He thought that Mary’s turpitude accounted for and justified the exasperation of his nerves.

Now as he looked at her, lying back in the limp pose reminiscent of her sleep, he thought, “Poor thing.  Poor Molly.”  He put down his book.  He stood over her a moment, sighed a long sigh like a yawn, turned from her and went to bed.

Mary opened her eyes, sighed, stretched herself, put out the light, and followed him.

LII

Not long after that night it struck Mary that Steven was run down.  He worked too hard.  That was how she accounted to herself for his fits of exhaustion, of irritability and depression.

But secretly, for all her complacence, she had divined the cause.

She watched him now; she inquired into his goings out and comings in.  Sometimes she knew that he had been to Garthdale, and, though he went there many more times than she knew, she had noticed that these moods of his followed invariably on his going.  It was as if Gwenda left her mark on him.  So much was certain, and by that certainty she went on to infer his going from his mood.

One day she taxed him with it.

Rowcliffe had tried to excuse his early morning temper on the plea that he was “beastly tired.”

“Tired?” she had said.  “Of course you’re tired if you went up to Garthdale last night.”

She added, “It isn’t necessary.”

He was silent and she knew that she was on his trail.

Two evenings later she caught him as he was leaving the house.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“I’m going up to Garthdale to see your father.”

Her eyes flinched.

“You saw him yesterday.”

“I did.”

“Is he worse?”

He hesitated.  Lying had not as yet come lightly to him.

“I’m not easy about him,” he said.

She was not satisfied.  She had caught the hesitation.

“Can’t you tell me,” she persisted, “if he’s worse?”

He looked at her calmly.

“I can’t tell you till I’ve seen him.”

That roused her.  She bit her lip.  She knew that whatever she did she must not show temper.

“Did Gwenda send for you?”

Her voice was quiet.

“She did not.”

He strode out of the house.

After that he never told her when he was going up to Garthdale toward nightfall.  He was sometimes driven to lie.  It was up Rathdale he was going, or to Greffington, or to smoke a pipe with Ned Alderson, or to turn in for a game of billiards at the village club.

And whenever he lied to her she saw through him.  She was prepared for the lie.  She said to herself, “He is going to see Gwenda.  He can’t keep away from her.”

And then she remembered what Alice had said to her.  “You’ll know some day.”

She knew.

LIII