"And if you can't stand the strain of it?"
"But I can."
"And if he can't? If you want to be safe——"
"I told you I should never want to be safe."
"If you want him to be safe, then, would you marry me?"
"That's different. I don't know, Eliot, but I don't think so."
He went away with a faint hope. She had said it would be different; what she would never do for him she might do for Jerrold.
She might, after all, marry him to keep Jerrold safe.
Nothing made any difference. Whatever Anne did she would still be Anne. And it was Anne he loved. And, after all, what did he know about her and Jerrold? Only that if they had been lovers that would account for their strange happiness seven months ago; if they had given each other up this would account for their unhappiness now. He thought: How they must have struggled.
Perhaps, some day, when the whole story was told and Anne was tired of struggling, she would come to him and he would marry her.