“You’ll see how.”

(It was thus that his god lured the Vicar to destruction.  For he had no plan.  He knew that he couldn’t move into another parish.)

“It’s no good locking me up in my room,” said Gwenda, “for I can get out at the window.  And you can’t very well lock young Rowcliffe up in his surgery.”

“I can forbid him the house.”

“That’s no good either so long as he doesn’t forbid me his.”

“You can’t go to him there, my girl.”

“I can do anything when I’m driven.”

The Vicar groaned.

“You’re right,” he said.  “You are different from Alice.  You’re worse than she is—­ten times worse. You’d stick at nothing.  I’ve always known it.”

“So have I.”

The Vicar leaned against the chimney-piece and hid his face in his hands to shut out the shame of her.

And then Gwenda had pity on him.

“It’s all right, Papa.  I’m not going to Dr. Rowcliffe, because there’s no need.  You’re not going to lock him up in his surgery and you’re not going to forbid him the house.  You’re not going to do anything.  You’re going to listen to me.  It’s not a bit of good trying to bully me.  You’ll be beaten every time.  You can bully Alice as much as you like.  You can bully her till she’s ill.  You can shut her up in her bedroom and lock the door and I daresay she won’t get out at the window.  But even Alice will beat you in the end.  Of course there’s Mary.  But I shouldn’t try it on with Mary either.  She’s really more dangerous than I am, because she looks so meek and mild.  But she’ll beat you, too, if you begin bullying her.”

The Vicar raised his stricken head.

“Gwenda,” he said, “you’re terrible.”

“No, Papa, I’m not terrible.  I’m really awfully kind.  I’m telling you these things for your good.  Don’t you worry.  I shan’t run very far after young Rowcliffe.”

XXXIII

Left to himself, the Vicar fairly wallowed in his gloom.  He pressed his hands tightly to his face, crushing into darkness the image of his daughter Gwenda that remained with him after the door had shut between them.

It came over him with the very shutting of the door not only that there never was a man so cursed in his children (that thought had occurred to him before) but that, of the three, Gwenda was the one in whom the curse was, so to speak, most active, through whom it was most likely to fall on him at any moment.  In Alice it could be averted.  He knew, he had always known, how to deal with Alice.  And it would be hard to say exactly where it lurked in Mary.  Therefore, in his times of profoundest self-commiseration, the Vicar overlooked the existence of his daughter Mary.  He was an artist in gloom and Mary’s sweetness and goodness spoiled the picture.  But in Gwenda the curse was imminent and at the same time incalculable.  Alice’s behavior could be fairly predicted and provided for.  There was no knowing what Gwenda would do next.  The fear of what she might do hung forever over his head, and it made him jumpy.