cutting the swine who've cut
her."

"That's no good. She doesn't care if they do cut her. She only cares
about us. She's done everything for us, and among us all we've done
nothing for her. Absolutely nothing. We can't give her anything. We
haven't got anything to give her that she wants."

Jerrold was silent.

Presently he said, "She wants Sutton's farm. Sutton's dying. I shall
give it to her when he's dead."

"You think that'll make up?"

"No, Colin, I don't. Supposing we don't talk about it any more."

"All right. I say, when's Maisie coming home?"

"God only knows. I don't."

He wondered how much Colin knew.

iii

February had gone. They were in the middle of March, and still Maisie
had not come back.

She wrote sweet little letters to him saying she was sorry to be so long
away, but her mother wanted her to stay on another week. When Jerrold
wrote asking her to come back (he did this so that he might feel that he
had really played the game) she answered that they wouldn't let her go
till she was rested, and she wasn't quite rested yet. Jerrold mustn't
imagine she was the least bit ill, only rather tired after the winter's
racketing. It would be heavenly to see him again.

Then when she was rested her mother got ill and she had to go with her
to Torquay. And at Torquay Maisie stayed on and on.

And Jerrold didn't imagine she had been the least bit ill, or even very
tired, or that Lady Durham was ill. He preferred to think that Maisie
stayed away because she wanted to, because she cared about her people
more than she cared about him. The longer she stayed the more
obstinately he thought it. Here was he, trying to play the game, trying
to be decent and keep straight, and there was Maisie leaving him alone
with Anne and making it impossible for him.

Anne had been back at the Farm a week and he had not been to see her.
But Maisie's last letter made him wonder whether, really, he need try
any more. He was ill and miserable. Why should he make himself ill and
miserable for a woman