"
"I don't think so. You haven't seen the moon get up over Greffington
Edge. If you had--if you knew what this place was like, you wouldn't
lie there grizzling. You wouldn't talk about punishing. You'd wonder
what you'd done to be allowed to look at it--to live in it a day. Of
course I'm not going to let on to Papa that I'm in love with it."
Mary smiled again.
"It's all very well for you," she said. "As long as you've got a moor
to walk on _you're_ all right."
"Yes. I'm all right," Gwenda said.
Her head had sunk again and rested in the hollow of her arms. Her
voice, muffled in her sleeve, came soft and thick. It died for
drowsiness.
In the extreme immobility and stillness of the three the still house
stirred and became audible to them, as if it breathed. They heard the
delicate fall of the ashes on the hearth, and the flame of the lamp
jerking as the oil sputtered in the burnt wick. Their nerves shook to
the creeping, crackling sounds that came from the wainscot, infinitely
minute. A tongue of fire shot hissing from the coal. It seemed to them
a violent and terrifying thing. The breath of the house passed over
them in thick smells of earth and must, as the fire's heat sucked at
its damp.
The church clock struck the half hour. Once, twice; two dolorous notes
that beat on the still house and died.
Somewhere out at the back a door opened and shut, and it was as if the
house drew in its breath at the shock of the sound.
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