For it knew why the Vicar’s third wife had left him.  It knew why Alice Cartaret had gone wrong with Greatorex.  It knew what Gwenda Cartaret had gone for when she went away.  It knew why and how Dr. Rowcliffe had married Mary Cartaret.  And it knew why, night after night, he was to be seen coming and going on the Garthdale road.

* * * * *

The village knew more about Rowcliffe and Gwenda Cartaret than Rowcliffe’s wife knew.

For Rowcliffe’s wife’s mind was closed to this knowledge by a certain sensual assurance.  When all was said and done, it was she and not Gwenda who was Rowcliffe’s wife.  And she had other grounds for complacency.  Her sister, a solitary Miss Cartaret, stowed away in Garth Vicarage, was of no account.  She didn’t matter.  And as Mary Cartaret Mary would have mattered even less.  But Steven Rowcliffe’s professional reputation served him well.  He counted.  People who had begun by trusting him had ended by liking him, and in two years’ time his social value had become apparent.  And as Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe Mary had a social value too.

But while Steven, who had always had it, took it for granted and never thought about it, Mary could think of nothing else.  Her social value, obscured by the terrible two years in Garthdale, had come to her as a discovery and an acquisition.  For all her complacency, she could not regard it as a secure thing.  She was sensitive to every breath that threatened it; she was unable to forget that, if she was Steven Rowcliffe’s wife, she was Alice Greatorex’s sister.

Even as Mary Cartaret she had been sensitive to Alice.  But in those days of obscurity and isolation it was not in her to cast Alice off.  She had felt bound to Alice, not as Gwenda was bound, but pitiably, irrevocably, for better, for worse.  The solidarity of the family had held.

She had not had anything to lose by sticking to her sister.  Now it seemed to her that she had everything to lose.  The thought of Alice was a perpetual annoyance to her.

For the neighborhood that had received Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe had barred her sister.

As long as Alice Greatorex lived at Upthorne Mary went in fear.

This fear was so intolerable to her that at last she spoke of it to Rowcliffe.

They were sitting together in his study after dinner.  The two armchairs were always facing now, one on each side of the hearth.

“I wish I knew what to do about Alice,” she said.

“What to do about her?”

“Yes.  Am I to have her at the house or not?”

He stared.

“Of course you’re to have her at the house.”

“I mean when we’ve got people here.  I can’t ask her to meet them.”

“You must ask her.  It’s the very least you can do for her.”

“People aren’t going to like it, Steven.”

“People have got to stick a great many things they aren’t going to like.  I’m continually meeting people I’d rather not meet.  Aren’t you?”