y bed in her shelter and stared out at the
rain and cried.

XIX

ANNE AND ELIOT

i

She knew what she would do now.

She would go away and never see Jerrold again, never while their youth
lasted, while they could still feel. She would go out of England, so far
away that they couldn't meet. She would go to Canada and farm.

All night she lay awake with her mind fixed on the one thought of going
away. There was nothing else to be done, no room for worry or
hesitation. They couldn't hold out any longer, she and Jerrold, strained
to the breaking-point, tortured with the sight of each other.

As she lay awake there came to her the peace that comes with all immense
and clear decisions. Her mind would never be torn and divided any more.
And towards morning she fell asleep.

She woke dulled and bewildered. Her mind struggled with a sense of
appalling yet undefined disaster. Something had happened overnight, she
couldn't remember what. Something had happened. No. Something was going
to happen. She tried to fall back into sleep, fighting against the
return of consciousness; it came on, wave after wave, beating her down.

Now she remembered. She was going away. She would never see Jerrold
again. She was going to Canada.

The sharp, clear name made the whole thing real and irrevocable. It was
something that would actually happen soon. To her. She was going. And
when she had gone she would not come back.

She got up and looked out of the window. She saw the green field sloping
down to the river and the road, and beyond the road, to the right, the
rise of the Manor fields and the belt of firs. And in her mind, more
real than they, the Manor house, the garden, and the many-coloured hills
beyond, rolling, curve after curve, to the straight, dark-blue horizon.
The scene that held her childhood, all her youth, all her happiness;
that had drawn her back, again and again, in memory and in dreams,
making her heart ache. How could she leave it? How could she live with
that pain?

If she was going to be a coward, if she was going to be afraid of
pain--How was she to escape it, how was Jerrold to escape? If she stayed
on they would break down together and give in; they would be lovers
again, and again Maisie's sweet, wounding face would come between them;
they could never get away from it; and in the end their remorse would be
as unbearable as their separation. She couldn't drag Jerrold through
that agony again.

No. Li