Wednesday, the last day in January, came, but Rowcliffe did not come. 
The strange man took his place in the surgery.

Mrs. Gale brought the news into the Vicarage dining-room at four o’clock.

She had taken her daughter’s place for the time being.  She was a just woman and she bore no grudge against the Vicar on Essy’s account.  He had done no more than he was obliged to do.  Essy had given trouble enough in the Vicarage, and she had received a month’s wages that she hadn’t worked for.  Mrs. Gale was working double to make up for it.  And the innocence of her face being gone, she went lowly and humbly, paying for Essy, Essy’s debt of shame.  That was her view.

“Sall I set the tae here, Miss Gwanda,” she enquired.  “Sence doctor isn’t coomin’?”

“How do you know he isn’t coming?” Alice asked.

Mrs. Gale’s face was solemn and oppressed.  She turned to Gwenda, ignoring Alice. (Mary was upstairs in her room.)

“’Aven’t yo ’eerd, Miss Gwanda?”

Gwenda looked up from her book.

“No,” she said.  “He’s away, isn’t he?”

“Away?  ’El’ll nat get away fer long enoof.  ’E’s too ill.”

“Ill?” Alice sent the word out on a terrified breath.  Nobody took any notice of her.

“T’ poastman tell mae,” said Mrs. Gale.  “From what ’e’s ’eerd, ’twas all along o’ Nad Alderson’s lil baaby up to Morfe.  It was took wi’ the diptheery a while back.  An’ doctor, ‘e sat oop wi’ ’t tree nights roonin’, ’e did.  ‘E didn’ so mooch as taak ’s cleathes off.  Nad Alderson, ’e said, ’e’d navver seen anything like what doctor ’e doon for t’ lil’ thing.”

Mrs. Gale’s face reddened and she sniffed.

“’E’s saaved Nad’s baaby for ’m, right enoof, Dr. Rawcliffe ’as.  But ‘e’s down wi’t hissel, t’ poastman says.”

It was at Gwenda that she gazed.  And as Gwenda made no sign, Mrs. Gale, still more oppressed by that extraordinary silence, gave her own feelings way.

“Mebbe wae sall navver see ‘im in t’ Daale again.  It’ll goa ’ard, look yo, wi’ a girt man like ’im, what’s navver saaved ’isself.  Naw, ’e’s navver saaved ’issel.”

She ceased.  She gazed upon both the sisters now.  Alice, her face white and averted, shrank back in the corner of the sofa.  Gwenda’s face was still.  Neither of them had spoken.

* * * * *

Mary had tea alone that afternoon.

Alice had dragged herself upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in.  She had flung herself face downward on her bed.  She lay there while the room grew gray and darkened.  Suddenly she passed from a violent fit of writhing and of weeping into blank and motionless collapses.  From time to time she hiccoughed helplessly.

But in the moment before Mary came downstairs Gwenda had slipped on the rough coat that hung on its peg in the passage.  Her hat was lying about somewhere in the room where Alice had locked herself in.  She went out bareheaded.