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Still without a word, she turned from him to the door.
He sprang to open it.
Five minutes later he was aware that his wife had come into the room.
"Has Gwenda gone?" he said.
"Yes. Steven----" There was a small, fluttering fright in Mary's eyes.
"Is there anything the matter with her?"
"No," he said. "Nothing. Except living with your father."
LXVI
Gwenda had no feeling in her as she left Rowcliffe's house. Her heart hid in her breast. It was so mortally wounded as to be unaware that it was hurt.
But at the turn of the white road her heart stirred in its hiding-place. It stirred at the sight of Karva and with the wind that brought her the smell of the flowering thorn-trees.
It discerned in these things a power that would before long make her suffer.
She had no other sense of them.
She came to the drop of the road under Karva where she had seen Rowcliffe for the first time.
She thought, "I shall never get away from it."
Far off in the bottom the village waited for her.
It had always waited for her; but she was afraid of it now, afraid of what it might have in store for her. It shared her fear as it crouched there, like a beaten thing, with its huddled houses, naked and blackened as if fire had pa.s.sed over them.
And Essy Gale stood at the Vicarage gate and waited. She had her child at her side. The two were looking for Gwenda.
"I thought mebbe something had 'appened t' yo," she said.
As if she had seen what had happened to her she hurried the child in out of her sight.
Ten minutes to ten.
In the small dull room Gwenda waited for the hour of her deliverance.
She had taken up her sewing and her book.
The Vicar sat silent, waiting, he too, with his hands folded on his lap.
And, loud through the quiet house, she heard the sound of crying and Essy's voice scolding her little son, avenging on him the cruelty of life.
On Greffington Edge, under the risen moon, the white thorn-trees flowered in their glory.
THE END.
The following pages contain advertis.e.m.e.nts of Macmillan books by the same author, and new fiction.
By THE SAME AUTHOR
The Return of the Prodigal
"These are stories to be read leisurely with a feeling for the stylish and the careful workmans.h.i.+p which is always a part of May Sinclair's work. They need no recommendation to those who know the author's work and one of the things on which we may congratulate ourselves is the fact that so many Americans are her reading friends."--_Kansas City Gazette-Globe._
"They are the product of a master workman who has both skill and art, and who scorns to produce less than the best."--_Buffalo Express._
"Always a clever writer, Miss Sinclair at her best is an exceptionally interesting one, and in several of the tales bound together in this new volume we have her at her best."--_N.Y. Times._
"... All of which show the same sensitive apprehension of unusual cases and delicate relations, and reveal a truth which would be hidden from the hasty or blunt observer."--_Boston Transcript._
"One of the best of the many collections of stories published this season."--_N.Y. Sun._
"... All these stories are of deep interest because all of them are out of the rut."--_Kentucky Post._
"Let no one who cares for good and sincere work neglect this book."--_London Post._
"The stories are touched with a peculiar delicacy and whimsicality."--_Los Angeles Times._
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