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Isabel's poverty sat as light on her spirits as the sailor hat, never straight, sat on her upflung head. Isabel knew every one in Chilmark parish. Pausing before a knot of boys playing marbles: "Herbert," she said sternly, "why weren't you at school on Sunday?"
Winding between dense shrubs of rhododendron under darker deodars, the road was long and gloomy, but Lawrence was thankful to be out of sight of Chilmark. He hurried on with his light swinging step light for his build his tired mind vacant or intent only on a bath and a change of clothes, till in the last bend, within a hundred yards of Wanhope he came on Mrs. Clowes.
Stafford gave away, for the vicar had no idea of the value of money, and was equally generous with Val's income and his own. Altogether Mr. Stafford was a contented and happy man, and his only worry was the thought, which crossed his mind now and then, that Chilmark for a young man of Val's age was dull, and that the Wanhope agency led nowhere. If Val had been an ambitious man!
"Of his family I know little except that he has Jew blood in him and is very well off," Val could have told his brother where the money came from, but forbore out of consideration for Lawrence, who might not care to have his connection with the Hyde Galleries known in Chilmark. "He came here because Lucian Selincourt asked him to see if he could do anything for Bernard."
A few miles more were slowly passed, and Mysie began to look hopefully from every eminence for a sight of the light-house, when she was stunned by the information, that they were then entering Chilmark, and were "'bout half-way."
High spirited, for all her sensitiveness, she laid her slight hand on her husband's wrist. "Did you think if Lawrence stayed on at Wanhope it must be because he admired me? You forget that there are younger and prettier women in Chilmark than I am. Lawrence is going to marry Isabel. It's a romantic tale," was there a touch of pique in Laura's charming voice?
Eastwards a much more weatherbeaten arm, pointing crookedly up a stony cart track, said in dim brown characters: "CHILMARK 2 M." Plainly a short cut over the moor! Better stones underfoot than padded dust: and Lawrence struck uphill swiftly, glad to escape from the traffic of the London road.
There was no confessional box in Chilmark church. "You have plenty of interests left and plenty of friends: so long as you don't alienate them by behaving in such an unmanly way. Lift him, Val. Come, Major Clowes, you're torturing your wife. This is cowardice " "Like Val's, eh?" "Like ?" "Like your precious Val behaved ten years ago." Clowes raised himself on his elbows.
"And what's the rumour? That I'm going to prevail or that I've prevailed already?" "The worst of it is," Val kept his point and his temper, "that it's not only Chilmark. One could afford to ignore village gossip, but this has reached Wharton, my father Mrs. Clowes herself.
All Chilmark believes Lawrence is your lover." "And do you?" "No. I know you wouldn't run an intrigue." "Thank you." "But Jack and I both think, if you don't want to cut and run with him, you ought to pack him off. Mind, if you do want to, you can count me in, and Jack too. I'm not religious: Jack is, but he's not narrow.
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