hought was that it was magnificent of Mrs. Rowcliffe to
praise her sister.

And Rowcliffe smiled grimly at young Grierson and his Platonic
passion. He said to himself, "If I'd only known. If I'd only had the
sense to wait six months. Grierson would have done just as well for
Molly."

Still, though Grierson had come too late, he welcomed him and his
Platonic passion. It wasn't good for Grierson but it was good for
Molly. At least, he supposed it was better for her than nothing. And
for him it was infinitely better. It kept Grierson off Gwenda.

* * * * *

Young Grierson was right when he said that Gwenda didn't see that he
was there. He had been two years in Garthdale and she was as far
from seeing it as ever. He didn't mind; he was even amused by her
indifference, only he couldn't help thinking that it was rather odd of
her, considering that he _was_ there.

The village, as simple in its thinking as young Grierson, shared his
view. It thought that it was something more than odd. And it had a
suspicion that Mrs. Rowcliffe was at the bottom of it. She wouldn't
be happy if she didn't get that young man away from her sister. The
village hinted that it wouldn't be for the first time.

* * * * *

But in two years, with the gradual lifting of the pressure that had
numbed her, Gwenda had become aware. Not of young Grierson, but of
her own tragedy, of the slow life that dragged her, of its
relentless motion and its mass. Now that her father's need of her was
intermittent she was alive to the tightness of the tie. It had been
less intolerable when it had bound her tighter; when she hadn't had
a moment; when it had dragged her all the time. Its slackening was
torture. She pulled then, and was jerked on her chain.

It was not only that Rowcliffe's outburst had waked her and made
her cruelly aware. He had timed it badly, in her moment of revived
lucidity, the moment when she had become vulnerable again. She was the
more sensitive because of her previous apathy, as if she had died and
was new-born to suffering and virgin to pain.

What hurt her most was her father's gentleness. She could stand his
fits of irritation and obstinacy; they braced her, they called forth
her will. But she was defenseless against his pathos, and he knew it.
He had phrases that wrung her heart. "You're a good girl, Gwenda."
"I'm only an irritable old man, my dear. You mustn't mind what