She put it down obediently in its place on the window-sill among the cobwebs.

He made a nest for her of clean hay, where she sat and watched him as he gave Daisy her feed of corn.  She watched every movement of him, every gesture, thoughtful and intent.

“I can’t think, Jim, why I ever was afraid of you. Was I afraid of you?”

Greatorex grinned.

“Yo’ used t’ saay yo’ were.”

“How silly of me.  And I used to be afraid of Maggie.”

“I’ve been afraaid of Maaggie afore now.  She’s got a roough side t’ ‘er toongue and she can use it.  But she’ll nat use it on yo’.  Yo’ve naw call to be afraaid ef annybody.  There isn’t woon would hoort a lil thing like yo’.”

“They say things about me.  I know they do.”

“And yo’ dawn’t keer what they saay, do yo’?”

“I don’t care a rap.  But I think it’s cruel of them, all the same.”

“But yo’re happy enoof, aren’t yo’—­all the same?”

“I’m very happy.  At least I would be if it wasn’t for poor Papa.  It wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for what we did.”

Wherever they started, whatever round they fetched, it was to this that they returned.

And always Jim met it with the same answer: 

“‘Tisn’ what we doon; ’tis what ‘e doon.  An’ annyhow it had to bae.”

Every week Rowcliffe came to see her and every week Jim said to him:  “She’s at it still and I caan’t move ’er.”

And every week Rowcliffe said:  “Wait.  She’ll be better before long.”

And Jim waited.

He waited till one afternoon in February, when they were again in the stable together.  He had turned his back on her for a moment.

When he looked round she was gone from her seat on the cornsacks.  She was standing by the window-sill with the bottle of chlorodyne in her hand and at her lips.  He thought she was smelling it.

She tilted her head back.  Her eyes slewed sidelong toward him.  They quivered as he leaped to her.

She had not drunk a drop and he knew it, but she clutched her bottle with a febrile obstinacy.  He had to loosen her little fingers one by one.

He poured the liquid into the stable gutter and flung the bottle on to the dung heap in the mistal.

“What were you doing wi’ thot stoof?” he said.

“I don’t know.  I was thinking of Papa.”

After that he never left her until Rowcliffe came.

Rowcliffe said:  “She’s got it into her head he’s going to die, and she thinks she’s killed him.  You’d better let me take her to see him.”

L

The Vicar had solved his problem by his stroke, but not quite as he had anticipated.

Nothing had ever turned out as he had planned or thought or willed.  He had planned to leave the parish.  He had thought that in his wisdom he had saved Alice by shutting her up in Garthdale.  He had thought that she was safe at choir-practice with Jim Greatorex.  He had thought that Mary was devoted to him and that Gwenda was capable of all disobedience and all iniquity.  She had gone away and he had forbidden her to come back again.  He had also forbidden Greatorex to enter his house.