And close beside her own wonder and excitement she had felt the deep
and sullen repulsion of her companions. The Vicar sat huddled in his
overcoat. His nostrils, pinched with repugnance, sniffed as they drank
in the cold, clean air. From time to time he shuddered, and a hoarse
muttering came from under the gray woolen scarf he had wound round
his mouth and beard. He was the righteous man, sent into uttermost
abominable exile for his daughter's sin. Behind him, on the back seat
of the trap, Alice and Mary cowed under their capes and rugs. They had
turned their shoulders to each other, hostile in their misery. Gwenda
was sorry for them.
The gray road dipped and turned and plunged them to the bottom of
Garthdale. The small, scattering lights of the village waited for her
in the hollow, with something humble and sad and familiar in their
setting. They too stung her with that poignant and secret sense of
recognition.
"This is the place," the Vicar had said. He had addressed himself
to Alice; and it had been as if he had said, This the place, the
infernal, the damnable place, you've brought us to with your behavior.
Their hatred of it had made Gwenda love it. "You can have your old
Garthdale all to yourself," Alice had said. "Nobody else wants it."
That, to Gwenda, was the charm of it. The adorable place was her own.
Nobody else wanted it. She loved it for itself. It had nothing but
itself to offer her.
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