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.