* * * * *

The wedding was at two o’clock.  The church was crowded, so were the churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the beck.  Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale.  (Greffington had lent its organist.)

It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim Greatorex was not there with the village choir.  “Celebrating a bit too early,” somebody said.

And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.

He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in.  She had come out to the wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would soon be ready.  Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.

He came toward her.  Harker drew back into the orchard.  They followed him and found themselves alone.

For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard wall.  And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.

“Well—­so you’ve come back at last?”

“At last?  I haven’t been gone six months.”

“You see, time feels longer to us down here.”

“That’s odd.  It goes faster.”

“Anyhow, you’re not tired of London?”

She stared at him for a second and then looked away.

“Oh no, I’m not tired of it yet.”

They turned.

“Shall you stop long here?”

“I’m going back to-morrow.”

“To-morrow?  You’re so glad to get back then?”

“So glad to get back.  I only came down for Mary’s wedding.”

He smiled.

“You won’t come for anything but a wedding?”

“A funeral might fetch me.”

“Well, Gwenda, I can’t say you look as if London agreed with you particularly.”

“I can’t say you look as if Garthdale agreed very well with you.”

“I’m only tired—­tired to death.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I want a holiday.  And I’m going to get one—­for a month. You look as if you’d been burning the candle at both ends, if you’ll forgive my saying so.”

“Oh—­for all the candles I burn!  It isn’t such awfully hard work, you know.”

“What isn’t?”

“What I’m doing.”

He stopped straight in the narrow path and looked at her.

“I say, what are you doing?”

She told him.

His face expressed surprise and resentment and a curious wonder and bewilderment.

“But I thought—­I thought——­They told me you were having no end of a time.”

“Tunbridge Wells isn’t very amusing.  No more is Lady Frances.”

Again he stopped dead and stared at her.

“But they told me—­I mean I thought you were in London with Mrs. Cartaret, all the time.”