As it happened you saw sunrise and moonrise best from the platform of Morfe Green.  There Greffington Edge breaks and falls away, and lets slip the dawn like a rosy scarf from its shoulder, and sets the moon free of her earth and gives her to the open sky.

But, just as the Vicar had spoiled Rowcliffe, so Rowcliffe had spoiled Morfe for Gwenda.  Therefore her fear of him was mingled with resentment.  It was as if he had had no business to be living there, in that house of his looking over the Green.

Incredible that she should have wanted to see and to know this person.  But now, that she didn’t want to, of course she was going to see him.

* * * * *

At the bend of the road, within a mile of Morfe, Mary came riding on Gwenda’s bicycle.  Large parcels were slung from her handle bars.  She had been shopping in the village.

Mary, bowed forward as she struggled with an upward slope, was not aware of Gwenda.  But Gwenda was aware of Mary, and, not being in the mood for her, she struck off the road on to the moor and descended upon Morfe by the steep lane that leads from Karva into Rathdale.

It never occurred to her to wonder what Mary had been doing in Morfe, so evident was it that she had been shopping.

XVI

The doctor was at home, but he was engaged, at the moment, in the surgery.

The maid-servant asked if she would wait.

She waited in the little cold and formal dining-room that looked through two windows on to the Green.  So formal and so cold, so utterly impersonal was the air of the doctor’s mahogany furniture that her fear left her.  It was as if the furniture assured her that she would not really see Rowcliffe; as for knowing him, she needn’t worry.

She had sent in her card, printed for convenience with the names of the three sisters: 

  Miss Cartaret. 
  Miss Gwendolen Cartaret. 
  Miss Alice Cartaret.

She felt somehow that it protected her.  She said to herself, “He won’t know which of us it is.”

* * * * *

Rowcliffe was washing his hands in the surgery when the card was brought to him.  He frowned at the card.

“But—­You’ve brought this before,” he said.  “I’ve seen the lady.”

“No, sir.  It’s another lady.”

“Another?  Are you certain?”

“Yes, sir.  Quite certain.”

“Did she come on a bicycle?”

“No, sir, that was the lady you’ve seen.  I think this’ll be her sister.”

Rowcliffe was still frowning as he dried his hands with fastidious care.

“She’s different, sir.  Taller like.”

“Taller?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rowcliffe turned to the table and picked up a probe and a lancet and dropped them into a sterilising solution.

The maid waited.  Rowcliffe’s absorption was complete.