“What have you been doing to her—­all of you?”

Rowcliffe answered.  Though he was the innocent one of the three he looked the guiltiest.  He looked utterly ashamed.

“We’ve had rather a scene, and it’s been a bit too much for her,” he said.

“So I see,” said Gwenda.  She had not greeted Mary or her father.

“If you could persuade her to go upstairs to bed——­”

“I’ve told you I won’t go till he comes,” said Ally.

She sat down on the sofa as a sign that she was going to wait.

“Till who comes?” Gwenda asked.

She stared at the three with a fierce amazement.  And they were abashed.

“She doesn’t know, Steve,” said Mary.

“I certainly don’t,” said Gwenda.

She sat down beside Ally.

“Has anybody been bullying you, Ally?”

“They’ve all been bullying me except Steven.  Steven’s been an angel. 
He doesn’t believe what they say.  Papa says I’m a shameful girl, and
Mary says I took Jim Greatorex from Essy.  And they think——­”

“Never mind what they think, darling.”

“I must protest——­”

The Vicar would have burst out again but that his son-in-law restrained him.

“Better leave her to Gwenda,” he said.

He opened the door of the study.  “Really, sir, I think you’d better.  And you, too, Mary.”

And with her husband’s compelling hand on her shoulder Mary went into the study.

The Vicar followed them.

* * * * *

As the door closed on them Alice looked furtively around.

“What is it, Ally?” Gwenda said.

“Don’t you know?” she whispered.

“No.  You haven’t told me anything.”

“You don’t know why I sent for you?  Can’t you think?”

Gwenda was silent.

“Gwenda—­I’m in the most awful trouble——­” She looked around again.  Then she spoke rapidly and low with a fearful hoarse intensity.

“I won’t tell them, but I’ll tell you.  They’ve been trying to get it out of me by bullying, but I wasn’t going to let them.  Gwenda—­they wanted to make me tell straight out, there—­before Steven.  And I wouldn’t—­I wouldn’t.  They haven’t got a word out of me.  But it’s true, what they say.”

She paused.

“About me.”

“My lamb, I don’t know what they say about you.”

“They say that I’m going to——­”

Crouching where she sat, bent forward, staring with her stare, she whispered.

“Oh—­Ally—­darling——­”

“I’m not ashamed, not the least little bit ashamed.  And I don’t care what they think of me.  But I’m not going to tell them.  I’ve told you because I know you won’t hate me, you won’t think me awful.  But I won’t tell Mary, and I won’t tell Papa.  Or Steven.  If I do they’ll make me marry him.”

“Was it—­was it——­”

Ally’s instinct heard the name that her sister spared her.