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——­”