And since she was the one—­she knew it—­who stood between him and
Ally, it was she who would have to go away.

It seemed to her that long ago—­all the time, in fact, ever since she had known Rowcliffe—­she had known that this was what she would have to face.

She faced it now with a strange courage and a sort of spiritual exaltation, as she would have faced any terrible truth that Rowcliffe had told her, if, for instance, he had told her that she was going to die.

That, of course, was what it felt like.  She had known that it would feel like that.

And, as sometimes happens to people who are going to die and know it, there came to her a peculiar vivid and poignant sense of her surroundings.  Of Rowcliffe’s room and the things in it,—­the chair he had sat in, the pipe he had laid aside, the book he had been reading and that he had flung away.  Outside the open window the trees of the little orchard, whitened by the moonlight, stood as if fixed in a tender, pure and supernatural beauty.  She could see the flags on the path and the stones in the gray walls.  They stood out with a strange significance and importance.  As if near and yet horribly far away, she could hear Rowcliffe’s footsteps in the passage.

It came over her that she was sitting in Rowcliffe’s room—­like this—­for the last time.

Then her heart dragged and tore at her, as if it fought against her will to die.  But it never occurred to her that this dying of hers was willed by her.  It seemed foredoomed, inevitable.

* * * * *

And now she was looking up in Rowcliffe’s face and smiling at him as he brought her her tea.

“That’s right,” he said.

He was entirely reassured by her appearance.

“Look here, shall I drive you back or do you feel like another four-mile walk?”

She hesitated.

“It’s late,” he said.  “But no matter.  Let’s be reckless.”

“There’s no need.  I’ve got my bicycle.”

“Then I’ll get mine.”

She rose.  “Don’t.  I’m going back alone.”

“You’re not.  I’m coming with you.  I want to come.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t—­to-night.”

“I’ll drive you, then.  I can’t let you go alone.”

“But I want,” she said, “to be alone.”

He stood looking at her with a sort of sullen tenderness.

“You’re not going to worry about what I told you?”

“You didn’t tell me.  I knew.”

“Then——­”

But she persisted.

“No.  I shall be all right,” she said.  “There’s a moon.”

In the end he let her have her way.

Moon or no moon he saw that it was not his moment.

XXXVII

What Gwenda had to do she did quickly.

She wrote to the third Mrs. Cartaret that night.  She told her nothing except that she wanted to get something to do in London and to get it as soon as possible, and she asked her stepmother if she could put her up for a week or two until she got it.  And would Mummy mind wiring Yes or No on Saturday morning?