ied or retired he would step
into his practice. He hadn't half enough to do in Morfe and he wanted
more.

Meanwhile he had bought the house that joined on to his own and thrown
the two and their gardens into one. They had been one twenty years
ago, when the wide-fronted building, with its long rows of windows,
was the dominating house in Morfe village. Rowcliffe was now the
dominating man in it. He had given the old place back its own.

And he had spent any amount of money on it. He had had all the
woodwork painted white, and the whole house repapered and redecorated.
He had laid down parquet flooring in the big square hall that he had
made and in the new drawing-room upstairs; and he had bought a great
deal of beautiful and expensive furniture.

And now he was building a garage and laying out a croquet ground and
tennis lawns at the back.

He and Mary had been superintending these works all afternoon till a
shower sent them indoors. And now they were sitting together in the
drawing-room, in the breathing-space that came between the children's
hour and dinner.

Mary had sent the children back to the nursery a little earlier than
usual. Rowcliffe had complained of headache.

He was always complaining of headaches. They dated from his marriage,
and more particularly from one night in June eight years ago.

But Rowcliffe ignored the evidence of dates. He ignored everything
that made him feel uncomfortable. He had put Gwenda from him. He had
said plainly to Mary (in one poignant moment not long before the birth
of their third child), "If you're worrying about me and Gwenda, you
needn't. She was never anything to me."

That was not saying there had never been anything between them, but
Mary knew what he had meant.

He said to himself, and Mary said that he had got over it. But he
hadn't got over it. He might say to himself and Mary, "She was never
anything to me"; he might put her and the thought of her away from
him, but she had left her mark on him. He hadn't put her away. She was
there, in his heavy eyes and in the irritable gestures of his hands,
in his nerves and in his wounded memory. She had knitted herself into
his secret being.

Mary was unaware of the cause of his malady. If it had been suggested
to her that he had got into this state because of Gwenda she would
have dismissed the idea with contempt. She didn't worry about
Rowcliffe's state. On the contrary, Rowcliffe's state was a
consolation and a s