some was an old fool who didn't know his business. Or else he
was lying for Maisie's sake.

Downstairs in the library he turned on him.

"Look here; there's no good lying to me. I want truth."

"My dear Fielding, I shouldn't dream of lying to you. There's nothing
wrong with your wife's heart. Nothing organically wrong."

"With that pain? She was in agony, Ransome, agony. Why can't you tell me
at once that it's angina?"

"Because it isn't. Not the real thing. False angina's a neurosis, not a
heart disease. Get the nervous condition cured and she'll be all right.
Has she had any worry? Any shock?"

"Not that I know."

"Any cause for worry?"

He hesitated. Poor Maisie had had cause enough if she had known. But she
didn't know. It seemed to him that Ransome was looking at him queerly.

"No," he said. "None."

"You're quite certain? Has she ever had any?"

"Well, I suppose she was pretty jumpy all the time I was at the front."

"Before that? Years ago?"

"That I don't know. I should say not."

"You won't swear?"

"No. I won't swear. It would be years before we were married."

"Try and find out," said Ransome. "And keep her quiet and happy. She'd
better stay in bed for a week or two."

So Maisie stayed in bed, and Jerrold and Anne sat with her, together or
in turn. He had a bed made up in her room and slept there when he slept
at all. But half the night he lay awake, listening for the sound of her
panting and the little gasping cry that would come when the pain got
her. He kept on getting up to look at her and make sure that she was
sleeping.

He was changed from his old happy, careless self, the self that used to
turn from any trouble, that refused to believe that the people it loved
could be ill and die. He was convinced that Maisie's state was
dangerous. He sent for Dr. Harper of Cheltenham and for a nerve
specialist and a heart specialist from London and they all told him the
same thing. And he wouldn't believe them. Because Maisie's death was the
most unbearable thing that his remorse could imagine, he felt that
nothing short of Maisie's death would appease the powers that punished
him. He was the more certain that Maisie would die because he had denied
that she was ill. For Jerrold's mind remembered everything and
anticipated nothing. Like most men who refuse to see or foresee trouble,
he was crushed by it when it came.

The remorse he felt might have been less intolerable if he had been
alone i