ou if I didn't. But I can't help forgiving you
when you're so unhappy. I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't told
me the truth, if I'd had to find it out that time when you were happy.
Then I'd have hated you."

"You don't now?"

"No. I don't want to see you again, or Jerrold, either, for a long time.
But that's because I love you."

"_Me_?"

"Yes, you too, Anne."

"How _can_ you love me?"

"Because I'm like you, Anne; I'm faithful."

"I wasn't faithful to you, Maisie."

"You were to Jerrold."

Anne still stood there, silent, taking in silence the pain of Maisie's
goodness, Maisie's love.

Then Maisie ended it.

"He's waiting for you," she said, "to take you home."

Anne went to him where he stood by the terrace steps, illuminated by the
light from the windows. In there she could hear Colin playing, a loud,
tempestuous music. Jerrold waited.

She went past him down the steps without a word, and he followed her
through the garden.

"Anne--" he said.

Under the blackness of the yew hedge she turned to him, and their hands
met.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "Next week I'll take you away somewhere till
it's over."

"Where?"

"Oh, somewhere a long way off, where you'll be happy."

Somewhere a long way off, beyond this pain, beyond this day and this
night, their joy waited.

"And Maisie?" she said.

"Maisie wants you to be happy."

He held her by the hand as he used to hold her when they were children,
to keep her safe. And hand in hand, like children, they went down
through the twilight of the fields, together.

End of Project Gutenberg's Anne Severn and the Fieldings, by May Sinclair

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