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But he took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that one excruciating grip. Rowcliffe pointed to the little phial of chlorodyne lying in the straw. "If I were you," he said, "I shouldn't leave that lying about."
Outside the open window the trees of the little orchard, whitened by the moonlight, stood as if fixed in a tender, pure and supernatural beauty. She could see the flags on the path and the stones in the gray walls. They stood out with a strange significance and importance. As if near and yet horribly far away, she could hear Rowcliffe's footsteps in the passage.
Down in Garth village the church clock struck the half hour and the quarter and the hour. At the half hour Blenkiron, the blacksmith, put Rowcliffe's horse into the trap. The sound of the clanking hoofs came up the hill. Rowcliffe heard them first. "There's something wrong down there," he said. "They're coming for me." In his heart he cursed them.
It was at the bend of the road where Karva lowers its head and sinks back on the moor; and she came swinging up the hill as Rowcliffe's horse scraped his way slowly down it. She looked at him as she passed and her face was wide-eyed and luminous under the moon.
Even if Gwenda had been capable of sacrificing herself for Mary, which had been by no means her intention, that would have been futile too. Alice was of Rowcliffe's opinion that young Grierson would have done every bit as well for Mary. Better, for Mary had no children. "And how," said Alice, "could she expect to have them?" She saw in Mary's childlessness not only God's but Nature's justice.
In the big houses they didn't remember Gwenda Cartaret. They only remembered to forget her. But in the little shops and in the little houses in Morfe there had been continual whispering. They said that even after Dr. Rowcliffe's marriage to that nice wife of his, who was her own sister, the two had been carrying on.
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.
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!"
If it had been suggested to her that he had got into this state because of Gwenda she would have dismissed the idea with contempt. She didn't worry about Rowcliffe's state. On the contrary, Rowcliffe's state was a consolation and a satisfaction to her for all that she had endured through Gwenda.
And she knew that she would go with him. She would not be able to refuse him. But the clanking hoofs went by and never stopped. There were two men in the trap. Acroyd, Rowcliffe's groom, sat in Rowcliffe's place, driving. He touched his hat to her as he passed her. Beside him there was a strange man. She said to herself, "He's away then. I think he might have told me."
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