"No. Eliot told me. He saw you at it."
"I only take a hand at hay time and harvest. All the rest of the year
it's just riding about and seeing that other people work. And Colin does
half of that now."
"All the same, I think it's about time you stopped."
"But if I stop the whole thing'll stop. The men must have somebody over
them."
"There's me."
"You don't know anything about farming, Jerry dear. You don't know a teg
from a wether."
"I suppose I can learn if Colin's learnt. Or I can get another Barker."
"Not so easy. Don't you like my looking after your land, then? Aren't
you pleased with me? I haven't done so badly, you know. Seven hundred
acres."
"You've been simply splendid. I shall never forget what you've done. And
I shall never forgive myself for letting you do it. I'd no idea what it
meant."
"It's only meant that Colin's better and I've been happier than I ever
thought I could have been."
"Happier? Weren't you happy then?"
She didn't answer. They were on dangerous ground. If they began talking
about happiness-"If I gave it up to-morrow," she said, "I should only go and work on
another farm."
"Would you?"
"Jerrold--do you want me to go?"
"Want you?"
"Yes. You did once. At least, you wanted to get away from _me_."
"I didn't know what I was doing. If I had known I shouldn't have done
it. I can't talk about that, Anne. It doesn't bear thinking about."
"No. But, Jerrold--tell me the truth. Do you want me to go because of
Colin?"
"Colin?"
"Yes. Because of what your mother told you?"
"How do you know what she told me?"
"She told Eliot."
"And he told _you_? Good God! what was he thinking of?"
"He thought it better for me to know it. It _was_ better."
"How could it be?"
"I can't tell you...Jerrold, it isn't true."
"I know it isn't."
"But you thought it was."
"When did I think?"
"Then; when you came to see me."
"Did I?"
"Yes. And you're not going to lie about it now."
"Well, if I did I've paid for it."
(What did he mean? Paid for it? It was she who had paid.) "When did you know it wasn't true?" she said.
"Three months after, when Eliot wrote and told me. It was too late
then.... If only you'd told me at the time. Why didn't you?"
"But I didn't know you thought it. How could I know?"
"No. How could you? Who would have believed that things could have
happened so damnably as that?"
"But it's all right now. Why did you say it was too late?"