n't. She doesn't
feel as you do. It won't hurt her as it would hurt you if I left you for
somebody else."

"But--it'll hurt her."

"It's better to hurt her a little now than to go on humbugging and
shamming till she finds out. That would hurt her damnably. She'd hate
our not being straight with her. But if we tell her the truth she'll
understand. I'm certain she'll understand and she'll forgive _you_. She
can't be hard on you for caring for me."

"Even if she doesn't care?"

"She cares for _you_," he said.

She couldn't push it from her, that importunate sense of a certainty
that was not his certainty. If Maisie did care for him Jerrold wouldn't
see it. He never saw what he didn't want to see.

"Supposing she _does_ care all the time? How do you know she doesn't?"

"I don't think I can tell you."

"But I _must_ know, Jerrold. It makes all the difference."

"It makes none to me, Anne. I'd want you whether Maisie cared for me or
not. But she doesn't."

"If I thought she didn't--then--then I shouldn't mind her knowing. Why
are you so certain? You might tell me."

Then he told her.

After all, that sense of hidden certainty was an illusion.

"When was that, Jerrold?"

"Oh, a night or two after she came down here in April. She didn't know,
poor darling, how she let me off."

"April--September. And she's stuck to it?"

"Oh--stuck to it. Rather."

"And before that?"

"Before that we were all right."

"And she'd been away, too."

"Yes. Ages. That made it all the funnier."

"I wish you'd told me before."

"I wish I had, if it makes you happier."

"It does. Still, we can't go on, Jerrold, till she knows."

"Of course we can't. It's too awful. I'll tell her. And we'll go away
somewhere while she's divorcing me, and stay away till I can marry
you.... It'll be all different when we've got away."

"When you've told her. We ought to have told her long ago, before it
happened."

"Yes. But now--what the devil _am_ I to tell her?"

He saw, as if for the first time, what telling her would mean.

"Tell her the truth. The whole truth."

"How can I--when it's _you_?"

"It's because it _is_ me that you've got to tell her. If you don't,
Jerrold, I'll tell her myself."

"All right. I'll tell her at once and get it over. I'll tell her
tonight."

"No. Not tonight, while she's so tired. Wait till she's rested."

And Jerrold waited.

XVI

ANNE, MAISIE, AND JERROLD

i

Jerrold waited, and Ma