She couldn't think how Anne could want to leave the Barrow Farm house when she had just got into it, when they had all made it so nice for her; she couldn't think how she could leave them when she cared for them, when she knew how they cared for her. "You _do_ care for us, Anne?" "Oh yes, I care." "And you _wanted_ the farm. I can't understand your going just when you've got it, when you've settled, in and when Jerrold took all that trouble to make it nice for you. It isn't like you, Anne." "I know. It must seem awful of me; but I can't help it, Maisie darling. I've _got_ to go. You mustn't try and stop me. It only makes it harder." "Then it _is_ hard? You don't really want to go?" "Of course I don't. But I must." Maisie meditated, trying to make it out. "Is it--is it because you're unhappy?" Anne didn't answer. "You _are_ unhappy. You've been unhappy ever so long. Can't we do anything?" "No. Nobody can do anything." "It isn't," said Maisie at last, "anything to do with Jerrold?" "You wouldn't ask me that, Maisie, if you didn't know it was." "Perhaps I do know. Do you care for him very much, Anne?" "Yes, I care for him, very much. And I can't stand it." "It's so bad that you've got to go away?" "It's so bad that I've got to go away." "That's very brave of you." "Or very cowardly." "No. You couldn't be a coward.... Oh, Anne darling, I'm so sorry." "Don't be sorry. It's my own fault. I'd no business to get into this state. Don't let's talk about it, Maisie." "All right, I won't. But I'm sorry.... Only one thing. It--it hasn't made you hate me, has it?" "You know it hasn't." "Oh, Anne, you _are_ beautiful." "I'm anything but, if you only knew." She had got beyond the pain of Maisie's goodness, Maisie's trust. No possible blow from Maisie's mind could hurt her now. Nothing mattered. Maisie's trust and goodness didn't matter, since she had done all she knew; since she was going away; since she would never see Jerrold again, never till their youth was gone and they had ceased to feel. iv That afternoon Eliot arrived at Wyck Manor. His coming was his answer to Anne's letter. He went over to the Barrow Farm about five o'clock when Anne's work would be done. Anne was still out, and he waited till she should come back. As he waited he looked round her room. This, he thought, was the place that Anne had set her heart on having for her own; it was the home they had made for her. Something terrible must have happened before she could bring herself to leave it. She must have been driven to the breaking-point. She was broken. Jerrold must have driven and broken her. He heard her feet on the flagged path, on the threshold of the house; she stood in the doorway of the room, looking at him, startled. "Eliot, what are you doing there?" "Waiting for you. You must have known I'd come." "To say good-bye? That was nice of you." "No, not to say good-bye. I should come to see you off if you were going."