"Eliot said that?"
"Yes. He said it was the test of everybody, how they took reality, and that Jerrold had had to learn how, but that you had always known. You were so true that your worst punishment was not being able to tell me the truth. I was to think of you like that."
"How can you bear to think of me at all?"
"How can I bear to live? But I shall live."
Maisie's voice dropped, note by note, like clear, rounded tears, pressed out and shaped by pain.
Anne's voice came thick and quivering out of her dark secret anguish, like a voice from behind shut doors.
"Jerrold said you'd forgiven me. Have you?"
"It would be easier for you if I didn't. But I can't help forgiving you when you're so unhappy. I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't told me the truth, if I'd had to find it out that time when you were happy. Then I'd have hated you."
"You don't now?"
"No. I don't want to see you again, or Jerrold, either, for a long time.
But that's because I love you."