iii

She stayed on with Maisie till the evening.

Jerrold had come back and was walking home with her through the Manor
fields when she made up her mind that she would tell him now; at the
next gate--the next--when they came to the belt of firs she would tell
him.

She stopped him there by the fence of the plantation. The darkness hid
them from each other, only their faces and Anne's white coat glimmered
through.

"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie."

He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of
his hurt mind.

"You haven't told her?" he said.

"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But
you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does;
she cares awfully. But--she's ill."

"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie."

"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold,
pain that terrifies her."

"My God--you don't mean she's got _angina_?"

"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that
she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina.
That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come
on and you'll see her."

Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came
to her in his stillness.

"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings
it on."

He spoke at last. "Why on earth couldn't she tell me that?"

"Because she loves you so awfully. The poor darling didn't want you to
be unhappy about her."

"As if that mattered."

"It matters more than anything to her."

"Do you really mean that she's got that hellish thing? Who told her what
it was?"

"Some London doctor and a man at Torquay."

"I shall take her up to-morrow and make her see a specialist."

"If you do you mustn't let her know I told you, or she'll never tell me
anything again."

"What am I to say?"

"Say you've been worried about her."

"God knows I ought to have been."

"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she
says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of."

"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?"

"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a
moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you
don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin."