Mary.

Alice was wrapped up in her husband and children, in the boy of
three who was so like Gwenda, and in the baby girl who was so like
Greatorex. But through them she had become approachable. She had the
ways of some happy household animal, its quick rushes of affection,
and its gaze, the long, spiritual gaze of its maternity, mysterious
and appealing. She loved Gwenda with a sad-eyed, remorseful love. She
said to herself, "If I hadn't been so awful, Gwenda might have married
Steven." She saw the appalling extent of Gwenda's sacrifice. She saw
it as it was, monstrous, absurd, altogether futile.

It was the futility of it that troubled Alice most. Even if Gwenda
had been capable of sacrificing herself for Mary, which had been by
no means her intention, that would have been futile too. Alice was of
Rowcliffe's opinion that young Grierson would have done every bit as
well for Mary.

Better, for Mary had no children.

"And how," said Alice, "could she expect to have them?"

She saw in Mary's childlessness not only God's but Nature's justice.

* * * * *

There were moments when Mary saw it too. But she left God out of it
and called it Nature's cruelty.

If it was not really Gwenda. For in flashes of extreme lucidity Mary
put it down to Rowcliffe's coldness.

And she had come to know that Gwenda was responsible for that.

LVI

But one day in April, in the fourth year of her marriage, Mary sent
for Gwenda.

Rowcliffe was out on his rounds. She had thought of that. She was fond
of having Gwenda with her in Rowcliffe's absence, when she could talk
to her about him in a way that assumed his complete indifference to
Gwenda and utter devotion to herself. Gwenda was used to this habit of
Mary's and thought nothing of it.

She found her in Rowcliffe's study, the room that she knew better than
any other in his house. The window was closed. The panes cut up the
colors of the orchard and framed them in small squares.

Mary received her with a gentle voice and a show of tenderness. She
said very little. They had tea together, and when Gwenda would have
gone Mary kept her.

She still said very little. She seemed to brood over some happy
secret.

Presently she spoke. She told her secret.

And when she had told it she turned her eyes to Gwenda with a look of
subtle penetration and of triumph.

"At last," she said,--"After three years."

And she added, "I knew you would be g