"Wait a minute, Jerrold. I want to tell you something. About Maisie."
He drew himself up abruptly, and she felt the sudden start and check of his hurt mind.
"You haven't told her?" he said.
"No. It's something she told me. She doesn't want you to know. But you've got to know it. You think she doesn't care for you, and she does; she cares awfully. But—she's ill."
"Ill? She isn't, Anne. She only thinks she is. I know Maisie."
"You don't know that she gets heart attacks. Frightful pain, Jerrold, pain that terrifies her."
"My God—you don't mean she's got angina?"
"Not the real kind. If it was that she'd be dead. But pain so bad that she thinks she's dying every time. It's what they call false angina. That's why she doesn't want you to sleep with her, for fear it'll come on and you'll see her."
Through the darkness she could feel the vibration of his shock; it came to her in his stillness.
"You said she didn't feel. She's afraid to feel because feeling brings it on."