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.

But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going
to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret
wouldn't marry him.

Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of
David and on the Book of Job.

Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious
sinner.




XLVII


The train from Durlingham rolled slowly into Reyburn station.

Gwenda Cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and
looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case
to a friendly porter. Nobody had come to meet her. They were much too
busy up at the Vicarage.

From the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a
lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her
affectionately as "Fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair)
a very young man and a still younger woman.

There was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not
quite so obviously related.

These six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to
be met. They were interested in Gwenda Cartaret. They gazed at her as
they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform
at Durlingham. Now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they
were sure it must be she.

Gwenda walked quickly away from them and disappeared through the
booking-office into the station yard.

And then Rowcliffe, who had apparently been hiding in the general
waiting-room, came out on to the platform.

The six fell upon him with cries of joy and affection.

They were his mother, his paternal uncle and aunt, his two youngest
cousins, and Dr. Harker, his best friend and colleague who had taken
his place in January when he had been ill.

They had all come down from Leeds for Rowcliffe's wedding.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rowcliffe's trap and Peacock's from Garthdale stood side by side in
the station-yard.

Gwenda in Peacock's trap had left the town before she heard behind her
the clanking hoofs of Rowcliffe's little brown horse.

She thought, "He will pass in another minute. I shall see him."

But she did not see him. All the way up Rathdale to Morfe the sound of
the wheels and of the clanking hoofs pursued her, and Rowcliffe still
hung back. He did not want to pass her.

"Well," said Peacock, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t'
owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind
t' paass 'er."

"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could
she, when she _knew_, when she was on her honor not to think of him?"

And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two
months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a
glance and she had probed it to its core.)

"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're
going away if you left him with Mary."

"But," she had said, "Mary knew."

And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her.
It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and
Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally
or of you, either?"

And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said,
"If we _were_ three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice."

And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing."

She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to
have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort.

She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs.

"I suppose," she said to herself, "she couldn't help it."

The lights of Morfe shone through the November darkness. The little
slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green;
Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peacock's trap passed
the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the
clanking hoofs went fast.

Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary.

She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the
wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her.

"I will," said Gwenda.

"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are."

Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice
pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.

"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London,
like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you
couldn't breathe."

"My frock's all right," said Alice.

Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes.

And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the
veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net shivered
with the trembling of her hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the
churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the
beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale.
(Greffington had lent its organist.)

It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim
Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too
early," somebody said.

And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.

He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest
realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her
wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the
wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would
soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of
the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.

He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed
him and found themselves alone.

For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard
wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.

"Well--so you've come back at last?"

"At last? I haven't been gone six months."

"You see, time feels longer to us down here."

"That's odd. It goes faster."

"Anyhow, you're not tired of London?"

She stared at him for a second and then looked away.

"Oh no, I'm not tired of it yet."

They turned.

"Shall you stop long here?"

"I'm going back to-morrow."

"To-morrow? You're so glad to get back then?"

"So glad to get back. I only came down for Mary's wedding."

He smiled.

"You won't come for anything but a wedding?"

"A funeral might fetch me."

"Well, Gwenda, I can't say you look as if London agreed with you
particularly."

"I can't say you look as if Garthdale agreed very well with you."

"I'm only tired--tired to death."

"I'm sorry."

"I want a holiday. And I'm going to get one--for a month. _You_ look
as if you'd been burning the candle at both ends, if you'll forgive my
saying so."

"Oh--for all the candles I burn! It isn't such awfully hard work, you
know."

"What isn't?"

"What I'm doing."

He stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her.

"I say, what _are_ you doing?"

She told him.

His face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and
bewilderment.

"But I thought--I thought----They told me you were having no end of a
time."

"Tunbridge Wells isn't very amusing. No more is Lady Frances."

Again he stopped dead and stared at her.

"But they told me--I mean I thought you were in London with Mrs.
Cartaret, all the time."

She laughed.

"Did Papa tell you that?"

"No. I don't know who told me. I--I got the impression." He almost
stammered. "I must have misunderstood."

She meditated.

"It sounds awfully like Papa. He simply can't believe, poor thing,
that I'd stick to anything so respectable."

"Hah!" He laughed out his contempt for the Vicar. He had forgotten
that he too had wondered.

"Chuck it, Gwenda," he said, "chuck it."

"I can't," she said. "Not yet. It's too lucrative."

"But if it makes you seedy?"

"It doesn't. It won't. It isn't hard work. Only----" She broke off.
"It's time for you to go."

"Steve! Steve!"

Rowcliffe's youngest cousin was calling from the study window.

"Come along. Mary's ready."

"All right," he shouted. "I'm coming."

But he stood still there at the end of the orchard under the gray
wall.

"Good-bye, Steven."

Gwenda put out her hand.

He held her with his troubled eyes. He did not see her hand. He saw
her eyes only that troubled his.

"I say, is it very beastly?"

"No. Not a bit. You must go, Steven, you must go."

"If I'd only known," he persisted.

They were going down the path now toward the house.

"I wouldn't have let you----"

"You couldn't have stopped me."

(It was what she had always said to all of them.)

She smiled. "You didn't stop me going, you know."

"If you'd only told me--"

She smiled again, a smile as of infinite wisdom. "Dear Steven, there
was nothing to tell."

They had come to the door in the wall. It led into the garden. He
opened to let her pass through.

The wedding-party was gathered together on the flagged path before the
house. It greeted them with laughter and cries, cheerfully ironic.

The bride in her traveling dress stood on the threshold. Outside the
carriage waited at the open gate.

Rowcliffe took Mary's hand in his and they ran down the path.

"He can sprint fast enough now," said Rowcliffe's uncle.

       *       *       *       *       *

But his youngest cousin and Harker, his best friend, had gone faster.
They were waiting together on the bridge, and the girl had a slipper
in her hand.

"Were you ever," she said, "at such an awful wedding?"

Harker saw nothing wrong about the wedding but he admitted that his
experience was small.

The youngest cousin was not appeased by his confession. She went on.

"Why on earth didn't Steven _try_ to marry Gwenda?"

"Not much good trying," said the doctor, "if she wouldn't have him."

"You believe that silly story? I don't. Did you see her face?"

Harker admitted that he had seen her face.

And then, as the carriage passed, Rowcliffe's youngest cousin did an
odd thing. She tossed the slipper over the bridge into the beck.

Harker had not time to comment on her action. They were coming for him
from the house.

Rowcliffe's youngest sister-in-law had fainted away on the top
landing.

Everybody remembered then that it was she who had been in love with
him.




XLVIII


Alice had sent for Gwenda.

Three months had gone by since her sister's wedding, and all her fears
were gathered together in the fear of her father and of what was about
to happen to her.

And before Gwenda could come to her, Rowcliffe and Mary had come to
the Vicar in his study. They had been a long time with him, and then
Rowcliffe had gone out. They had sent him to Upthorne. And the two had
gone into the dining-room and they had her before them there.

It was early in a dull evening in February. The lamps were lit and in
their yellow light Ally's face showed a pale and quivering exaltation.
It was the face of a hunted and terrified thing that has gathered
courage in desperation to turn and stand. She defended herself with
sullen defiance and denial.

It had come to that. For Ned, the shepherd at Upthorne, had told what
he had seen. He had told it to Maggie, who told it to Mrs. Gale. He
had told it to the head-gamekeeper at Garthdale Manor, who had a tale
of his own that he too had told. And Dr. Harker had a tale. Harker had
taken his friend's practice when Rowcliffe was away on his honeymoon.
He had seen Alice and Greatorex on the moors at night as he had driven
home from Upthorne. And he had told Rowcliffe what he had seen. And
Rowcliffe had told Mary and the Vicar.

And at the cottage down by the beck Essy Gale and her mother had
spoken together, but what they had spoken and what they had heard they
had kept secret.

"I haven't been with him," said Alice for the third time. "I don't
know what you're talking about."

"Ally--there's no use your saying that when you've been seen with
him."

It was Mary who spoke.

"I ha--haven't."

"Don't lie," said the Vicar.

"I'm not. They're l-l-lying," said Ally, shaken into stammering now.

"Who do you suppose would lie about it?" Mary said.

"Essy would."

"Well--I may tell you, Ally, that you're wrong. Essy's kept your
secret. So has Mrs. Gale. You ought to go down on your knees and thank
the poor girl--after what you did to her."

"It _was_ Essy. I know. She's mad to marry him herself, so she goes
lying about _me_."

"Nobody's lying about her," said the Vicar, "but herself. And she's
condemning herself with every word she says. You'd better have left
Essy out of it, my girl."

"I tell you that she's lying if she says she's seen me with him. She's
never seen me."

"It wasn't Essy who saw you," Mary said.

"Somebody else is lying then. Who was it?"

"If you _must_ know who saw you," the Vicar said, "it was Dr. Harker.
You were seen a month ago hanging about Upthorne alone with that
fellow."

"Only once," Ally murmured.

"You own to 'once'? You--you----" he stifled with his fury. "Once is
enough with a low blackguard like Greatorex. And you were seen more
than once. You've been seen with him after dark." He boomed. "There
isn't a poor drunken slut in the village who's disgraced herself like
you."

Mary intervened. "Sh--sh--Papa. They'll hear you in the kitchen."

"They'll hear _her_." (Ally was moaning.) "Stop that whimpering and
whining."

"She can't help it."

"She can help it if she likes. Come, Ally, we're all here----Poor
Mary's come up and Steven. There are things we've got to know and
I insist on knowing them. You've brought the most awful trouble and
shame on me and your sister and brother-in-law, and the least you can
do is to answer truthfully. I can't stand any more of this distressing
altercation. I'm not going to extort any painful confession. You've
only got to answer a simple Yes or No. Were you anywhere with Jim
Greatorex before Dr. Harker saw you in December? Think before you
speak. Yes or No."

She thought.

"N-no."

"Remember, Ally," said Mary, "he saw you in November."

"He didn't. Where?"

The Vicar answered her. "At your sister's wedding."

She recovered. "Of course he did. Jim Greatorex wasn't there, anyhow."

"He was _not_."

The stress had no significance for Ally. Her brain was utterly
bewildered.

"Well. You say you were never anywhere with Greatorex before December.
You were not with him in--when was it, Mary?"

"August," said Mary. "The end of August."

Ally simply stared at him in her white bewilderment. Dates had no
meaning as yet for her cowed brain.

He helped her.

"In the Three Fields. On a Sunday afternoon. Did you or did you not go
into the barn?"

At that she cried out with a voice of anguish. "No--No--No!"

But Mary had her knife ready and she drove it home.

"Ally--Ned Langstaff _saw_ you."

       *       *       *       *       *

When Rowcliffe came back from Upthorne he found Alice cowering in a
corner of the couch and crying out to her tormentors.

"You brutes--you brutes--if Gwenda was here she wouldn't let you bully
me!"

Mary turned to her husband.

"Steven--will you speak to her? She won't tell us anything. We've been
at it more than half an hour."

Rowcliffe stared at her and the Vicar with strong displeasure.

"I should think you had by the look of her. Why can't you leave the
poor child alone?"

At the sound of his voice, the first voice of compassion that had yet
spoken to her, Alice cried to him.

"Steven! Steven! They've been saying awful things to me. Tell them it
isn't true. Tell them you don't believe it."

"There--there----" His voice stuck in his throat.

He put his hand on her shoulder, standing between her and her father.

"Tell them----" She looked up at him with her piteous eyes.

"She's worried to death," said Rowcliffe. "You might have left it for
to-night at any rate."

"We couldn't, Steven, when you've sent for Greatorex. We _must_ get at
the truth before he comes."

Rowcliffe shrugged his shoulders.

"Have you brought him?" said the Vicar.

"No, I haven't. He's in Morfe. I've sent word for him to come on
here."

Alice looked sharply at him.

"What have you sent for _him_ for? Do you suppose _he'd_ give me
away?"

She began to weep softly.

"All this," said Rowcliffe, "is awfully bad for her."

"You don't seem to consider what it is for us."

Rowcliffe took no notice of the Vicar.

"Look here, Mary--you'd better take her upstairs before he comes. Put
her to bed. Try and get her to sleep."

"Very well. Come, Ally." Mary was gentler now.

Then Ally became wonderful.

She stood up and faced them all.

"I won't go," she said. "I'll stay till he comes if I sit up all
night. How do I know what you're going to do to him? Do you suppose
I'm going to leave him with you? If anybody touches him I'll _kill_
them."

"Ally, dear----"

Mary put her hand gently on her sister's arm to lead her from the
room.

Ally shook off the hand and turned on her in hysteric fury.

"Stop pawing me--you! How dare you touch me after what you've said.
Steven--she says I took Essy's lover from her."

"I didn't, Ally. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"You _did_ say it. She did, Steven. She said I ought to thank Essy for
not splitting on me when I took her lover from her. As if _she_ could
talk when _she_ took Steven from Gwenda."

"Oh--Steven!"

Rowcliffe shook his head at Mary, frowning, as a sign to her not to
mind what Alice said.

"You treat me as if I was dirt, but I'd have died rather than have
done what she did."

"Come, Alice, come. You know you don't mean it," said Rowcliffe,
utterly gentle.

"I do mean it! She sneaked you from behind Gwenda's back and lied to
you to make you think she didn't care for you----"

"Be quiet, you shameful girl!"

"Be quiet yourself, Papa. I'm not as shameful as Molly is. I'm not as
shameful as you are yourself. You killed Mother."

"Oh--my--God----" The words were almost inaudible in the Vicar's
shuddering groan.

He advanced on her to turn her from the room. Ally sank on her sofa as
she saw him come.

Rowcliffe stepped between them.

"For God's sake, sir----"

Ally was struggling in hysterics now, choking between her piteous and
savage cries.

Rowcliffe laid her on the sofa and put a cushion under her head. When
he tried to loosen her gown at her throat she screamed.

"It's all right, Ally, it's all right."

"_Is_ it? _Is_ it?" The Vicar hissed at him.

"It won't be unless you leave her to me. If you go on bullying her
much longer I won't answer for the consequences. You surely don't
want----"

"It's all right, Ally. Lie quiet, there--like that. That's a good
girl. Nobody's going to worry you any more."

He was kneeling by the sofa, pressing his hand to her forehead. Ally
still sobbed convulsively, but she lay quiet. She closed her eyes
under Rowcliffe's soothing hand.

"You might go and see if you can find some salvolatile, Mary," he
said.

Mary went.

The Vicar, who had turned his back on this scene, went, also, into his
study.

Ally still kept her eyes shut.

"Has Mary gone?"

"Yes."

"And Papa?"

"Yes. Lie still."

She lay still.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was the sound of wheels on the road. It brought Mary and the
Vicar back into the room. The wheels stopped. The gate clanged.

Rowcliffe rose.

"That's Greatorex. I'll go to him."

Ally lay very still now, still as a corpse, with closed eyes.

The house door opened.

Rowcliffe drew back into the room.

"It isn't Greatorex," he said. "It's Gwenda."

"Who sent for her?" said the Vicar.

"I did," said Ally.

She had opened her eyes.

"Thank God for that, anyhow," said Rowcliffe.

Mary and her father looked at each other. Neither of them seemed
to want to go out to Gwenda. It struck Rowcliffe that the Vicar was
afraid.

They waited while Gwenda paid her driver and dismissed him. They could
hear her speaking out there in the passage.

The house door shut and she came to them. She paused in the doorway,
looking at the three who stood facing her, embarrassed and expectant.
She seemed to be thinking that it was odd that they should stand
there. The door, thrown back, hid Alice, who lay behind it on her
sofa.

"Come in, Gwenda," said the Vicar with exaggerated suavity.

She came in and closed the door. Then she saw Alice.

She took the hand that Rowcliffe held out to her without looking at
him. She was looking at Alice.

Alice gave a low cry and struggled to her feet.

"I thought you were never coming," she said.

Gwenda held her in her arms. She faced them.

"What have you been doing to her--all of you?"

Rowcliffe answered. Though he was the innocent one of the three he
looked the guiltiest. He looked utterly ashamed.

"We've had rather a scene, and it's been a bit too much for her," he
said.

"So I see," said Gwenda. She had not greeted Mary or her father.

"If you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed----"

"I've told you I won't go till he comes," said Ally.

She sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait.

"Till who comes?" Gwenda asked.

She stared at the three with a fierce amazement. And they were
abashed.

"She doesn't know, Steve," said Mary.

"I certainly don't," said Gwenda.

She sat down beside Ally.

"Has anybody been bullying you, Ally?"

"They've all been bullying me except Steven. Steven's been an angel.
He doesn't believe what they say. Papa says I'm a shameful girl, and
Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy. And they think----"

"Never mind what they think, darling."

"I must protest----"

The Vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law
restrained him.

"Better leave her to Gwenda," he said.

He opened the door of the study. "Really, sir, I think you'd better.
And you, too, Mary."

And with her husband's compelling hand on her shoulder Mary went into
the study.

The Vicar followed them.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the door closed on them Alice looked furtively around.

"What is it, Ally?" Gwenda said.

"Don't you know?" she whispered.

"No. You haven't told me anything."

"You don't know why I sent for you? Can't you think?"

Gwenda was silent.

"Gwenda--I'm in the most awful trouble----" She looked around again.
Then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity.

"I won't tell them, but I'll tell you. They've been trying to get it
out of me by bullying, but I wasn't going to let them. Gwenda--they
wanted to make me tell straight out, there--before Steven. And I
wouldn't--I wouldn't. They haven't got a word out of me. But it's
true, what they say."

She paused.

"About me."

"My lamb, I don't know what they say about you."

"They say that I'm going to----"

Crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she
whispered.

"Oh--Ally--darling----"

"I'm not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed. And I don't care
what they think of me. But I'm not going to tell them. I've told _you_
because I know you won't hate me, you won't think me awful. But I
won't tell Mary, and I won't tell Papa. Or Steven. If I do they'll
make me marry him."

"Was it--was it----"

Ally's instinct heard the name that her sister spared her.

"Yes--Yes--Yes. It is."

She added, "I don't care."

"Ally--what made you do it?"

"I don't--know."

"Was it because of Steven?"

Ally raised her head.

"No. It was _not_. Steven isn't fit to black his boots. I know
that----"

"But--you don't care for him?"

"I did--I did. I do. I care awfully----"

"Well----"

"Oh, Gwenda, can they _make_ me marry him?"

"You don't want to marry him?"

Ally shook her head, slowly, forlornly.

"I see. You're ashamed of him."

"I'm _not_ ashamed. I told you I wasn't. It isn't that----"

"What is it?"

"I'm afraid."

"Afraid----"

"It isn't his fault. He wants to marry me. He wanted to all the time.
He never meant that it should be like this. He asked me to marry him.
Before it happened. Over and over again he asked me and I wouldn't
have him."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I've told you. Because I'm afraid."

"Why are you afraid?"

"I don't know. I'm not really afraid of _him_. I think I'm afraid of
what he might do to me if I married him."

"_Do_ to you?"

"Yes. He might beat me. They always do, you know, those sort of men,
when you marry them. I couldn't bear to be beaten."

"Oh----" Gwenda drew in her breath.

"He wouldn't do it, Gwenda, if he knew what he was about. But he might
if he didn't. You see, they say he drinks. That's what frightens me.
That's why I daren't tell Papa. Papa wouldn't care if he did beat me.
He'd say it was my punishment."

"If you feel like that about it you mustn't marry him."

"They'll make me."

"They shan't make you. I won't let them. It'll be all right, darling.
I'll take you away with me to-morrow, and look after you, and keep you
safe."

"But--they'll have to know."

"Yes. They'll have to know. I'll tell them."

She rose.

"Stay here," she said. "And keep quiet. I'm going to tell them now."

"Not now--please, not now."

"Yes. Now. It'll be all over. And you'll sleep."

       *       *       *       *       *

She went in to where they waited for her.

Her father and her sister lifted their eyes to her as she came in.
Rowcliffe had turned away.

"Has she said anything?"

(Mary spoke.)

"Yes."

The Vicar looked sternly at his second daughter.

"She denies it?"

"No, Papa. She doesn't deny it."

He drove it home. "Has--she--confessed?"

"She's told me it's true--what you think."

In the silence that fell on the four Rowcliffe stayed where he stood,
downcast and averted. It was as if he felt that Gwenda could have
charged him with betrayal of a trust.

The Vicar looked at his watch. He turned to Rowcliffe.

"Is that fellow coming, or is he not?"

"He won't funk it," said Rowcliffe.

He turned. His eyes met Gwenda's. "I think I can answer for his
coming."

"Do you mean Jim Greatorex?" she said.

"Yes."

"What is it that he won't funk?"

She looked from one to the other. Nobody answered her. It was as if
they were, all three, afraid of her.

"I see," she said. "If you ask me I think he'd much better not come."

"My dear Gwenda----" The Vicar was deferent to the power that had
dragged Ally's confession from her.

"We _must_ get through with this. The sooner the better. It's what
we're all here for."

"I know. Still--I think you'll have to leave it."

"Leave it?"

"Yes, Papa."

"We can't leave it," said Rowcliffe. "Something's got to be done."

The Vicar groaned and Rowcliffe had pity on him.

"If you'd like me to do it--I can interview him."

"I wish you would."

"Very well." He moved uneasily. "I'd better see him here, hadn't I?"

"You'd better not see him anywhere," said Gwenda. "He can't marry
her."

She held them all three by the sheer shock of it.

The Vicar spoke first. "What do you mean, 'he can't'? He _must_."

"He must not. Ally doesn't want to marry him. He asked her long ago
and she wouldn't have him."

"Do you mean," said Rowcliffe, surprised out of his reticence, "before
this happened?"

"Yes."

"And she wouldn't have him?"

"No. She was afraid of him."

"She was afraid of him--and yet----" It was Mary who spoke now.

"Yes, Mary. And yet--she cared for him."

The Vicar turned on her.

"You're as bad as she is. How can you bring yourself to speak of
it, if you're a modest girl? You've just told us that your sister's
shameless. Are we to suppose that you're defending her?"

"I am defending her. There's nobody else to do it. You've all set on
her and tortured her----"

"Not all, Gwenda," said Rowcliffe. But she did not heed him.

"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You
haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of _her_ for
a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed
her. And you didn't care."

The Vicar looked at her.

"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care."

"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with
her, Papa. You drove her to it."

Rowcliffe answered.

"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda."

"She was driven," she said.

"'Let no man say he is tempted of God when he is driven by his own
lusts and enticed,'" said the Vicar.

He had risen, and the movement brought him face to face with Gwenda.
And as she looked at him it was as if she saw vividly and for the
first time the profound unspirituality of her father's face. She knew
from what source his eyes drew their darkness. She understood the
meaning of the gross red mouth that showed itself in the fierce
lifting of the ascetic, grim moustache. And she conceived a horror of
his fatherhood.

"No man ought to say that of his own daughter. How does he know what's
her own and what's his?" she said.

Rowcliffe stared at her in a sort of awful admiration. She was
terrible; she was fierce; she was mad. But it was the fierceness and
the madness of pity and of compassion.

She went on.

"You've no business to be hard on her. You must have known."

"I knew nothing," said the Vicar.

He appealed to her with a helpless gesture of his hands.

"You did know. You were warned. You were told not to shut her up. And
you did shut her up. You can't blame her if she got away. You flung
her to Jim Greatorex. There wasn't anybody who cared for her but him."

"Cared for her!" He snarled his disgust.

"Yes. Cared for her. You think that's horrible of her--that she should
have gone to him--and yet you want to tie her to him when she's afraid
of him. And I think it's horrible of you."

"She must marry him." Mary spoke again. "She's brought it on herself,
Gwenda."

"She hasn't brought it on herself. And she shan't marry him."

"I'm afraid she'll have to," Rowcliffe said.

"She won't have to if I take her away somewhere and look after her. I
mean to do it. I'll work for her. I'll take care of the child."

"Oh, you--_you----!_" The Vicar waved her away with a frantic flapping
of his hands.

He turned to his son-in-law.

"Rowcliffe--I beg you--will you use your influence?"

"I have none."

That drew her. "Steven--help me--can't you see how terrible it is if
she's afraid of him?"

"But _is_ she?"

He looked at her with his miserable eyes, then turned them from her,
considering gravely what she had said. It was then, while Rowcliffe
was considering it, that the garden gate opened violently and fell to.

They waited for the sound of the front door bell.

Instead of it they heard two doors open and Ally's voice calling to
Greatorex in the hall.

As the Vicar flung himself from his study into the other room he saw
Alice standing close to Greatorex by the shut door. Her lover's arms
were round her.

He laid his hands on them as if to tear them apart.

"You shall not touch my daughter--until you've married her."

The young man's right arm threw him off; his left arm remained round
Alice.

"It's yo' s'all nat tooch her, Mr. Cartaret," he said. "Ef yo' coom
between her an' mae I s'all 'ave t' kill yo'. I'd think nowt of it.
Dawn't yo' bae freetened, my laass," he murmured tenderly.

The next instant he was fierce again.

"An' look yo' 'ere, Mr. Cartaret. It was yo' who aassked mae t' marry
Assy. Do yo' aassk mae t' marry Assy now? Naw! Assy may rot for all
yo' care. (It's all right, my sweet'eart. It's all right.) I'd a
married Assy right enoof ef I'd 'a' looved her. But do yo' suppawss
I'd 'a' doon it fer yore meddlin'? Naw! An' yo' need n' aassk mae t'
marry yore daughter--(There--there--my awn laass)--"

"You are not going to be asked," said Gwenda. "You are not going to
marry her."

"Gwenda," said the Vicar, "you will be good enough to leave this to
me."

"It can't be left to anybody but Ally."

"It s'all be laft to her," said Greatorex.

He had loosened his hold of Alice, but he still stood between her and
her father.

"It's for her t' saay ef she'll 'aave mae."

"She has said she won't, Mr. Greatorex."

"Ay, she's said it to mae, woonce. But I rackon she'll 'ave mae now."

"Not even now."

"She's toald yo'?"

He did not meet her eyes.

"Yes."

"She's toald yo' she's afraid o' mae?"

"Yes. And you know why."

"Ay. I knaw. Yo're afraid o' mae, Ally, because yo've 'eard I haven't
always been as sober as I might bae; but yo're nat 'aalf as afraid o'
mae, droonk or sober, as yo' are of yore awn faather. Yo' dawn't think
I s'all bae 'aalf as 'ard an' crooil to yo' as yore faather is. She
doosn't, Mr. Cartaret, an' thot's Gawd's truth."

"I protest," said the Vicar.

"Yo' stond baack, sir. It's for 'er t' saay."

He turned to her, infinitely reverent, infinitely tender.

"Will yo' staay with 'im? Or will yo' coom with mae?"

"I'll come with you."

With one shoulder turned to her father, she cowered to her lover's
breast.

"Ay, an' yo' need n' be afraaid I'll not bae sober. I'll bae sober
enoof now. D'ye 'ear, Mr. Cartaret? Yo' need n' bae afraaid, either.
I'll kape sober. I'd kape sober all my life ef it was awnly t' spite
yo'. An' I'll maake 'er 'appy. For I rackon theer's noothin' I could
think on would spite yo' moor. Yo' want mae t' marry 'er t' poonish
'er. _I_ knaw."

"That'll do, Greatorex," said Rowcliffe.

"Ay. It'll do," said Greatorex with a grin of satisfaction.

He turned to Alice, the triumph still flaming in his face. "Yo're
_nat_ afraaid of mae?"

"No," she said gently. "Not now."

"Yo navver were," said Greatorex; and he laughed.


That laugh was more than Mr. Cartaret could bear. He thrust out his
face toward Greatorex.

Rowcliffe, watching them, saw that he trembled and that the
thrust-out, furious face was flushed deeply on the left side.

The Vicar boomed.

"You will leave my house this instant, Mr. Greatorex. And you will
never come into it again."

But Greatorex was already looking for his cap.

"I'll navver coom into et again," he assented placably.

       *       *       *       *       *

There were no prayers at the Vicarage that night.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was nearly eleven o'clock. Greatorex was gone. Gwenda was upstairs
helping Alice to undress. Mary sat alone in the dining-room, crying
steadily. The Vicar and Rowcliffe were in the study.

In all this terrible business of Alice, the Vicar felt that his
son-in-law had been a comfort to him.

"Rowcliffe," he said suddenly, "I feel very queer."

"I don't wonder, sir. I should go to bed if I were you."

"I shall. Presently."

The one-sided flush deepened and darkened as he brooded. It fascinated
Rowcliffe.

"I think it would be better," said the Vicar slowly, "if I left the
parish. It's the only solution I can see."

He meant to the problem of his respectability.

Rowcliffe said yes, perhaps it would be better.

He was thinking that it would solve his problem too.

For he knew that there would be a problem if Gwenda came back to her
father.

The Vicar rose heavily and went to his roll-top desk. He opened it and
began fumbling about in it, looking for things.

He was doing this, it seemed to his son-in-law, for quite a long time.

But it was only eleven o'clock when Mary heard sounds in the study
that terrified her, of a chair overturned and of a heavy body falling
to the floor. And then Steven called to her.

She found him kneeling on the floor beside her father, loosening his
clothes. The Vicar's face, which she discerned half hidden between
the bending head of Rowcliffe and his arms, was purple and horribly
distorted.

Rowcliffe did not look at her.

"He's in a fit," he said. "Go upstairs and fetch Gwenda. And for God's
sake don't let Ally see him."




XLIX


The village knew all about Jim Greatorex and Alice Cartaret now. Where
their names had been whispered by two or three in the bar of the Red
Lion, over the post office counter, in the schoolhouse, in the smithy,
and on the open road, the loud scandal of them burst with horror.

For the first time in his life Jim Greatorex was made aware that
public opinion was against him. Wherever he showed himself the men
slunk from him and the women stared. He set his teeth and held his
chin up and passed them as if he had not seen them. He was determined
to defy public opinion.

Standing in the door of his kinsman's smithy, he defied it.

It was the day before his wedding. He had been riding home from Morfe
Market and his mare Daisy had cast a shoe coming down the hill. He
rode her up to the smithy and called for Blenkiron, shouting his need.

Blenkiron came out and looked at him sulkily.

"I'll shoe t' maare," he said, "but yo'll stand outside t' smithy, Jim
Greatorex."

For answer Jim rode the mare into the smithy and dismounted there.

Then Blenkiron spoke.

"You'd best 'ave staayed where yo' were. But yo've coom in an' yo'
s'all 'ave a bit o' my toongue. To-morra's yore weddin' day, I 'ear?"

Jim intimated that if it was his wedding day it was no business of
Blenkiron's.

"Wall," said the blacksmith, "ef they dawn't gie yo' soom roough music
to-morra night, it'll bae better loock than yo' desarve--t' two o'
yo'."

Greatorex scowled at his kinsman.

"Look yo' 'ere, John Blenkiron, I warn yo'. Any man in t' Daale thot
speaaks woon word agen my wife 'e s'all 'ave 'is nack wroong."

"An' 'ow 'bout t' women, Jimmy? There'll bae a sight o' nacks fer yo'
t' wring, I rackon. They'll 'ave soomat t' saay to 'er, yore laady."

"T' women? T' women? Domned sight she'll keer for what they saay.
There is n' woon o' they bitches as is fit t' kneel in t' mood to 'er
t' tooch t' sawle of 'er boots."

Blenkiron peered up at him from the crook of the mare's hind leg.

"Nat Assy Gaale?" he said.

"Assy Gaale? 'Oo's she to mook _'er_ naame with 'er dirty toongue?"

"Yo'll not goa far thot road, Jimmy. 'Tis wi' t' womenfawlk yo'll
'aave t' racken."

He knew it.

The first he had to reckon with was Maggie.

Maggie, being given notice, had refused to take it.

"Yo' can please yoresel, Mr. Greatorex. I can goa. I can goa. But ef I
goa yo'll nat find anoother woman as'll coom to yo'. There's nat woon
as'll keer mooch t' work for _yore_ laady."

"Wull yo' wark for 'er, Maaggie?" he had said.

And Maggie, with a sullen look and hitching her coarse apron, had
replied remarkably:

"Ef Assy Gaale can wash fer er I rackon _I_ can shift to baake an'
clane."

"Wull yo' waait on 'er?" he had persisted.

Maggie had turned away her face from him.


"Ay, I'll waait on 'er," she said.

And Maggie had stayed to bake and clean. Rough and sullen, without a
smile, she had waited on young Mrs. Greatorex.

       *       *       *       *       *

But Alice was not afraid of Maggie. She was not going to admit for a
moment that she was afraid of her. She was not going to admit that she
was afraid of anything but one thing--that her father would die.

If he died she would have killed him.

Or, rather, she and Greatorex would have killed him between them.

This statement Ally held to and reiterated and refused to qualify.

For Alice at Upthorne had become a creature matchless in cunning and
of subtle and marvelous resource. She had been terrified and tortured,
shamed and cowed. She had been hounded to her marriage and conveyed
with an appalling suddenness to Upthorne, that place of sinister and
terrible suggestion, and the bed in which John Greatorex had died had
been her marriage bed. Her mind, like a thing pursued and in deadly
peril, took instantaneously a line. It doubled and dodged; it hid
itself; its instinct was expert in disguises, in subterfuges and
shifts.

In her soul she knew that she was done for if she once admitted and
gave in to her fear of Upthorne and of her husband's house, or if
she were ever to feel again her fear of Greatorex, which was the most
intolerable of all her fears. It was as if Nature itself were aware
that, if Ally were not dispossessed of that terror before Greatorex's
child was born her own purpose would be insecure; as if the unborn
child, the flesh and blood of the Greatorexes that had entered into
her, protested against her disastrous cowardice.

So, without Ally being in the least aware of it, Ally's mind,
struggling toward sanity, fabricated one enormous fear, the fear of
her father's death, a fear that she could own and face, and set it up
in place of that secret and dangerous thing which was the fear of life
itself.