"It's nothing. Only the tree." "I mean--in Jerry's bed." "Oh no, Colin." "Dare you," he said, "sit on it?" "Of course I dare. _Now_ you see. _Now_ you won't be frightened." "You know," Colin said, "I don't mind a bit when Jerrold's there. The ghosts never come then, because he frightens them away." The clock struck ten. They counted the strokes. Anne still sat on Jerrold's bed with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms clasped round them. "I'll tell you a secret," Colin said. "Only you mustn't tell." "I won't." "Really and truly?" "Really and truly." "I think Jerrold's the wonderfullest person in the whole world. When I grow up I'm going to be like him." "You couldn't be." "Not now. But when I'm grown-up, I say." "You couldn't be. Not even then. Jerrold can't sing and he can't play." "I don't care." "But you mustn't do what he can't if you want to be like him." "When I'm singing and playing I shall pretend I'm not." "You needn't. You won't ever be him." "I--shall." "Col-Col, I don't want you to be like him. I don't want anybody else to be like Jerrold in the whole world." "But," said Colin, "I shall be like him." xiv Every night Adeline still came to see Anne in bed. The little thing had left off pretending to be asleep. She lay with eyes wide open, yielding sweetly to the embrace. To-night her eyelids lay shut, slack on her eyes, and Adeline thought "She's really asleep, the little lamb. Better not touch her." She was going away when a sound stopped her. A sound of sobbing. "Anne--Anne--are you crying?" A tremulous drawing-in of breath, a shaking under the bed-clothes. On Anne's white cheek the black eyelashes were parted and pointed with her tears. She had been crying a long time. Adeline knelt down, her face against Anne's face. "What is it darling? Tell me." Anne shivered. "Oh Anne, I wish you loved me. You don't, ducky, a little bit." "I do. I do. Really and truly." "Then give me a kiss. The proper kind." Anne gave her the tight, deep kiss that was the proper kind. "Now--tell me what it is." She knew by Anne's surrender that, this time, it was not her mother. "I don't know." "You _do_ know. Is it Jerry? Do you want Jerry?" At the name Anne's crying broke out again, savage, violent. Adeline held her close and let the storm beat itself out against her heart. "You can't want him more than I do, little Anne." "You'll have him when he comes back. And I shan't. I shall be gone." "You'll come again, darling. You'll come again." II ADOLESCENTS i For the next two years Anne came again and again, staying four months at Wyck and four months in London with Grandmamma Severn and Aunt Emily, and four months with Grandpapa Everitt at the Essex Farm. When she was twelve they sent her to school in Switzerland for three years. Then back to Wyck, after eight months of London and Essex in between.