<h2 id="id02800" style="margin-top: 4em">XLV</h2>
<p id="id02801" style="margin-top: 2em">It was Sunday afternoon, the last Sunday of August, the first since
that evening (it was a Thursday) when Steven Rowcliffe had dined at
the Vicarage. Mary had announced her engagement the next day.</p>
<p id="id02802">The news had an extraordinary effect on Alice and the Vicar.</p>
<p id="id02803">Mary had come to her father in his study on Friday evening after
Prayers. She informed him of the bare fact in the curtest manner,
without preface or apology or explanation. A terrible scene had
followed; at least the Vicar's part in it had been terrible. Nothing
he had ever said to Gwenda could compare with what he then said to
Mary. Alice's behavior he had been prepared for. He had expected
anything from Gwenda; but from Mary he had not expected this. It was
her treachery he resented, the treachery of a creature he had depended
on and trusted. He absolutely forbade the engagement. He said it was
unheard of. He spoke of her "conduct" as if it had been disgraceful or
improper. He declared that "that fellow" Rowcliffe should never come
inside his house again. He bullied and threatened and bullied again.
And through it all Mary sat calm and quiet and submissive. The
expression of the qualities he had relied on, her sweetness and
goodness, never left her face. She replied to his violence, "Yes,
Papa. Very well, Papa, I see." But, as Gwenda had warned him, bully as
he would, Mary beat him in the end.</p>
<p id="id02804">She looked meekly down at the hearth-rug and said, "I know how you
feel about it, Papa dear. I understand all you've got to say and I'm
sorry. But it isn't any good. You know it isn't just as well as I do."</p>
<p id="id02805">It might have been Gwenda who spoke to him, only that Gwenda could
never have looked meek.</p>
<p id="id02806">The Vicar had not recovered from the shock. He was convinced that
he never would recover from it. But on that Sunday he had found a
temporary oblivion, dozing in his study between two services.</p>
<p id="id02807">There had been no scene like that with Alice. But what had passed
between the sisters had been even worse.</p>
<p id="id02808">Mary had gone straight from the study to Ally's room. Ally was
undressing.</p>
<p id="id02809">Ally received the news in a cruel silence. She looked coldly, sternly
almost, and steadily at Mary.</p>
<p id="id02810">"You needn't have told me that," she said at last. "I could see what
you were doing the other night."</p>
<p id="id02811">"What <i>I</i> was doing?"</p>
<p id="id02812">"Yes, you. I don't imagine Steven Rowcliffe did it"</p>
<p id="id02813">"Really Ally—what do you suppose I did?"</p>
<p id="id02814">"I don't know what it was. But I know you did something and I know
that—whatever it was—<i>I</i> wouldn't have done it."</p>
<p id="id02815">And Mary answered quietly. "If I were you, Ally, I wouldn't show my
feelings quite so plainly."</p>
<p id="id02816">And Ally looked at her again.</p>
<p id="id02817">"It's not <i>my</i> feelings—" she said.</p>
<p id="id02818">Mary reddened. "I don't know what you mean."</p>
<p id="id02819">"You'll know, some day," Ally said and turned her back on her.</p>
<p id="id02820"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02821">Mary went out, closing the door softly, as if she spared her sick
sister's unreasonably irritated nerves. She felt rather miserable as
she undressed alone in her bedroom. She was wounded in her sweetness
and her goodness, and she was also a little afraid of what Ally might
take it into her head to say or do. She didn't try to think what
Ally had meant. Her sweetness and goodness, with their instinct of
self-preservation, told her that it might be better not.</p>
<p id="id02822">The August night was warm and tender, and, when Mary had got into bed
and lay stretched out in contentment under the white sheet, she began
to think of Rowcliffe to the exclusion of all other interests; and
presently, between a dream and a dream, she fell asleep.</p>
<p id="id02823"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02824">But Ally could not sleep.</p>
<p id="id02825">She lay till dawn thinking and thinking, and turning from side to
side between her thoughts. They were not concerned with Gwenda or with
Rowcliffe. After her little spurt of indignation she had ceased to
think about Gwenda or Rowcliffe either. Mary's news had made her think
about herself, and her thoughts were miserable. Ally was so far like
her father the Vicar, that the idea of Mary's marrying was intolerable
to her and for precisely the same reason, because she saw no prospect
of marrying herself. Her father had begun by forbidding Mary's
engagement but he would end by sanctioning it. He would never sanction
<i>her</i> marriage to Jim Greatorex.</p>
<p id="id02826">Even if she defied her father and married Jim Greatorex in spite of
him there would be almost as much shame in it as if, like Essy, she
had never married him at all.</p>
<p id="id02827">And she couldn't live without him.</p>
<p id="id02828">Ally had suffered profoundly from the shock that had struck her down
under the arcades on the road to Upthorne. It had left her more than
ever helpless, more than ever subject to infatuation, more than ever
morally inert. Ally's social self had grown rigid in the traditions
of her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her
intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant
sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through
weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy
self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But
she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an
infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the
sight of Mary's happiness—a spectacle which Mary did not spare
her—-had made Ally restless. Under the incessant sting of it her
longing for Greatorex became insupportable.</p>
<p id="id02829">On Sunday the Vicar was still too deeply afflicted by the same
circumstance to notice Ally's movements, and Ally took advantage of
his apathy to excuse herself from Sunday school that afternoon. And
about three o'clock she was at Upthorne Farm. She and Greatorex had
found a moment after morning service to arrange the hour.</p>
<p id="id02830"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02831">And now they were standing together in the doorway of the Farmhouse.</p>
<p id="id02832">In the house behind them, in the mistal and the orchard, in the long
marshes of the uplands and on the brooding hills there was stillness
and solitude.</p>
<p id="id02833">Maggie had gone up to her aunt at Bar Hill. The farm servants were
scattered in their villages.</p>
<p id="id02834">Alice had just told Greatorex of Mary's engagement and the Vicar's
opposition.</p>
<p id="id02835">"Eh, I was lookin' for it," he said. "But I maade sure it was your
oother sister."</p>
<p id="id02836">"So did I, Jim. So it was. So it would have been, only—"</p>
<p id="id02837">She stopped herself. She wasn't going to give Mary away to Jim.</p>
<p id="id02838">He looked at her.</p>
<p id="id02839">"Wall, it's nowt t' yo, is it?"</p>
<p id="id02840">"No. It's nothing to me—now. How did you know I cared for him?"</p>
<p id="id02841">"I knew because I looved yo. Because I was always thinkin' of yo.<br/>
Because I watched yo with him."<br/></p>
<p id="id02842">"Oh Jim—would other people know?"</p>
<p id="id02843">"Naw. Nat they. They didn't look at yo the saame as I did."</p>
<p id="id02844">He became thoughtful.</p>
<p id="id02845">"Wall—this here sattles it," he said presently. "Yo caann't be laft
all aloan in t' Vicarage. Yo'll <i>'ave</i> t' marry mae."</p>
<p id="id02846">"No," she said. "It won't be like that. It won't, really. If my father
won't let my sister marry Dr. Rowcliffe, you don't suppose he'll let
me marry you? It makes it more impossible than ever. That's what I
came to tell you."</p>
<p id="id02847">"It's naw use yo're tallin' mae. I won't hear it."</p>
<p id="id02848">He bent to her.</p>
<p id="id02849">"Ally—d'yo knaw we're aloan here?"</p>
<p id="id02850">"Yes, Jim."</p>
<p id="id02851">"We're saafe till Naddy cooms back for t' milkin'. We've three hours."</p>
<p id="id02852">She shook her head. "Only an hour and a half, Jim. I must be back for
tea."</p>
<p id="id02853">"Yo'll 'ave tae here. Yo've had it before. I'll maake it for yo."</p>
<p id="id02854">"I daren't, Jim. They'll expect me. They'll wonder."</p>
<p id="id02855">"Ay, 'tis thot waay always. Yo're no sooner coom than yo've got to be
back for this, thot and toother. I'm fair sick of it."</p>
<p id="id02856">"So am I."</p>
<p id="id02857">She sighed.</p>
<p id="id02858">"Wall then—yo must end it."</p>
<p id="id02859">"How can I end it?"</p>
<p id="id02860">"Yo knaw how."</p>
<p id="id02861">"Oh Jim—darling—haven't I told you?"</p>
<p id="id02862">"Yo've toald mae noothin' that makes a hap'orth o' difference to mae.<br/>
Yo've coom to mae. Thot's all I keer for."<br/></p>
<p id="id02863">He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the house-place.</p>
<p id="id02864">"Let me shaw yo t' house—now you've coom."</p>
<p id="id02865">His voice pleaded and persuaded. In spite of its north-country accent
Ally loved his voice. It sounded musical and mournful, like the voices
of the mountain sheep coming from far across the moor and purified by
distance.</p>
<p id="id02866">He took her through the kitchen and the little parlor at the end of
the house.</p>
<p id="id02867">As he looked round it, trying to see it with her eyes, doubt came to
him. But Ally, standing there, looked toward the kitchen.</p>
<p id="id02868">"Will Maggie be there?" she said.</p>
<p id="id02869">"Ay, Maaggie'll be there, ready when yo want her."</p>
<p id="id02870">"But," she said, "I don't want her."</p>
<p id="id02871">He followed her look.</p>
<p id="id02872">"I'll 'ave it all claned oop and paapered and paainted. Look yo—I
could have a hole knocked through t' back wall o' t' kitchen and a
winder put there—and roon oop a wooden partition and make a passage
for yo t' goa to yore awn plaace, soa's Maaggie'll not bae in yore
road."</p>
<p id="id02873">"You needn't. I like it best as it is."</p>
<p id="id02874">"Do yo? D'yo mind thot Soonda yo caame laasst year? Yo've aassked mae
whan it was I started thinkin' of yo. It was than. Thot daay whan yo
sot there in thot chair by t' fire, taalkin' t' mae and drinkin' yore
tae so pretty."</p>
<p id="id02875">She drew closer to him.</p>
<p id="id02876">"Did you really love me then?"</p>
<p id="id02877">"Ay—I looved yo than."</p>
<p id="id02878">She pondered it.</p>
<p id="id02879">"Jim—what would you have done if I hadn't loved you?"</p>
<p id="id02880">He choked back something in his throat before he answered her. "What
sud I have doon? I sud have goan on looving yo joost the saame.</p>
<p id="id02881">"We'll goa oopstairs now."</p>
<p id="id02882">He took her back and out through the kitchen and up the stone stairs
that turned sharply in their narrow place in the wall. He opened the
door at the head of the landing.</p>
<p id="id02883">"This would bae our room. 'Tis t' best."</p>
<p id="id02884">He took her into the room where John Greatorex had died. It was the<br/>
marriage chamber, the birth-chamber, and the death-chamber of all the<br/>
Greatorexes. The low ceiling still bulged above the big double bed<br/>
John Greatorex had died in.<br/></p>
<p id="id02885">The room was tidy and spotlessly clean. The walls had been
whitewashed. Fresh dimity curtains hung at the window. The bed was
made, a clean white counterpane was spread on it.</p>
<p id="id02886">The death room had been made ready for the living. The death-bed
waited for the bride.</p>
<p id="id02887">Ally stood there, under the eyes of her lover, looking at those
things. She shivered slightly.</p>
<p id="id02888">She said to herself, "It's the room his father died in."</p>
<p id="id02889">And there came on her a horror of the room and of all that had
happened in it, a horror of death and of the dead.</p>
<p id="id02890">She turned away to the window and looked out. The long marshland
stretched below, white under the August sun. Beyond it the green hills
with their steep gray cliffs rose and receded, like a coast line, head
after head.</p>
<p id="id02891">To Ally the scene was desolate beyond all bearing and the house was
terrible.</p>
<p id="id02892">Her eyelids pricked. Her mouth trembled. She kept her back turned to
Greatorex while she stifled a sob with her handkerchief pressed tight
to her lips.</p>
<p id="id02893">He saw and came to her and put his arm round her.</p>
<p id="id02894">"What is it, Ally? What is it, loove?"</p>
<p id="id02895">She looked up at him.</p>
<p id="id02896">"I don't know, Jim. But—I think—I'm afraid."</p>
<p id="id02897">"What are you afraid of?"</p>
<p id="id02898">She thought a moment. "I'm afraid of father."</p>
<p id="id02899">"Yo med bae ef yo staayed with him. Thot's why I want yo t' coom to
mae."</p>
<p id="id02900">He looked at her.</p>
<p id="id02901">"'Tisn' thot yo're afraid of. 'Tis soomthin' alse thot yo wawn't tall
mae."</p>
<p id="id02902">"Well—I think—I'm a little bit afraid of this house. It's—it's so
horribly lonely."</p>
<p id="id02903">He couldn't deny it.</p>
<p id="id02904">"A'y; it's rackoned t' bae loanly. But I sall navver leaave yo.<br/>
I'm goain' t' buy a new trap for yo, soa's yo can coom with mae and<br/>
Daaisy. Would yo like thot, Ally?"<br/></p>
<p id="id02905">"Yes, Jim, I'd love it. But——"</p>
<p id="id02906">"It'll not bae soa baad. Whan I'm out in t' mistal and in t' fields
and thot, yo'll have Maaggie with yo."</p>
<p id="id02907">She whispered. "Jim—I can't bear Maggie. I'm afraid of her."</p>
<p id="id02908">"Afraid o' pore Maaggie?"</p>
<p id="id02909">He took it in. He wondered. He thought he understood.</p>
<p id="id02910">"Maaggie sall goa. I'll 'ave anoother. An' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass
t' waait on yo. Ef it's Maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road."</p>
<p id="id02911">"It isn't Maggie—altogether."</p>
<p id="id02912">"Than—for Gawd's saake, loove, what is it?"</p>
<p id="id02913">She sobbed. "It's everything. It's something in this house—in this
room."</p>
<p id="id02914">He looked at her gravely now.</p>
<p id="id02915">"Naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. It's mae. It's mae
yo're afraid of. Yo think I med bae too roough with yo."</p>
<p id="id02916">But at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close
to him.</p>
<p id="id02917">"No—no—no—it isn't you. It isn't. It couldn't be."</p>
<p id="id02918">He crushed her in his arms. His mouth clung to her face and passed
over it and covered it with kisses.</p>
<p id="id02919">"Am I too roough? Tall mae—tall mae."</p>
<p id="id02920">"No," she whispered.</p>
<p id="id02921">He pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. She took
off her hat and flung it on the floor.</p>
<p id="id02922">His voice came fast and thick.</p>
<p id="id02923">"Kiss mae back ef yo loove mae."</p>
<p id="id02924">She kissed him. She stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm
that held her.</p>
<p id="id02925">His senses swam. He grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily
from the floor. She was light in his arms as a child. He had turned
her from the window.</p>
<p id="id02926">He looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. His eyes lowered;
they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. They
saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched
there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling.</p>
<p id="id02927">He loosed her and pushed her from him.</p>
<p id="id02928">"We moost coom out o' this," he muttered.</p>
<p id="id02929">He pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and
made her go before him down the stairs.</p>
<p id="id02930">He went back into the room to pick up her hat.</p>
<p id="id02931">He found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair
where John Greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall.</p>
<p id="id02932">"Jim—I'm so frightened," she said.</p>
<p id="id02933">"Ay. Yo'll bae all right downstairs."</p>
<p id="id02934">They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting,
she in her terror and he in his agony.</p>
<p id="id02935">"Take me away," she said. "Out of the house. That room frightened me.<br/>
There's something there."<br/></p>
<p id="id02936">"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t'
fealds?"</p>
<p id="id02937"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02938">The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and
gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow
track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the
mistal.</p>
<p id="id02939">Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began.
It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver
green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.</p>
<p id="id02940">The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long,
broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched
beside it.</p>
<p id="id02941">Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There
was neither thought nor purpose in their going.</p>
<p id="id02942">The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and
hill.</p>
<p id="id02943">Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over
the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the
rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.</p>
<p id="id02944">Alice stopped in the track and turned.</p>
<p id="id02945">"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."</p>
<p id="id02946">Greatorex stood scanning the hill.</p>
<p id="id02947">"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep."</p>
<p id="id02948">"Oh, Jim, he'll see us."</p>
<p id="id02949">"Nat he!"</p>
<p id="id02950">But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.</p>
<p id="id02951">"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us."</p>
<p id="id02952">"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?"</p>
<p id="id02953">"I don't want to be seen," she moaned.</p>
<p id="id02954">"Wall—?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here
than, tall he's paassed."</p>
<p id="id02955">A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long,
narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came
the sweet, heavy scent of hay.</p>
<p id="id02956">"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here."</p>
<p id="id02957">"He wawn't."</p>
<p id="id02958">But Jim shut the door.</p>
<p id="id02959">"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil
feet. Staay there—where yo are—tell I tall yo."</p>
<p id="id02960">He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She
heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.</p>
<p id="id02961">He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The
sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced
in it.</p>
<p id="id02962">Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited
below.</p>
<p id="id02963">"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally."</p>
<p id="id02964">He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.</p>
<p id="id02965">They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of
children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a
carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.</p>
<p id="id02966">"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly
frightened."</p>
<p id="id02967">She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his.</p>
<p id="id02968">Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows
propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his
thick, mournful voice he spoke.</p>
<p id="id02969">"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of
these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks."</p>
<p id="id02970">"I can't marry you, darling. I can't."</p>
<p id="id02971">"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo
think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I
couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could
bae roough wi' t' lil laambs."</p>
<p id="id02972">He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above
his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on.</p>
<p id="id02973">"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo."</p>
<p id="id02974">That brought her to his side with her soft cry.</p>
<p id="id02975">For a moment he lay rigid and still.</p>
<p id="id02976">Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them
where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the
cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture.</p>
<p id="id02977"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02978">Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to.</p>
<h2 id="id02979" style="margin-top: 4em">XLVI</h2>
<p id="id02980" style="margin-top: 2em">Morfe Fair was over and the farmers were going home.</p>
<p id="id02981">A broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. There
were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. There were men
on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before
them.</p>
<p id="id02982">A train of three were going slowly up Garthdale, with much lingering
to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks.</p>
<p id="id02983">Into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn
by Greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. Daisy was not driven
by Greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was
urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. Her open
nostrils drank the wind of her going.</p>
<p id="id02984">Greatorex's face flamed and his eyes were brilliant. They declared a
furious ecstasy. Ever and again he rose and struggled to stand upright
and recover his grip of the reins. Ever and again he was pitched
backward on to the seat where he swayed, perilously, with the swaying
of the trap.</p>
<p id="id02985">Behind him, in the bottom of the trap, two young calves, netted in,
pushed up their melancholy eyes and innocent noses through the mesh.
Hurled against each other, flung rhythmically from side to side, they
shared the blind trouble of the man and the torment of the mare.</p>
<p id="id02986">For the first two miles out of Morfe the trap charged, scattering men
and beasts before it and taking the curves of the road at a tangent.
With the third mile the pace slackened. The mare had slaked her thirst
for the wind of her going and Greatorex's fury was appeased. At the
risk of pitching forward over the step he succeeded in gathering up
the reins as they neared the dangerous descent to Garthdale.</p>
<p id="id02987">He had now dropped from the violence of his ecstasy into a dream-like
state in which he was borne swaying on a vague, interminable road that
overhung, giddily, the bottomless pit and was flanked by hills that
loomed and reeled, that oppressed him with their horrible immensity.</p>
<p id="id02988">He passed the bridge, the church, the Vicarage, the schoolhouse with
its beckoning tree, and by the mercy of heaven he was unaware of them.</p>
<p id="id02989">At the turn of the road, On Upthorne hill, the mare, utterly sobered
by the gradient, bowed her head and went with slow, wise feet, taking
care of the trap and of her master.</p>
<p id="id02990">As for Greatorex, he had ceased to struggle. And at the door of his
house his servant Maggie received him in her arms.</p>
<p id="id02991"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id02992">He stayed in bed the whole of the next day, bearing his sickness,
while Maggie waited on him. And in the evening when he lay under her
hand, weak, but clear-headed, she delivered herself of what was in her
mind.</p>
<p id="id02993">"Wall—yo may thank Gawd yo're laayin' saafe in yore bed, Jim
Greatorex. It'd sarve yo right ef Daaisy 'd lat yo coom hoam oopside
down wi yore 'ead draggin' in t' road. Soom daay yo'll bae laayin'
there with yore nack brawken.</p>
<p id="id02994">"Ay, yo may well scootle oonder t' sheets, though there's nawbody
but mae t' look at yo. Yo'd navver tooch anoother drap o' thot felthy
stoof, Jimmy, ef yo could sea yoreself what a sight yo bae. Naw
woonder Assy Gaale wouldn't 'ave yo, for all yo've laft her wi' t' lil
baaby."</p>
<p id="id02995">"Who toald yo she wouldn't 'ave mae?"</p>
<p id="id02996">"Naybody toald mae. But I knaw. I knaw. I wouldn't 'ave yo myself ef
yo aassked mae. I want naw droonkards to marry mae."</p>
<p id="id02997">Greatorex became pensive.</p>
<p id="id02998">"Yo'd bae freetened o' mae, Maaggie?" he asked.</p>
<p id="id02999">And Maggie, seeing her advantage, drove it home.</p>
<p id="id03000">"There's more than mae and Assy thot's freetened t' marry yo," she
said.</p>
<p id="id03001">He darkened. "Yo 'oald yore tongue. Yo dawn't knaw what yo're saayin',
my laass."</p>
<p id="id03002">"Dawn't I? There's more than mae thot knaws, Mr. Greatorex. Assy isn't
t' awnly woon yo've maade talk o' t' plaace."</p>
<p id="id03003">"What do yo mane? Speaak oop. What d'yo mane——Yo knaw?"</p>
<p id="id03004">"Yo'd best aassk Naddy. He med tall ye 'oo was with yo laasst Soonda
oop t' feald in t' girt byre."</p>
<p id="id03005">"Naddy couldn't sae 'oo 't was. Med a been Assy. Med a been yo."</p>
<p id="id03006">"'T wasn' mae, Mr. Greatorex, an' 't was n' Assy. Look yo 'ere. I tall
yo Assy's freetened o' yo."</p>
<p id="id03007">"'Oo says she's freetened?"</p>
<p id="id03008">"I saays it. She's thot freetened thot she'd wash yore sweet'eart's
dirty cleathes sooner 'n marry yo."</p>
<p id="id03009">"She doesn't wash them?"</p>
<p id="id03010">"Shea does. T' kape yore baaby, Jim Greatorex."</p>
<p id="id03011">With that she left him.</p>
<p id="id03012"> * * * * *</p>
<p id="id03013">For the next three months Greatorex was more than ever uneasy in his
soul. The Sunday after Maggie's outburst he had sat all morning and
afternoon in his parlor with his father's Bible. He had not even tried
to see Alice Cartaret.</p>
<p id="id03014">For three months, off and on, in the intervals of seeing Alice, he
longed, with an intense and painful longing, for his God. He longed
for him just because he felt that he was utterly separated from him by
his sin. He wanted the thing he couldn't have and wasn't fit to have.
He wanted it, just as he wanted Alice Cartaret.</p>
<p id="id03015">And by his sin he did not mean his getting drunk. Greatorex did not
think of God as likely to take his getting drunk very seriously,
any more than he had seemed to take Maggie and Essy seriously. For
Greatorex measured God's reprobation by his own repentance.</p>
<p id="id03016">His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret.<br/>
He had got drunk in order to forget it.<br/></p>
<p id="id03017">But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going
to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret
wouldn't marry him.</p>
<p id="id03018">Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of<br/>
David and on the Book of Job.<br/></p>
<p id="id03019">Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious
sinner.</p>
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