He was to be alone with Mary to-day, in the orchard.

* * * * *

The window of the Vicar’s study raked the orchard.  But that didn’t matter, for the Vicar was not at home this Wednesday.

The orchard waited for them.  Two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees.  Mary’s knitting lay in one of the chairs.  She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while Rowcliffe talked and she listened.  The act of knitting disposed her to long silences.  It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he liked, could be silent too.

But generally he talked and Mary listened.

They hadn’t many subjects.  But Mary made the most of what they had.  And she always knew the precise moment when Rowcliffe had ceased to be interested in any one of them.  She knew, as if by instinct, all his moments.

They were talking now, at tea-time, about the Widow Gale.  Mary wanted to know how the poor thing was getting on.  The Widow Gale had been rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one hip.  But she wouldn’t fall out of bed again to-night.  Rowcliffe had barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers.  Afterward there must be a rail or something.

Mary was interested in the Widow Gale as long as Rowcliffe liked to talk about her.  But the Widow Gale didn’t carry them very far.

What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself.  But Rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to Mary.  When Mary tried to lead gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied.  He wouldn’t talk about himself any more than he would talk about Gwenda.

But Mary didn’t want to talk about Gwenda either now.  So that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her.

“Have you any idea,” he said, “when your sister’s coming back?”

“She won’t be long,” said Mary.  “She’s only gone to Upthorne village.”

“I meant your other sister.”

“Oh, Gwenda——­”

Mary brooded.  And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell.

“I don’t think,” said Mary gravely, “that Gwenda ever will come back again.  At least not if she can help it.  I thought you knew that.”

“I suppose I must have known.”

He left it there.

Mary took up her knitting.  She was making a little vest for Essy’s baby.  Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands.

“As I can’t knit, do you mind my smoking?”

She didn’t.

“If more women knitted,” he said, “it would be a good thing.  They wouldn’t be bothered so much with nerves.”

“I don’t do it for nerves.  I haven’t any,” said Mary.

He laughed.  “No, I don’t think you have.”

She fell into one of her gentle silences.  A silence not of her own brooding, he judged.  It had no dreams behind it and no imagination that carried her away.  A silence, rather, that brought her nearer to him, that waited on his mood.