"I couldn't tell you. You were so ill. I thought it would kill you."
"Well, what if it had? You shouldn't have thought of me, you should have thought of Jerrold."
"I did think of him. I didn't want him to have agonies of remorse. It's been bad enough as it is."
"I know what it's been, Anne."
"That's what I really came for now. To see if you'd had that pain again."
"You needn't be afraid. I shall never have that pain again. Eliot told me all about it last night."
"What did he say?"
"He showed me how it all happened. I was ill because I couldn't face the truth. The truth was that Jerrold didn't care for me. It seems my mind knew it all the time when I didn't. I did know it once, and part of me went on feeling the shock of it, while the other part was living like a fool in an illusion, thinking he cared. And now I've been dragged out of it into reality. I'm facing it. This is real. And whatever I may be I shan't be ill again, not with that illness. I couldn't help it, but in a way it was as false as if I'd made it up on purpose to hide the truth. And the truth's cured me."
"Eliot told me it might. And I wouldn't believe him."
"You can believe him now. He said you and Jerrold were all right because you'd faced the truth about yourselves and each other. You held on to reality."