absolute proof that she cared,
desperately? Would she have so hidden the truth from him, would she have
borne her pain and the fear of it, in that awful lonely secrecy, if she
had not cared for him more than for anything on earth? She had been more
afraid to sleep alone than poor Colin who had waked them with his
screaming. Jerrold knew that she was not a brave woman like Anne or
Colin's wife, Queenie; it was out of her love for him that she had drawn
the courage that made her face, night after night, the horror of her
torment alone. If he had wanted proof, what better proof could he have
than that?

So Maisie remained tranquil, secure in her love for Jerrold, and in his
love for her, while Anne and Jerrold were tortured by their love for
each other. They were no longer sustained in their renunciation by the
sight of Maisie's illness and the fear of it which more than anything
had held back their passion. Without that warning fear they were exposed
at every turn. It might be there, waiting for them in the background,
but, with Maisie going about as if nothing had happened, even remorse
had lost its protective poignancy. They suffered the strain of perpetual
frustration. They were never alone together now. They had passed from
each other, beyond all contact of spirit with spirit and flesh with
flesh, beyond all words and looks of longing; they had nothing of each
other but sight, sight that had all the violence of touch without its
satisfaction, that served only to excite them, to torture them with
desire. They might be held at arm's length, at a room's length, at a
field's length apart, but their eyes drew them together, set their
hearts beating; in one moment of seeing they were joined and put
asunder.

And, day after day, their minds desired each other with a subtle,
incessant, intensely conscious longing, and were utterly cut off from
all communion. They met now at longer and longer intervals, for their
work separated them. Colin had come home in October, perfectly
recovered, and he and Jerrold managed the Manor estate together while
Anne looked after her own farm. Jerrold never saw her, he never tried to
see her unless Colin or Maisie or some of the farm people were present;
he was afraid and Anne knew that he was afraid. Her sense of his danger
made her feel herself fragile and unstable. She, too, avoided every
occasion of seeing him alone.

And this separation, so far from saving them, defeated its own end.
Ev