k and looked at her
with his kind, deep-set, attentive eyes. She loved Eliot's eyes, and his
queer, clever face that was so like and so unlike his father's, so
utterly unlike Jerrold's.

"You needn't tell me why you're going," he said at last. "I've seen
Jerrold."

"Did he tell you?"

"No. You've only got to look at him to see."

"Do you think Maisie sees?"

"I can't tell you. She isn't stupid. She must wonder why you're going
like this."

"I told her. I told her I was in love with Jerrold."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. Only that she was sorry. I told her so that she mightn't think
he cared for me. She needn't know that."

"She isn't stupid," he said again.

"No. But she's good. She trusts him so. She trusted me.... Eliot, that
was the worst of it, the way she trusted us. That broke us down."

"Of course she trusted you."

"Did you?"

"You know I did."

"And yet," she said, "I believe you knew. You knew all the time."

"If I didn't, I know now."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"How? Because of my going away? Is that it?"

"Not altogether. I've seen you happy and I've seen you unhappy. I've
seen you with Jerrold. I've seen you with Maisie. Nobody else would have
seen it, but I did, because I knew you so well. And because I was afraid
of it. Besides, you almost told me."

"Yes, and you said it wouldn't make any difference. Does it?"

"No. None. I know, whatever you did, you wouldn't do it only for
yourself. You did this for Jerrold. And you were unhappy because of it."

"No. No. I was happy. We were only unhappy afterwards because of Maisie.
It was so awful going on deceiving her, hiding it and lying. I feel as
if everything I said and did then was a lie. That was how I was
punished. Not being able to tell the truth. And I could have borne even
that if it wasn't for Jerrold. But he hated it, too. It made him
wretched."

"I know it did. If you hadn't been so fine it wouldn't have punished
you."

"_The_ horrible thing was knowing what I'd done to Jerrold, making him
hide and lie."

"Oh, what you've done to Jerrold--You've done him nothing but good.
You've made him finer than he could possibly have been without you."

"I've made him frightfully unhappy."

"Not unhappier than he's made you. And it's what he had to be. I told
you long ago Jerrold wouldn't be any good till he'd suffered damnably.
Well--he has suffered damnably. And he's got a soul because of it. He
hadn't much of one bef