But, though the idea of Gwenda's marrying was disagreeable to him for so many reasons, he was not going to forbid it absolutely. He was only going to insist that she should wait. It was only reasonable and decent that she should wait until Alice got either better or bad enough to be put under restraint.

The Vicar's pity for himself reached its climax when he considered that awful alternative. He had been considering it ever since Rowcliffe had spoken to him about Alice.

It was just like Gwenda to go and get engaged at such a moment, when he was beside himself.

But he smoothed his face into a smile when she appeared.

"Well, what is it? What is this great thing you've come to tell me?"

It struck him that for the first time in her life Gwenda looked embarrassed; as well she might be.

"Oh—it isn't very great, Papa. It's only that I'm going away."

"Going—away?"

"I don't mean out of the country. Only to London."

"Ha! Going to London—" He rolled it ruminatingly on his tongue.

"Well, if that's all you've come to say, it's very simple. You can't go."

He bent his knees with the little self-liberating gesture that he had when he put his foot down.

"But," said Gwenda, "I'm going."

He raised his eyebrows.

"And why is this the first time I've heard of it?"

"Because I want to go without any bother, since I'm going to go."

"Oh—consideration for me, I suppose?"

"For both of us. I don't want you to worry."

"That's why you've chosen a time when I'm worried out of my wits already."

"I know, Papa. That's why I'm going."

He was arrested both by the astounding statement and by something unusually placable in her tone. He stared at her as his way was.

Then, suddenly, he had a light on it.

"Gwenda, there must be something behind all this. You'd better tell me straight out what's happened."

"Nothing has happened."

"You know what I mean. We've spoken about this before. Is there anything between you and young Rowcliffe."

"Nothing. Nothing whatever of the sort you mean."

"You're sure there hasn't been"—he paused discreetly for his word—"some misunderstanding?"

"Quite sure. There isn't anything to misunderstand. I'm going because I want to go. There are too many of us at home."

"Too many of you—in the state your sister's in?"

"That's exactly why I'm going. I'm trying to tell you. Ally'll go on being ill as long as there are three of us knocking about the house. You'll find she'll buck up like anything when I'm gone. There's nothing the matter with her, really."

"That may be your opinion. It isn't Rowcliffe's."

"I know it isn't. But it soon will be. It was your own idea a little while ago."

"Ye—es; before this last attack, perhaps. D'you know what Rowcliffe thinks of her?"

"Yes. But I know a lot more about Ally than he does. So do you."

"Well—"

They were sitting down to it now.

"But I can't afford to keep you if you go away."

"Of course you can't. You won't have to keep me. I'm going to keep myself."

Again he stared. This was preposterous.

"It's all right, Papa. It's all settled."

"By whom?"

"By me."

"You've found something to do in London?"

"Not yet. I'm going to look—"

"And what," inquired the Vicar with an even suaver irony, "can you do?"

"I can be somebody's secretary."

"Whose?"

"Oh," said Gwenda airily, "anybody's."

"And—if I may ask—what will you do, and where do you propose to stay, while you're looking for him?" (He felt that he expressed himself with perspicacity.)

"That's all arranged. I'm going to Mummy."

The Vicar was silent with the shock of it.

"I'm sorry, Papa," said Gwenda; "but there's nowhere else to go to."

"If you go there," said Mr. Cartaret, "you will certainly not come back here."

All that had passed till now had been mere skirmishing. The real battle had begun.

Gwenda set her face to it.

"I shall not be coming back in any case," she said.

"That question can stand over till you've gone."

"I shall be gone on Friday by the three train."

"I shall not allow you to go—by any train."

"How are you going to stop me?"

He had not considered it.

"You don't suppose I'm going to give you any money to go with?"

"You needn't. I've got heaps."

"And how are you going to get your luggage to the station?"

"Oh—the usual way."

"There'll be no way if I forbid Peacock to carry it—or you."

"Can you forbid Jim Greatorex? He'll take me like a shot."

"I can put your luggage under lock and key."

He was still stern, though, he was aware that the discussion was descending to sheer foolishness.

"I'll go without it. I can carry a toothbrush and a comb, and Mummy will have heaps of nightgowns."

The Vicar leaned forward and hid his face in his hands before that poignant evocation of Robina.

Gwenda saw that she had gone too far. She had a queer longing to go down on her knees before him and drag his hands from his poor face and ask him to forgive her. She struggled with and overcame the morbid impulse.

The Vicar lifted his face, and for a moment they looked at each other while he measured, visibly, his forces against hers.

She shook her head at him almost tenderly. He was purely pathetic to her now.

"It's no use, Papa. You'd far better give it up. You know you can't do it. You can't stop me. You can't stop Jim Greatorex. You can't even stop Peacock. You don't want another scandal in the parish."

He didn't.

"Oh, go your own way," he said, "and take the consequences."

"I have taken them," said Gwenda.

She thought, "I wonder what he'd have said if I'd told him the truth? But, if I had, he'd never have believed it."

The truth indeed was far beyond the Vicar's power of belief. He only supposed (after some reflection) that Gwenda was going off in a huff, because young Rowcliffe had failed to come to the scratch. He knew what this running up to London and earning her own living meant—she! He would have trusted Ally sooner. Gwenda was capable of anything.

And as he thought of what she might be capable of in London, he sighed, "God help her!"



XL

It was May, five weeks since Gwenda had left Garthdale.

Five Wednesdays came and went and Rowcliffe had not been seen or heard of at the Vicarage. It struck even the Vicar that considerably more had passed between his daughter and the doctor than Gwenda had been willing to admit. Whatever had passed, it had been something that had made Rowcliffe desire not to be seen or heard of.

All the same, the Vicar and his daughter Alice were both so profoundly aware of Rowcliffe that for five weeks they had not mentioned his name to each other. When Mary mentioned it on Friday, in the evening of that disgraceful day, he said that he had had enough of Rowcliffe and he didn't want to hear any more about the fellow.

Mr. Cartaret had signified that his second daughter's name was not to be mentioned, either. But, becoming as his attitude was, he had not been able to keep it up. In the sixth week after Gwenda's departure, he was obliged to hear (it was Alice, amazed out of all reticence, who told him) that Gwenda had got a berth as companion secretary to Lady Frances Gilbey, at a salary of a hundred a year.

Mummy had got it for her.

"You may well stare, Molly, but it's what she says."

The Vicar, as if he had believed Ally capable of fabricating this intelligence, observed that he would like to see that letter.

His face darkened as he read it. He handed it back without a word.

The thing was not so incredible to the Vicar as it was to Mary.

He had always known that Robina could pull wires. It was, in fact, through her ability to pull wires that Robina had so successfully held him up. She had her hands on the connections of an entire social system. Her superior ramifications were among those whom Mr. Cartaret habitually spoke and thought of as "the best people." And when it came to connections, Robina's were of the very best. Lady Frances was her second cousin. In the days when he was trying to find excuses for marrying Robina, it was in considering her connections that he found his finest. The Vicar had informed his conscience that he was marrying Robina because of what she could do for his three motherless daughters—and himself.

Preferment even lay (through the Gilbeys) within Robina's scope.

But to have planted Gwenda on Lady Frances Robina must have pulled all the wires she knew. Lady Frances was a distinguished philanthropist and a rigid Evangelical, so rigid and so distinguished that, in the eyes of poor parsons waiting for preferment, she constituted a pillar of the Church.

To the Vicar, as he brooded over it, Robina's act was more than mere protection of his daughter Gwenda. Not only was it carrying the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance, it was an act of hostility subtler and more malignant than overt defiance.

Ever since she left him, Robina had been trying to get hold of the girls, regarding them as the finest instruments in her relentless game. For it never occurred to Mr. Cartaret that his third wife's movements could by any possibility refer to anybody but himself. Robina, according to Mr. Cartaret, was perpetually thinking of him and of how she could annoy him. She had shown a fiendish cleverness in placing Gwenda with Lady Frances. She couldn't have done anything that could have annoyed him more. More than anything that Robina had yet done, it put him in the wrong. It put him in the wrong not only with Lady Frances and the best people, but it put him in the wrong with Gwenda and kept him there. Against Gwenda, with Lady Frances and a salary of a hundred a year at her back, he hadn't the appearance of a leg to stand on. The thing had the air of justifying Gwenda's behavior by its consequences.

That was what Robina had been reckoning on. For, if it had been Gwenda she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of handing her over to Lady Frances. The companion secretaries of that distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even at a hundred a year.

As for Gwenda's accepting such a post, that proved nothing as against his view of her. It only proved, what he had always known, that you could never tell what Gwenda would do next.

And because nothing could be said with any dignity, the Vicar had said nothing as he rose and went into his study.

It was there, hidden from his daughters' scrutiny, that he pondered these things.

* * * * *

They waited till the door had closed on him before they spoke.

"Well, after all, that'll be very jolly for her," said Mary.

"It isn't half as jolly as it looks," said Ally. "It means that she'll have to live at Tunbridge Wells."

"Oh," said Mary, "it won't be all Tunbridge Wells." She couldn't bear to think that it would be all Tunbridge Wells. Not that she did think it for a moment. It couldn't be all Tunbridge Wells for a girl like Gwenda. Mummy could never have contemplated that. Gwenda couldn't have contemplated it. And Mary refused to contemplate it either. She persuaded herself that what had happened to her sister was simply a piece of the most amazing luck. She even judged it probable that Gwenda had known very well what she was doing when she went away.

Besides she had always wanted to do something. She had learned shorthand and typewriting at Westbourne, as if, long ago, she had decided that, if home became insupportable, she would leave it. And there had always been that agreement between her and Mummy.

When Mary put these things together, she saw that nothing could be more certain than that, sooner or later, Ally or no Ally, Gwenda would have gone away.

But this was after it had occurred to her that Rowcliffe ought to know what had happened and that she had got to tell him. And that was on the day after Gwenda's letter came, when Mrs. Gale, having brought in the tea-things, paused in her going to say, "'Ave yo' seen Dr. Rawcliffe, Miss Mary? Ey—but 'e's lookin' baad."

"Everybody," said Mary, "is looking bad this muggy weather. That reminds me, how's the baby?"

"'E's woorse again, Miss. I tall Assy she'll navver rear 'im."

"Has the doctor seen him to-day?"

"Naw, naw, nat yat. But 'e'll look in, 'e saays, afore 'e goas."

Mary looked at the clock. Rowcliffe left the surgery at four-thirty. It was now five minutes past.

She wondered: Did he know, then, or did he not know? Would Gwenda have written to him? Was it because she had not written that he was looking bad, or was it because she had written and he knew?

She thought and thought it over; and under all her thinking there lurked the desire to know whether Rowcliffe knew and how he was taking it, and under her desire the longing, imperious and irresistible, to see him.

She would have to ask him to the house. She had not forgotten that she had to ask him, that she was pledged to ask him on Ally's account if, as Gwenda had put it, she was to play the game.

But she had had more than one motive for her delay. It would look better if she were not in too great a hurry. (She said to herself it would look better on Ally's account.) The longer he was kept away (she said to herself, that he was kept away from Ally) the more he would be likely to want to come. Sufficient time must elapse to allow of his forgetting Gwenda. It was not well that he should be thinking all the time of Gwenda when he came. (She said to herself it was not well on Ally's account.)

And it was well that their father should have forgotten Rowcliffe.

(This on Ally's account, too.)

For of course it was only on Ally's account that she was asking Rowcliffe, really.

Not that there seemed to be any such awful need.

For Ally, in those five weeks, had got gradually better. And now, in the first week of May, which had always been one of her bad months, she was marvelously well. It looked as if Gwenda had known what she was talking about when she said Ally would be all right when she was gone.

And of course it was just as well (on Ally's account) that Rowcliffe should not have seen her until she was absolutely well.

Nobody could say that she, Mary, was not doing it beautifully. Nobody could say she was not discreet, since she had let five weeks pass before she asked him.

And in order that her asking him should have the air of happy chance, she must somehow contrive to see him first.

Her seeing him could be managed any Wednesday in the village. It was bound, in fact, to occur. The wonder was that it had not occurred before.

Well, that showed how hard, all these weeks, she had been trying not to see him. If she had had an uneasy conscience in the matter (and she said to herself that there was no occasion for one), it would have acquitted her.

Nobody could say she wasn't playing the game.

And then it struck her that she had better go down at once and see Essy's baby.

It was only five and twenty past four.



XLI

The Vicar was right. Rowcliffe did not want to be seen or heard of at the Vicarage. He did not want to see or hear of the Vicarage or of Gwenda Cartaret again. Twice a week or more in those five weeks he had to pass the little gray house above the churchyard; twice a week or more the small shy window in its gable end looked sidelong at him as he went by. But he always pretended not to see it. And if anybody in the village spoke to him of Gwenda Cartaret he pretended not to hear, so that presently they left off speaking.

He had sighted Mary Cartaret two or three times in the village, and once, on the moor below Upthorne, a figure that he recognised as Alice; he had also overtaken Mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen her at a shop door on Morfe Green. And each time Mary (absorbed in what she was doing) had made it possible for him not to see her. He was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. He had always known that Mary was a person of tact.

He also knew that this preposterous avoidance could not go on forever. It was only that Mary gave him a blessed respite week by week. Presently one or other of the two would have to end it, and he didn't yet know which of them it would be. He rather thought it would be Mary.

And it was Mary.

He met her that first Wednesday in May, as he was leaving Mrs. Gale's cottage.

She was coming along the narrow path by the beck and there was no avoiding her.

She came toward him smiling. He had always rather liked her smile. It was quiet. It never broke up, as it were, her brooding face. He had noticed that it didn't even part her lips or make them thinner. If anything it made them thicker, it curved still more the crushed bow of the upper lip and the pensive sweep of the lower. But it opened doors; it lit lights. It broadened quite curiously the rather too broad nostrils; it set the wide eyes wider; it brought a sudden blue into their thick gray. In her cheeks it caused a sudden leaping and spreading of their flame. Her rather high and rather prominent cheek-bones gave character and a curious charm to Mary's face; they had the effect of lifting her bloom directly under the pure and candid gray of her eyes, leaving her red mouth alone in its dominion. That mouth with its rather too long upper lip and its almost perpetual brooding was saved from immobility by its alliance with her nostrils.

Such was Mary's face. Rowcliffe had often watched it, acknowledging its charm, while he said to himself that for him it could never have any meaning or fascination, any more than Mary could. There wasn't much in Mary's face, and there wasn't much in Mary. She was too ruminant, too tranquil. He sometimes wondered how much it would take to trouble her.

And yet there were times when that tranquillity was soothing. She had always, even when Ally was at her worst, smiled at him as if nothing had happened or could happen, and she smiled at him as if nothing had happened now. And it struck Rowcliffe, as it had frequently struck him before, how good her face was.

She held out her hand to him and looked at him.

And as if only then she had seen in his face the signs of a suffering she had been unaware of, her eyes rounded in a sudden wonder of distress. They said in their goodness and their candor, "Oh, I see how horribly you've suffered. I didn't know and I'm so sorry." Then they looked away, and it was like the quiet withdrawal of a hand that feared lest in touching it should hurt him.

Mary began to talk of the weather and of Essy and of Essy's baby, as if her eyes had never seen anything at all. Then, just as they parted, she said, "When are you coming to see us again?" as if he had been to see them only the other day.

He said he would come as soon as he was asked.

And Mary reflected, as one arranging a multitude of engagements.

"Well, then—let me see—can you come to tea on Friday? Or Monday? Father'll be at home both days."

And Rowcliffe said thanks, he'd come on Friday.

Mary went on to the cottage and Rowcliffe to his surgery.

He wondered why she hadn't said a word about Gwenda. He supposed it was because she knew that there was nothing she could say that would not hurt him.

And he said to himself, "What a nice girl she is. What a thoroughly nice girl."

* * * * *

But what he wanted, though he dreaded it, was news of Gwenda. He didn't know whether he could bring himself to ask for it, but he rather thought that Mary would know what he wanted and give it him without his asking.

That was precisely what Mary knew and did.

She was ready for him, alone in the gray and amber drawing-room, and she did it almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in. Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study. They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them such a short time.

With admirable tact she assumed Rowcliffe's interest in Ally and the Vicar. It made it easier to begin about Gwenda. And before she began it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. So she asked him point-blank if he had heard from Gwenda?

"No," he said.

At her name he had winced visibly. But there was hope even in his hurt eyes. It sprang from Mary's taking it for granted that he would be likely to hear from her sister.

"We only heard—really," said Mary, "the other day."

"Is that so?"

"Of course she wrote; but she didn't say much, because, at first, I'm afraid, there wasn't very much to say."

"And is there?"

Rowcliffe's hands were trembling slightly. Mary looked down at them and away.

"Well, yes."

And she told him that Gwenda had got a secretaryship to Lady Frances Gilbey.

It would have been too gross to have told him about Gwenda's salary. But it might have been the salary she was thinking of when she added that it was of course an awfully good thing for Gwenda.

"And who," said Rowcliffe, "is Lady Frances Gilbey?"

"She's a cousin of my stepmother's."

He considered it.

"And Mrs.—er—Cartaret lives in London, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yes."

Mary's tone implied that you couldn't expect that brilliant lady to live anywhere else.

There was a moment in which Rowcliffe again evoked the image of the third Mrs. Cartaret who was "the very one." If anything could have depressed him more, that did.

But he pulled himself together. There were things he had to know.

"And does your sister like living in London?"

Mary smiled. "I imagine she does very much indeed."

"Somehow," said Rowcliffe, "I can't see her there. I thought she liked the country."

"Oh, you never can tell whether Gwenda really likes anything. She may have liked it. She may have liked it awfully. But she couldn't go on liking it forever."

And to Rowcliffe it was as if Mary had said that wasn't Gwenda's way.

"There's no doubt she's done the best thing. For herself, I mean."

Rowcliffe assented. "Perhaps she has."

And Mary, as if doubt had only just occurred to her, made a sudden little tremulous appeal.

"You don't really think Garth was the place for her?"

"I don't really think anything about it," Rowcliffe said.

Mary was pensive. Her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear to rest.

"Garth couldn't satisfy a girl like Gwenda."

Rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. His dejection was by this time terrible. It cast a visible, a palpable gloom.

"She's a restless creature," said Mary, smiling.

She threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as if she put it to him that if Gwenda was restless (by which Rowcliffe might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. There was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. It was not as if there was anything personal in Gwenda's changing attitudes. And Rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, Restless—restless. Yes. That was the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it.

* * * * *

The study door opened and shut. Mary's eyes made a sign to him that said, "We can't talk about this before my father. He won't like it."

But Mr. Cartaret had gone upstairs. They could hear him moving in the room overhead.

"How is your other sister getting on?" said Rowcliffe abruptly.

"Alice? She's all right. You wouldn't know her. She can walk for miles."

"You don't say so?"

He was really astonished.

"She's off now somewhere, goodness knows where."

"Ha!" Rowcliffe laughed softly.

"It's really wonderful," said Mary. "She's generally so tired in the spring."

It was wonderful. The more he thought of it the more wonderful it was.

"Oh, well——" he said, "she mustn't overdo it."

It was Mary he suspected of overdoing it. On Ally's account, of course. It wasn't likely that she would give the poor child away.

At that point Mrs. Gale came in with the tea-things. And presently the Vicar came down to tea.

He was more than courteous this time. He was affable. He too greeted Rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any reference to Gwenda.

But he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. Leaning back in his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, Mr. Cartaret had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his outrageous family, but for whom suffering was passed, a man without any trouble or anxiety. And serenity without the memory of suffering was in Mary's good and happy face.

The house was very still, it seemed the stillness of life that ran evenly and with no sound. And it was borne in upon Rowcliffe as he sat there and talked to them that this quiet and tranquillity had come to them with Gwenda's going. She was a restless creature, and she had infected them with her unrest. They had peace from her now.

Only for him there could be no peace from Gwenda. He could feel her in the room. Through the open door she came and went—restless, restless!

He put the thought of her from him.

* * * * *

After tea the Vicar took him into his study. If Rowcliffe had a moment to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him.

Rowcliffe looked at his watch. The idea of being talked to frightened him.

The Vicar observed his nervousness.

"It's about my daughter Alice," he said.

And it was.

The Vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in order to tell him that Alice had completely recovered. He went into it. The girl was fit. She was happy. She ate well. She slept well (he had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for miles. She was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate.

Rowcliffe expressed his wonder. It was, he said, very wonderful.

But the Vicar would not admit that it was wonderful at all. It was exactly what he had expected. He had never thought for a moment that there was anything seriously wrong with Alice—anything indeed in the least the matter with her.

Rowcliffe was silent. But he looked at the Vicar, and the Vicar did not even pretend not to understand his look.

"I know," he said, "the very serious view you took of her. But I think, my dear fellow, when you've seen her you'll admit that you were mistaken."

Rowcliffe said there was nothing he desired more than to have been mistaken, but he was afraid he couldn't admit it. Miss Cartaret's state, when he last saw her, had been distinctly serious.

"You will perhaps admit that whatever danger there may have been then is over?"

"I haven't seen her yet," said Rowcliffe. "But"—he looked at him—"I told you the thing was curable."

"That's my point. What is there—what can there have been to cure her?"

Rowcliffe ignored the Vicar's point.

"Can you date it—this recovery?"

"I date it," said the Vicar, "from the time her sister left. She seemed to pull herself together after that."

Rowcliffe said nothing. He was reviewing all his knowledge of the case. He considered Ally's disastrous infatuation for himself. In the light of his knowledge her recovery was not only wonderful, it was incomprehensible. So incomprehensible that he was inclined to suspect her father of lying for some reason of his own. Family pride, no doubt. He had known instances.

The Vicar went on. He gave himself a long innings. "But that does not account for it altogether, though it may have started it. I really put it down to other things—the pure air—the quiet life—the absence of excitement—the regular work that takes her out of herself——"

Here the Vicar fell into that solemn rhythm that marked the periods of his sermons.

He perorated. "The simple following out of my prescription. You will remember" (he became suddenly cheery and conversational) "that it was mine."

"It certainly wasn't mine," said Rowcliffe.

He saw it all. That was why the Vicar was so affable. That was why he was so serene.

And he wasn't lying. His state of mind was obviously much too simple. He was serenely certain of his facts.

* * * * *

By courteous movement of his hand the Vicar condoned Rowcliffe's rudeness, which he attributed to professional pique very natural in the circumstances.

With admirable tact he changed the subject.

"I also wished to consult you about another matter. Nothing" (he again reassured the doctor's nervousness) "to do with my family."

Rowcliffe was all attention.

"It's about—it's about that poor girl, Essy Gale."

"Essy," said Rowcliffe, "is very well and very happy."

The Vicar's sudden rigidity implied that Essy had no business to be happy.

"If she is, it isn't your friend Greatorex's fault."

"I'm not so sure of that," said Rowcliffe.

"I suppose you know he has refused to marry her?"

"I understood as much. But who asked him to?"

"I did."

"My dear sir, if you don't mind my saying so, I think you made a mistake—if you want him to marry her. You know what he is."

"I do indeed. But a certain responsibility rests with the parson of the parish."

"You can't be responsible for everything that goes on."

"Perhaps not—when the place is packed with nonconformists. Greatorex comes of bad dissenting stock. I can't hope to have any influence with him."

He paused.

"But I'm told that you have."

"Influence? Not I. I've a sneaking regard for Greatorex. He isn't half a bad fellow if you take him the right way."

"Well, then, can't you take him? Can't you say a judicious word?"

"If it's to ask him to marry Essy, that wouldn't be very judicious, I'm afraid. He'll marry her if he wants to, and if he doesn't, he won't."

"But, my dear Dr. Rowcliffe, think of the gross injustice to that poor girl."

"It might be a worse injustice if he married her. Why should he marry her if he doesn't want to, and if she doesn't want it? There she is, perfectly content and happy with her baby. It's been a little seedy lately, but it's absolutely sound. A very fine baby indeed, and Essy knows it. There's nothing wrong with the baby."

Rowcliffe continued, regardless of the Vicar's stare: "She's better off as she is than tied to a chap who isn't a bit too sober. Especially if he doesn't care for her."

The Vicar rose and took up his usual defensive position on the hearth.

"Well, Dr. Rowcliffe, if those are your ideas of morality——?"

"They are not my ideas of morality, only my judgment of the individual case."

"Well—if that's your judgment, after all, I think that the less you meddle with it the better."

"I never meddle," said Rowcliffe.

But the Vicar did not leave him. He had caught the sound of the opening and shutting of the gate. He listened.

His manner changed again to a complete affability.

"I think that's Alice. I should like you to see her. If you—"

Rowcliffe gathered that the entrance of Alice had better coincide with his departure. He followed the Vicar as he went to open the front door.

Alice stood on the doorstep.

She was not at first aware of him where he lingered in the half-darkness at the end of the passage.

"Alice," said the Vicar, "Dr. Rowcliffe is here. You're just in time to say good-bye to him."

"It's a pity if it's good-bye," said Alice.

Her voice might have been the voice of a young woman who is sanely and innocently gay, but to Rowcliffe's ear there was a sound of exaltation in it.

He could see her now clearly in the light of the open door. The Vicar had not lied. Alice had all the appearances of health. Something had almost cured her.

But not quite. As she stood there with him in the doorway, chattering, Rowcliffe was struck again with the excitement of her voice and manner, imperfectly restrained, and with the quivering glitter of her eyes. By these signs he gathered that if Alice was happy her happiness was not complete. It was not happiness in his sense of the word. But Alice's face was unmistakably the face of hope.

Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with him. He saw that Alice's eyes faced him now with the light, unseeing look of indifference, and that they turned every second toward the wall at the bottom of the garden. She was listening to something.

* * * * *

He was then aware of footsteps on the road. They came down the hill, passing close under the Vicarage wall and turning where it turned to skirt the little lane at the bottom between the garden and the churchyard. The lane led to the pastures, and the pastures to the Manor. And from the Manor grounds a field track trailed to a small wicket gate on the north side of the churchyard wall. A flagged path went from the wicket to the door of the north transept. It was a short cut for the lord of the Manor to his seat in the chancel, but it was not the nearest way for anybody approaching the church from the high road.

Now, the slope of the Vicarage garden followed the slope of the road in such wise that a person entering the churchyard from the high road could be seen from the windows of the Vicarage. If that person desired to remain unseen his only chance was to go round by the lane to the wicket gate, keeping close under the garden wall.

Rowcliffe heard the wicket gate click softly as it was softly opened and shut.

And he could have sworn that Alice heard it too.

* * * * *

He waited twenty minutes or so in his surgery. Then, instead of sending at once to the Red Lion for his trap, he walked back to the church.

Standing in the churchyard, he could hear the sound of the organ and of a man's voice singing.

He opened the big west door softly and went softly in.



XLII

There is no rood-screen in Garth church. The one aisle down the middle of the nave goes straight from the west door to the chancel-rails.

Standing by the west door, behind the font, Rowcliffe had an uninterrupted view of the chancel.

The organ was behind the choir stalls on the north side. Alice was seated at the organ. Jim Greatorex stood behind her and so that his face was turned slantwise toward Rowcliffe. Alice's face was in pure profile. Her head was tilted slightly backward, as if the music lifted it.

Rowcliffe moved softly to the sexton's bench in the left hand corner. Sitting there he could see her better and ran less risk of being seen.

The dull stained glass of the east window dimmed the light at that end of the church. The organ candles were lit. Their jointed brackets, brought forward on each side, threw light on the music book and the keys, also on the faces of Alice and Greatorex. He stood so close to her as almost to touch her. She had taken off her hat and her hair showed gold against the drab of his waist-coat.

On both faces there was a look of ecstasy.

It was essentially the same ecstasy; only, on Alice's face it was more luminous, more conscious, and at the same time more abandoned, as if all subterfuge had ceased in her and she gave herself up, willing and exulting, to the unspiritual sense that flooded her.

On the man's face this look was more confused. It was also more tender and more poignant, as if in soaring Jim's rapture gave him pain. You would have said that he had not given himself to it, but that he was driven by it, and that yet, with all its sensuous trouble, there ran through it, secret and profoundly pure, some strain of spiritual longing.

And in his thick, his poignant and tender half-barytone, half-tenor, Greatorex sang:

"'At e-ee-vening e-er the soon was set, The sick, oh Lo-ord, arou-ound thee laay— Oh, with what divers pains they met, And with what joy they went a-waay—'"

But Alice stopped playing and Rowcliffe heard her say, "Don't let's have that one, Jim, I don't like it."

It might have passed—even the name—but that Rowcliffe saw Greatorex put his hand on Alice's head and stroke her hair.

Then he heard him say, "Let's 'ave mine," and he saw that his hand was on Alice's shoulders as he leaned over her to find the hymn.

"Good God!" said Rowcliffe to himself. "That explains it."

He got up softly. Now that he knew, he felt that it was horrible to spy on her.

But Greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the voice held Rowcliffe there to listen.

"'Lead—Kindly Light—amidst th' encircling gloo-oom, Lead Thou me o-on. Keep—Thou—my—feet—I do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee Ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea.'"

Greatorex was singing like an angel. And as he sang it was as if two passions, two longings, the earthly and the heavenly, met and mingled in him, so that through all its emotion his face remained incongruously mystic, queerly visionary.

"'O'er moor and fen—o'er crag and torrent ti-ill——'"

The evocation was intolerable to Rowcliffe.

He turned away and Greatorex's voice went after him.

"'And—with—the—morn tho-ose angel fa-a-ce-es smile Which I-i—a-ave looved—long since—and lo-ost awhi-ile.'"

Again Rowcliffe turned; but not before he had seen that Greatorex had his hand on Alice's shoulder a second time, and that Alice's hand had gone up and found it there.

The latch of the west door jerked under Rowcliffe's hand with a loud clashing. Alice and Greatorex looked round and saw him as he went out.

Alice got up in terror. The two stood apart on either side of the organ bench, staring into each other's faces.

Then Alice went round to the back of the organ and addressed the small organ-blower.

"Go," she said, "and tell the choir we're waiting for them. It's five minutes past time."

Johnny ran.

Alice went back to the chancel where Greatorex stood turning over the hymn books of the choir.

"Jim," she said, "that was Dr. Rowcliffe. Do you think he saw us?"

"It doesn't matter if he did," said Greatorex. "He'll not tell."

"He might tell Father."

Jim turned to her.

"And if he doos, Ally, yo' knaw what to saay."

"That's no good, Jim. I've told you so. You mustn't think of it."

"I shall think of it. I shall think of noothing else," said Greatorex.

* * * * *

The choir came in, aggrieved, and explaining that it wasn't six yet, not by the church clock.



XLIII

As Rowcliffe went back to his surgery he recalled two things he had forgotten. One was a little gray figure he had seen once or twice lately wandering through the fields about Upthorne Farm. The other was a certain interview he had had with Alice when she had come to ask him to get Greatorex to sing. That was in November, not long before the concert. He remembered the suggestion he had then made that Alice should turn her attention to reclaiming Greatorex. And, though he had no morbid sense of responsibility in the matter, it struck him with something like compunction that he had put Greatorex into Alice's head chiefly to distract her from throwing herself at his.

And then, he had gone and forgotten all about it.

He told himself now that he had been a fool not to think of it. And if he was a fool, what was to be said of the Vicar, under whose nose this singular form of choir practice had been going on for goodness knew how long?

It did not occur to the doctor that if his surgery day had been a Friday, which was choir practice day, he would have been certain to have thought of it. Neither was he aware that what he had observed this evening was only the unforeseen result of a perfectly innocent parochial arrangement. It had begun at Christmas and again at Easter, when it was understood that Greatorex, who was nervous about his voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, so that, as Alice said, he might do himself justice.

Since Easter the ten minutes had grown to fifteen or even twenty. And twice in the last three weeks Greatorex, by collusion with Alice, had arrived a whole hour before his time. Still, there was nothing in this circumstance itself to alarm the Vicar. Choir practice was choir practice, a mysterious thing he never interfered with, knowing himself to be unmusical.

Rowcliffe had had good reason for refusing to urge Greatorex to marry Essy Gale. But what he had seen in Garth church made him determined to say something to Greatorex, after all.

He went on his northerly round the very next Sunday and timed it so that he overtook his man on his way home from church. He gave Greatorex a lift with the result (which he had calculated) that Greatorex gave him dinner, as he had done once or twice before. The after-dinner pipe made Jim peculiarly approachable, and Rowcliffe approached him suddenly and directly. "I say, Greatorex, why don't you marry? Not a bad thing for you, you know."

"Ay. Saw they tall me," said Greatorex amicably.

Rowcliffe went on to advise his marrying Essy, not on the grounds of morality or of justice to the girl (he was a tactful person), but on Greatorex's account, as the best thing Greatorex could do for himself.

"Yo mane," said Greatorex, "I ought to marry her?"

Rowcliffe said no, he wasn't going into that.

Greatorex was profoundly thoughtful.

Presently he said that he would speak to Essy.

* * * * *

He spoke to her that afternoon.

In the cottage down by the beck Essy sat by the hearth, nursing her baby. He had recovered from his ailment and lay in her lap, gurgling and squinting at the fire. He wore the robe that Mrs. Gale had brought to Essy five months ago. Essy had turned it up above his knees, and smiling softly she watched his little pink feet curling and uncurling as she held them to the fire. Essy's back and the back of the baby's head were toward the door, which stood open, the day being still warm.

Greatorex stood there a moment looking at them before he tapped on the door.

He felt no tenderness for either of them, only a sullen pity that was half resentment.

As if she had heard his footsteps and known them, Essy spoke without looking round.

"Yo' can coom in ef yo' want," she said.

"Thank yo'," he said stiffly and came in.

"I caan't get oop wi' t' baaby. But there's a chair soomwhere."

He found it and sat down.

"Are yo' woondering why I've coom, Essy?"

"Naw, Jim. I wasn't woondering about yo' at all."

Her voice was sweet and placable. She followed the direction of his eyes.

"'E's better. Ef thot's what yo've coom for."

"It isn' what I've coom for. I've soomthing to saay to yo', Essy."

"There's nat mooch good yo're saayin' anything, Jim. I knaw all yo' 'ave t' saay."

"Yo'll 'ave t' 'ear it, Essy, whether yo' knaw it or not. They're tallin' mae I ought to marry yo'."

Essy's eyes flashed.

"Who's tallin' yo'?"

"T' Vicar, for woon."

"T' Vicar! 'E's a nice woon t' taalk o' marryin', whan 'is awn wife caan't live wi' 'im, nor 'is awn daughter, neither. And 'oo alse talled yo'? 'Twasn' Moother?"

"Naw. It wasn' yore moother."

"An' 'twasn' mae, Jim, and navver will bae."

"'Twas Dr. Rawcliffe."

"'E? 'E's anoother. 'Ooo's 'e married? Miss Gwanda? Nat' e!"

"Yo' let t' doctor bae, Essy. 'E's right enoof. Saw I ought t' marry yo'. But I'm nat goain' to."

"'Ave yo' coom t' tall mae thot? 'S ef I didn' knaw it. 'Ave I avver aassked yo' t' marry mae?"

"Haw, Essy."

"Yo' can aassk mae; yo'll bae saafe enoof. Fer I wawn't 'ave yo'. Woonce I med 'a' been maad enoof. I med 'a' said yes t' yo'. But I'd saay naw to-day."

At that he smiled.

"Yo' wouldn' 'ave a good-fer-noothin' falla like mae, would yo, laass? Look yo'—it's nat that I couldn' 'ave married yo'. I could 'ave married yo' right enoof. An' it's nat thot I dawn' think yo' pretty. Yo're pretty enoof fer me. It's—it's—I caan't rightly tall whot it is."

"Dawn' tall mae. I dawn' want t' knaw."

He looked hard at her.

"I might marry yo' yat," he said. "But yo' knaw you wouldn' bae happy wi' mae. I sud bae crool t' yo'. Nat because I wanted t' bae crool, but because I couldn' halp mysel. Theer'd bae soomthin' alse I sud bae thinkin' on and wantin' all t' while."

"I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn' lat yo', Jim. I wouldn' lat yo'."

"I knaw there's t' baaby an' all. It's hard on yo', Essy. But—I dawn' knaw—I ned bae crool to t' baaby, too."

Then she looked up at him, but with more incredulity than reproach.

"Yo' wudn'," she said. "Yo' cudn' bae crool t' lil Jimmy."

He scowled.

"Yo've called 'im thot, Essy?"

"An' why sudn' I call 'im? 'E's a right to thot naame, annyhow. Yo' caann't taake thot awaay from 'im."

"I dawn' want t' taake it away from 'im. But I wish yo' 'adn'. I wish you 'adn', Essy."

"Why 'alf t' lads in t' village is called Jimmy. Yo're called Jimmy yourself, coom t' thot."

He considered it. "Well—it's nat as ef they didn' knaw—all of 'em."

"Oh—they knaws!"

"D'yo' mind them, Essy? They dawn't maake yo' feel baad about it, do they?"

She shook her head and smiled her dreamy smile.

He rose and looked down at her with his grieved, resentful eyes.

"Yo' moosn' suppawse I dawn feel baad, Essy. I've laaid awaake manny a night, thinkin' what I've doon t'yo'."

"What 'ave yo' doon, Jimmy? Yo' maade mae 'appy fer sex moonths. An' there's t' baaby. I didn' want 'im before 'e coom—seemed like I'd 'ave t' 'ave 'im stead o' yo'. But yo' can goa right awaay, Jimmy, an' I sudn' keer ef I navver saw yo' again, so long's I 'ad 'im."

"Is thot truth, Essy?"

"It's Gawd's truth."

He put out his hand and caressed the child's downy head as if it was the head of some young animal.

"I wish I could do more fer 'im, Essy. I will, maaybe, soom daay."

"I wouldn' lat yo'. I wouldn' tooch yo're mooney now ef I could goa out t' wark an' look affter 'im too. I wouldn' tooch a panny of it, I wouldn'."

"Dawn' yo' saay thot, Essy. Yo' dawn' want to spite mae, do yo'?"

"I didn' saay it t' spite yo', Jimmy. I said it saw's yo' sudn' feel saw baad."

He smiled mournfully.

"Poor Essy," he said.

She gave him a queer look. "Yo' needn' pity mae," she said.

* * * * *

He went away considerably relieved in his mind, but still suffering that sullen uneasiness in his soul.



XLIV

It was the last week in June.

Mary Cartaret sat in the door of the cottage by the beck. And in her lap she held Essy's baby. Essy had run in to the last cottage in the row to look after her great aunt, the Widow Gale, who had fallen out of bed in the night.

The Widow Gale, in her solitude, had formed the habit of falling out of bed. But this time she had hurt her head, and Essy had gone for the doctor and had met Miss Mary in the village and Mary had come with her to help.

For by good luck—better luck than the Widow Gale deserved—it was a Wednesday. Rowcliffe had sent word that he would come at three.

It was three now.

And as he passed along the narrow path he saw Mary Cartaret in the doorway with the baby in her lap.

She smiled at him as he went by.

"I'm making myself useful," she said.

"Oh, more than that!"

His impression was that Mary had made herself beautiful. He looked back over his shoulder and laughed as he hurried on.

Up till now it hadn't occurred to him that Mary could be beautiful. But it didn't puzzle him. He knew how she had achieved that momentary effect.

He knew and he was to remember. For the effect repeated itself.

As he came back Mary was standing in the path, holding the baby in her arms. She was looking, she said, for Essy. Would Essy be coming soon?

Rowcliffe did not answer all at once. He stood contemplating the picture. It wasn't all Mary. The baby did his part. He had been "short-coated" that month, and his thighs, crushed and delicately creased, showed rose red against the white rose of Mary's arm. She leaned her head, brooding tenderly, to his, and his head (he was a dark baby) was dusk to her flame.

Rowcliffe smiled. "Why?" he said. "Do you want to get rid of him?"

As if unconsciously she pressed the child closer to her. As if unconsciously she held his head against her breast. And when his fingers worked there, in their way, she covered them with her hand.

"No," she said. "He's a nice baby. (Aren't you a nice baby? There!) Essy's unhappy because he's going to have blue eyes and dark hair. But I think they're the prettiest, don't you?"

"Yes," said Rowcliffe.

He was grave and curt.

And Mary remembered that that was what Gwenda had—blue eyes and dark hair.

It was what Gwenda's children might have had, too. She felt that she had made him think of Gwenda.

Then Essy came and took the baby from her.

"'E's too 'eavy fer yo', Miss," she said. She laughed as she took him; she gazed at him with pride and affection unabashed. His one fault, for Essy, was that, though he had got Greatorex's eyes, he had not got Greatorex's hair.

Mary and Rowcliffe went back together.

"You're coming in to tea, aren't you?" she said.

"Rather." He had got into the habit again of looking in at the Vicarage for tea every Wednesday. They were having tea in the orchard now. And in June the Vicarage orchard was a pleasanter place than the surgery.

It was in fact a very pleasant place. Pleasanter than the gray and amber drawing-room.

When Rowcliffe came to think of it, he owed the Cartarets many pleasant things. So he had formed another habit of asking them back to tea in his orchard. He had had no idea what a pleasant place his orchard could be too.

Now, though Rowcliffe nearly always had tea alone with Mary at the Vicarage, Mary never came to tea at Rowcliffe's house alone. She always brought Alice with her. And Rowcliffe found that a nuisance. For one thing, Alice had the air of being dragged there against her will, so completely had she recovered from him. For another, he couldn't talk to Mary quite so well. He didn't know that he wanted to talk to Mary. He didn't know that he particularly wanted to be alone with her, but somehow Alice's being there made him want it.

He was to be alone with Mary to-day, in the orchard.

* * * * *

The window of the Vicar's study raked the orchard. But that didn't matter, for the Vicar was not at home this Wednesday.

The orchard waited for them. Two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees. Mary's knitting lay in one of the chairs. She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while Rowcliffe talked and she listened. The act of knitting disposed her to long silences. It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he liked, could be silent too.

But generally he talked and Mary listened.

They hadn't many subjects. But Mary made the most of what they had. And she always knew the precise moment when Rowcliffe had ceased to be interested in any one of them. She knew, as if by instinct, all his moments.

They were talking now, at tea-time, about the Widow Gale. Mary wanted to know how the poor thing was getting on. The Widow Gale had been rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one hip. But she wouldn't fall out of bed again to-night. Rowcliffe had barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers. Afterward there must be a rail or something.

Mary was interested in the Widow Gale as long as Rowcliffe liked to talk about her. But the Widow Gale didn't carry them very far.

What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself. But Rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to Mary. When Mary tried to lead gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied. He wouldn't talk about himself any more than he would talk about Gwenda.

But Mary didn't want to talk about Gwenda either now. So that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her.

"Have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?"

"She won't be long," said Mary. "She's only gone to Upthorne village."

"I meant your other sister."

"Oh, Gwenda——"

Mary brooded. And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell.

"I don't think," said Mary gravely, "that Gwenda ever will come back again. At least not if she can help it. I thought you knew that."

"I suppose I must have known."

He left it there.

Mary took up her knitting. She was making a little vest for Essy's baby. Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands.

"As I can't knit, do you mind my smoking?"

She didn't.

"If more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. They wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves."

"I don't do it for nerves. I haven't any," said Mary.

He laughed. "No, I don't think you have."

She fell into one of her gentle silences. A silence not of her own brooding, he judged. It had no dreams behind it and no imagination that carried her away. A silence, rather, that brought her nearer to him, that waited on his mood.

His eyes watched under half-closed lids the movements of her hands and the pretty droop of her head. And he said to himself, "How sweet she is. And how innocent. And good."

Their chairs were set near together in the small plot of grass. The little trees of the orchard shut them in. He began to notice things about her that he had not noticed before, the shape and color of her finger nails, the modeling of her supple wrists, the way her ears were curved and laid close to her rather broad head. He saw that her skin was milk-white at the throat, and honey-white at her ears, and green-white, the white of an elder flower, at the roots of her red hair.

And as she unwound her ball of wool it rolled out of her lap and fell between her feet.

She stooped suddenly, bringing under Rowcliffe's eyes the nape of her neck, shining with golden down, and her shoulders, sun-warmed and rosy under the thin muslin of her blouse.

They dived at the same moment, and as their heads came up again their faces would have touched but that Rowcliffe suddenly drew back his own.

"I say, I do beg your pardon!"

It was odd, but in the moment of his recoil from that imminent contact Rowcliffe remembered the little red-haired nurse. Not that there was much resemblance; for, though the little nurse was sweet, she was not altogether innocent, neither was she what good people like Mary Cartaret would call good. And Mary, leaning back in her chair with the recovered ball in her lap, was smiling at his confusion with an innocence and goodness of which he could have no doubt.

When he tried to account to himself for the remembrance he supposed it must have been the red hair that did it.

And up to the end and to the end of the end Rowcliffe never knew that, though he had been made subject to a sequence of relentless inhibitions and of suggestions overpowering in their nature and persistently sustained, it was ultimately by aid of that one incongruous and irresistible association that Mary Cartaret had cast her spell.

He had never really come under it until that moment.

* * * * *

July passed. It was the end of August. To the west Karva and Morfe High Moor were purple. To the east the bare hillsides with their limestone ramparts smouldered in mist and sun, or shimmered, burning like any hillside of the south. The light even soaked into the gray walls of Garth in its pastures. The little plum-trees in the Vicarage orchard might have been olive trees twinkling in the sun.

Mary was in the Vicar's bedroom, looking now at the door, and now at her own image in the wardrobe glass. It was seven o'clock in the evening and she had chosen a perilous moment for the glass. She wore a childlike frock of rough green silk; it had no collar but was cut square at the neck showing her white throat. The square was bordered with an embroidered design of peacock's eyes. The parted waves of her red hair were burnished with hard brushing; its coils lay close, and smooth as a thick round cap. It needed neither comb nor any ornament.

Mary had dressed, for Rowcliffe was coming to dinner. Such a thing had never been heard of at the Vicarage; but it had come to pass. And as Mary thought of how she had accomplished it, she wondered what Alice could possibly have meant when she said to her "There are moments when I hate you," as she hooked her up the back.

For it never could have happened if she had not persuaded the Vicar (and herself as well) that she was asking Rowcliffe on Alice's account.

The Vicar had come gradually to see that if Alice must be married she had better marry Rowcliffe and have done with it. He had got used to Rowcliffe and he rather liked him; so he had only held out against the idea for a fortnight or so. He had even found a certain austere satisfaction in the thought that he, the doctor, who had tried to terrify him about Ally's insanity, having thrown that bomb into the peaceful Vicarage, should be blown up, as it were, with his own explosion.

The Vicar never doubted that it was Ally that Rowcliffe wanted. For the idea of his wanting Gwenda was so unpleasant to him that he had dismissed it as preposterous; as for Mary, he had made up his mind that Mary would never dream of marrying and leaving him, and that, if she did, he would put his foot down.

There had been changes in the Vicarage in the last two months. The shabby gray and amber drawing-room was not all shabbiness and not all gray and amber now. There were new cretonne covers on the chairs and sofa, and pure white muslin curtains at the windows, and the lamp had a new frilled petticoat. Every afternoon Mrs. Gale was arrayed in a tight black gown and irreproachable cap and apron.

All day long Mary and Mrs. Gale had worked like galley slaves over the preparations for dinner, and between them they had achieved perfection. What was more they had produced an effect of achieving it every day, clear soup, mayonnaise salad and cheese straws and all.

And the black coffee made by Mary and served in the orchard afterward was perfection too.

And the impression made on Rowcliffe by the Vicarage was that of a house and a household rehabilitated after a long period of devastation, by the untiring, selfless labor of a woman who was good and sweet.

After they had drunk Mary's coffee the Vicar strolled away to his study so as to leave Rowcliffe alone with Mary, and Alice strolled away heaven knew where so as to leave Mary alone with Rowcliffe. And the Vicar said to himself, "Mary is really doing it very well. Ally ought to be grateful to her."

But Ally wasn't a bit grateful. She said to herself, "I've half a mind to tell him; only Gwenda would hate me." And she called over her shoulder as she strolled away, "You'd better not stay out too long, you two. It's going to rain."

Morfe High Moor hangs over Garth and a hot and swollen cloud was hanging over Morfe High Moor. Above the gray ramparts the very east was sultry. In the orchard under the low plum-trees it was as airless as in a tent.

Rowcliffe didn't want to stay out too long in the orchard. He knew that the window of the Vicar's study raked it. So he asked Mary if she would come with him for a stroll. (His only criticism of Mary was that she didn't walk enough.)

Mary thought, "My nice frock will be ruined if the rain comes." But she went.

"Shall it be the moor or the fields?" he said.

Mary thought again, and said, "The fields."

He was glad she hadn't said "The moor."

They strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay between the high road and the beck. The narrow paths led up a slope from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. The fields turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came up over Karva and the High Moor.

It was when they were down in the bottom that it burst.

There was shelter on the further side of the last field. They ran to it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall.

Rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it on her. But Mary wouldn't let him. She looked at his clothes, at the round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening trousers with their braided seams. He insisted. She refused. He insisted still, and compromised by laying the overcoat round both of them.

And they crouched together under the wall, sitting closer so that the coat might cover them.

It thundered and lightened. The rain pelted them from the high batteries of Karva. And Rowcliffe drew Mary closer. She laughed like a happy child.

Rowcliffe sighed.

It was after he had sighed that he kissed her under the cover of the coat.

* * * * *

They sat there for half an hour; three-quarters; till the storm ceased with the rising of the moon.

* * * * *

"I'm afraid the pretty frock's spoiled," he said.

"That doesn't matter. Your poor suit's ruined."

He laughed.

"Whatever's been ruined," he said, "it was worth it."

Hand in hand they went back together through the drenched fields.

At the first gap he stopped.

"It's settled?" he said. "You won't go back on it? You do care for me? And you will marry me?"

"Yes."

"Soon?"

"Yes; soon."

At the last gap he stopped again.

"Mary," he said, "I suppose you knew about Gwenda?"

"I knew there was something. What was it?"

He had said to himself, "I shall have to tell her. I shall have to say I cared for her."

What he did say was, "There was nothing in it. It's all over. It was all over long ago."

"I knew," she said, "it was all over."

And the solemn white moon came up, the moon that Gwenda loved; it came up over Greffington Edge and looked at them.



XLV

It was Sunday afternoon, the last Sunday of August, the first since that evening (it was a Thursday) when Steven Rowcliffe had dined at the Vicarage. Mary had announced her engagement the next day.

The news had an extraordinary effect on Alice and the Vicar.

Mary had come to her father in his study on Friday evening after Prayers. She informed him of the bare fact in the curtest manner, without preface or apology or explanation. A terrible scene had followed; at least the Vicar's part in it had been terrible. Nothing he had ever said to Gwenda could compare with what he then said to Mary. Alice's behavior he had been prepared for. He had expected anything from Gwenda; but from Mary he had not expected this. It was her treachery he resented, the treachery of a creature he had depended on and trusted. He absolutely forbade the engagement. He said it was unheard of. He spoke of her "conduct" as if it had been disgraceful or improper. He declared that "that fellow" Rowcliffe should never come inside his house again. He bullied and threatened and bullied again. And through it all Mary sat calm and quiet and submissive. The expression of the qualities he had relied on, her sweetness and goodness, never left her face. She replied to his violence, "Yes, Papa. Very well, Papa, I see." But, as Gwenda had warned him, bully as he would, Mary beat him in the end.

She looked meekly down at the hearth-rug and said, "I know how you feel about it, Papa dear. I understand all you've got to say and I'm sorry. But it isn't any good. You know it isn't just as well as I do."

It might have been Gwenda who spoke to him, only that Gwenda could never have looked meek.

The Vicar had not recovered from the shock. He was convinced that he never would recover from it. But on that Sunday he had found a temporary oblivion, dozing in his study between two services.

There had been no scene like that with Alice. But what had passed between the sisters had been even worse.

Mary had gone straight from the study to Ally's room. Ally was undressing.

Ally received the news in a cruel silence. She looked coldly, sternly almost, and steadily at Mary.

"You needn't have told me that," she said at last. "I could see what you were doing the other night."

"What I was doing?"

"Yes, you. I don't imagine Steven Rowcliffe did it"

"Really Ally—what do you suppose I did?"

"I don't know what it was. But I know you did something and I know that—whatever it was—I wouldn't have done it."

And Mary answered quietly. "If I were you, Ally, I wouldn't show my feelings quite so plainly."

And Ally looked at her again.

"It's not my feelings—" she said.

Mary reddened. "I don't know what you mean."

"You'll know, some day," Ally said and turned her back on her.

* * * * *

Mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. She felt rather miserable as she undressed alone in her bedroom. She was wounded in her sweetness and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what Ally might take it into her head to say or do. She didn't try to think what Ally had meant. Her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of self-preservation, told her that it might be better not.

The August night was warm and tender, and, when Mary had got into bed and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began to think of Rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep.

* * * * *

But Ally could not sleep.

She lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to side between her thoughts. They were not concerned with Gwenda or with Rowcliffe. After her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to think about Gwenda or Rowcliffe either. Mary's news had made her think about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. Ally was so far like her father the Vicar, that the idea of Mary's marrying was intolerable to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect of marrying herself. Her father had begun by forbidding Mary's engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. He would never sanction her marriage to Jim Greatorex.

Even if she defied her father and married Jim Greatorex in spite of him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like Essy, she had never married him at all.

And she couldn't live without him.

Ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down under the arcades on the road to Upthorne. It had left her more than ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever morally inert. Ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the sight of Mary's happiness—a spectacle which Mary did not spare her—-had made Ally restless. Under the incessant sting of it her longing for Greatorex became insupportable.

On Sunday the Vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same circumstance to notice Ally's movements, and Ally took advantage of his apathy to excuse herself from Sunday school that afternoon. And about three o'clock she was at Upthorne Farm. She and Greatorex had found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour.

* * * * *

And now they were standing together in the doorway of the Farmhouse.

In the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness and solitude.

Maggie had gone up to her aunt at Bar Hill. The farm servants were scattered in their villages.

Alice had just told Greatorex of Mary's engagement and the Vicar's opposition.

"Eh, I was lookin' for it," he said. "But I maade sure it was your oother sister."

"So did I, Jim. So it was. So it would have been, only—"

She stopped herself. She wasn't going to give Mary away to Jim.

He looked at her.

"Wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?"

"No. It's nothing to me—now. How did you know I cared for him?"

"I knew because I looved yo. Because I was always thinkin' of yo. Because I watched yo with him."

"Oh Jim—would other people know?"

"Naw. Nat they. They didn't look at yo the saame as I did."

He became thoughtful.

"Wall—this here sattles it," he said presently. "Yo caann't be laft all aloan in t' Vicarage. Yo'll 'ave t' marry mae."

"No," she said. "It won't be like that. It won't, really. If my father won't let my sister marry Dr. Rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let me marry you? It makes it more impossible than ever. That's what I came to tell you."

"It's naw use yo're tallin' mae. I won't hear it."

He bent to her.

"Ally—d'yo knaw we're aloan here?"

"Yes, Jim."

"We're saafe till Naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. We've three hours."

She shook her head. "Only an hour and a half, Jim. I must be back for tea."

"Yo'll 'ave tae here. Yo've had it before. I'll maake it for yo."

"I daren't, Jim. They'll expect me. They'll wonder."

"Ay, 'tis thot waay always. Yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be back for this, thot and toother. I'm fair sick of it."

"So am I."

She sighed.

"Wall then—yo must end it."

"How can I end it?"

"Yo knaw how."

"Oh Jim—darling—haven't I told you?"

"Yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae. Yo've coom to mae. Thot's all I keer for."

He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place.

"Let me shaw yo t' house—now you've coom."

His voice pleaded and persuaded. In spite of its north-country accent Ally loved his voice. It sounded musical and mournful, like the voices of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by distance.

He took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of the house.

As he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to him. But Ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen.

"Will Maggie be there?" she said.

"Ay, Maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her."

"But," she said, "I don't want her."

He followed her look.

"I'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. Look yo—I could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a winder put there—and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's Maaggie'll not bae in yore road."

"You needn't. I like it best as it is."

"Do yo? D'yo mind thot Soonda yo caame laasst year? Yo've aassked mae whan it was I started thinkin' of yo. It was than. Thot daay whan yo sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore tae so pretty."

She drew closer to him.

"Did you really love me then?"

"Ay—I looved yo than."

She pondered it.

"Jim—what would you have done if I hadn't loved you?"

He choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "What sud I have doon? I sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame.

"We'll goa oopstairs now."

He took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. He opened the door at the head of the landing.

"This would bae our room. 'Tis t' best."

He took her into the room where John Greatorex had died. It was the marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the Greatorexes. The low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed John Greatorex had died in.

The room was tidy and spotlessly clean. The walls had been whitewashed. Fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. The bed was made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it.

The death room had been made ready for the living. The death-bed waited for the bride.

Ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those things. She shivered slightly.

She said to herself, "It's the room his father died in."

And there came on her a horror of the room and of all that had happened in it, a horror of death and of the dead.

She turned away to the window and looked out. The long marshland stretched below, white under the August sun. Beyond it the green hills with their steep gray cliffs rose and receded, like a coast line, head after head.

To Ally the scene was desolate beyond all bearing and the house was terrible.

Her eyelids pricked. Her mouth trembled. She kept her back turned to Greatorex while she stifled a sob with her handkerchief pressed tight to her lips.

He saw and came to her and put his arm round her.

"What is it, Ally? What is it, loove?"

She looked up at him.

"I don't know, Jim. But—I think—I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of?"

She thought a moment. "I'm afraid of father."

"Yo med bae ef yo staayed with him. Thot's why I want yo t' coom to mae."

He looked at her.

"'Tisn' thot yo're afraid of. 'Tis soomthin' alse thot yo wawn't tall mae."

"Well—I think—I'm a little bit afraid of this house. It's—it's so horribly lonely."

He couldn't deny it.

"A'y; it's rackoned t' bae loanly. But I sall navver leaave yo. I'm goain' t' buy a new trap for yo, soa's yo can coom with mae and Daaisy. Would yo like thot, Ally?"

"Yes, Jim, I'd love it. But——"

"It'll not bae soa baad. Whan I'm out in t' mistal and in t' fields and thot, yo'll have Maaggie with yo."

She whispered. "Jim—I can't bear Maggie. I'm afraid of her."

"Afraid o' pore Maaggie?"

He took it in. He wondered. He thought he understood.

"Maaggie sall goa. I'll 'ave anoother. An' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass t' waait on yo. Ef it's Maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road."

"It isn't Maggie—altogether."

"Than—for Gawd's saake, loove, what is it?"

She sobbed. "It's everything. It's something in this house—in this room."

He looked at her gravely now.

"Naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. It's mae. It's mae yo're afraid of. Yo think I med bae too roough with yo."

But at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close to him.

"No—no—no—it isn't you. It isn't. It couldn't be."

He crushed her in his arms. His mouth clung to her face and passed over it and covered it with kisses.

"Am I too roough? Tall mae—tall mae."

"No," she whispered.

He pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. She took off her hat and flung it on the floor.

His voice came fast and thick.

"Kiss mae back ef yo loove mae."

She kissed him. She stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm that held her.

His senses swam. He grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily from the floor. She was light in his arms as a child. He had turned her from the window.

He looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. His eyes lowered; they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. They saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling.

He loosed her and pushed her from him.

"We moost coom out o' this," he muttered.

He pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and made her go before him down the stairs.

He went back into the room to pick up her hat.

He found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair where John Greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall.

"Jim—I'm so frightened," she said.

"Ay. Yo'll bae all right downstairs."

They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting, she in her terror and he in his agony.

"Take me away," she said. "Out of the house. That room frightened me. There's something there."

"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t' fealds?"

* * * * *

The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the mistal.

Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began. It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.

The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched beside it.

Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There was neither thought nor purpose in their going.

The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and hill.

Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.

Alice stopped in the track and turned.

"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."

Greatorex stood scanning the hill.

"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep."

"Oh, Jim, he'll see us."

"Nat he!"

But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.

"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us."

"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?"

"I don't want to be seen," she moaned.

"Wall—?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here than, tall he's paassed."

A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came the sweet, heavy scent of hay.

"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here."

"He wawn't."

But Jim shut the door.

"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil feet. Staay there—where yo are—tell I tall yo."

He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.

He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced in it.

Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited below.

"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally."

He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.

They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.

"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly frightened."

She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his.

Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his thick, mournful voice he spoke.

"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks."

"I can't marry you, darling. I can't."

"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could bae roough wi' t' lil laambs."

He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on.

"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo."

That brought her to his side with her soft cry.

For a moment he lay rigid and still.

Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture.

* * * * *

Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to.



XLVI

Morfe Fair was over and the farmers were going home.

A broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. There were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. There were men on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before them.

A train of three were going slowly up Garthdale, with much lingering to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks.

Into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn by Greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. Daisy was not driven by Greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. Her open nostrils drank the wind of her going.

Greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. They declared a furious ecstasy. Ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright and recover his grip of the reins. Ever and again he was pitched backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying of the trap.

Behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in, pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh. Hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare.

For the first two miles out of Morfe the trap charged, scattering men and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent. With the third mile the pace slackened. The mare had slaked her thirst for the wind of her going and Greatorex's fury was appeased. At the risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to Garthdale.

He had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity.

He passed the bridge, the church, the Vicarage, the schoolhouse with its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them.

At the turn of the road, On Upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking care of the trap and of her master.

As for Greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. And at the door of his house his servant Maggie received him in her arms.

* * * * *

He stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness, while Maggie waited on him. And in the evening when he lay under her hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her mind.

"Wall—yo may thank Gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, Jim Greatorex. It'd sarve yo right ef Daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. Soom daay yo'll bae laayin' there with yore nack brawken.

"Ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody but mae t' look at yo. Yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy stoof, Jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. Naw woonder Assy Gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil baaby."

"Who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?"

"Naybody toald mae. But I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef yo aassked mae. I want naw droonkards to marry mae."

Greatorex became pensive.

"Yo'd bae freetened o' mae, Maaggie?" he asked.

And Maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home.

"There's more than mae and Assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she said.

He darkened. "Yo 'oald yore tongue. Yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin', my laass."

"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. Assy isn't t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace."

"What do yo mane? Speaak oop. What d'yo mane——Yo knaw?"

"Yo'd best aassk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst Soonda oop t' feald in t' girt byre."

"Naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. Med a been Assy. Med a been yo."

"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' Assy. Look yo 'ere. I tall yo Assy's freetened o' yo."

"'Oo says she's freetened?"

"I saays it. She's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo."

"She doesn't wash them?"

"Shea does. T' kape yore baaby, Jim Greatorex."

With that she left him.

* * * * *

For the next three months Greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his soul. The Sunday after Maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and afternoon in his parlor with his father's Bible. He had not even tried to see Alice Cartaret.

For three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing Alice, he longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his God. He longed for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by his sin. He wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have. He wanted it, just as he wanted Alice Cartaret.

And by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. Greatorex did not think of God as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously, any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For Greatorex measured God's reprobation by his own repentance.

His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret. He had got drunk in order to forget it.