ds her to take her in his arms. She
beat down his hands and hung on them, keeping him off.

"Don't, Jerry, please, please don't hold me."

"Oh Anne, let me. You let me once. Don't you remember?"

"We can't now. We mustn't."

And yet she knew that it would happen in some time, in some way. But not
now. Not like this.

"We mustn't."

"Don't you want me to take you in my arms?"

"No. Not that."

"What, then?" He pressed tighter.

"I want you not to hurt Maisie."

"It's too late to think of Maisie now."

"I'm not thinking of her. I'm thinking of you. You'll hurt yourself
frightfully if you hurt her." She wrenched his hands apart and went from
him to the door.

"What are you going to do?" he said.

"I'm going to fetch the lamp."

She left him standing there.

A few minutes later she came back carrying the lighted lamp. He took it
from her and set it on the table.

"And now?"

"Now you're going back to Colin. And we're both going to be good...You
do want to be good--don't you?"

"Yes. But I don't see how we're going to manage it."

"We could manage it if we didn't see each other. If I went away."

"Anne, you wouldn't. You can't mean that. I couldn't stand not seeing
you. You couldn't stand it, either."

"I have stood it. I can stand it again."

"You can't. Not now. It's all different. I swear I'll be decent. I won't
say another word if only you won't go."

"I don't see how I can very well. There's the land... No. Colin must
look after that. I'll go when the ploughing's done. And some day you'll
be glad I went."

"Go. Go. You'll find out then."

Their tenderness was over. Something hard and defiant had come in to
them with the light. He was at the door now.

"And you'll come back," he said. "You'll see you'll come back."

XIII

ANNE AND JERROLD

i

When he was gone she turned on herself in fury. What had she done it
for? Why had she let him go? She didn't want to be good. She wanted
nothing in the world but Jerrold.

She hadn't done it for Maisie. Maisie was nothing to her. A woman she
had never seen and didn't want to see. She knew nothing of her but her
name, and that was sweet and vague like a perfume coming from some place
unknown. She had no sweet image of Maisie in her mind. Maisie might
never have existed for all that Anne thought about her.

What did she do it for, then? Why didn't she take him when he gave
himself? When she knew that in the end it must come to that?