nd I'm happy because Jerrold's
there. Simply knowing that he's there.... I can't think what I'd do,
Anne, if he wasn't such an angel. Some men wouldn't be. They wouldn't
stand it. And that makes me care all the more. He'll never know how I
care."

"You must tell him."

"There it is. I daren't even try to tell him. I just live in perpetual
funk."

"And you're the bravest thing that ever lived."

"Oh, I've got to cover it up. It wouldn't do to show it. But I'm glad
I've told you."

She leaned back, panting.

"I mustn't talk--any more now."

"No. Rest."

"You won't mind?... But--get a book--and read. You'll be--so bored."

She shut her eyes.

Anne got a book and tried to read it; but the words ran together, grey
lines tangled on a white page. Nothing was clear to her but the fact
that Maisie had told the truth about herself.

It was the worst thing that had happened yet. It was the supreme
reproach, the ultimate disaster and defeat. Yet Maisie had not told her
anything that surprised her. This was the certainty that hid behind the
defences of their thought, the certainty she had foreseen when Jerrold
told her about Maisie's coldness. It meant that Jerrold couldn't escape,
and that his punishment would be even worse than hers. Nothing that
Maisie could have done would have been more terrible to Jerrold than her
illness and the way she had hidden it from him; the poor darling going
in terror of it, lying in bed alone, night after night, shut in with her
terror. Jerrold was utterly vulnerable; his belief in Maisie's
indifference had been his only protection against remorse. How was he
going to bear Maisie's wounding love? How would he take the knowledge of
it?

Anne saw what must come of his knowing. It would be the end of their
happiness. After this they would have to give each other up; he would
never take her in his arms again; he would never come to her again in
the fields between midnight and dawn. They couldn't go on unless they
told Maisie the truth; and they couldn't tell Maisie the truth now,
because the truth would bring the pain back to her poor little heart.
They could never be straight with her; they would have to hide what they
had done for ever. Maisie had silenced them for ever when she got her
truth in first. To Anne it was not thinkable, either that they should go
on being lovers, knowing about Maisie, or that she should keep her
knowledge to herself. She would tell Jerrold and end it.