Of course Mary was aware that she had fetched him. She had been driven
to that step by sheer terror. All the way home she kept on saying to
herself, "I've saved Ally." "I've saved Ally." That thought, splendid
and exciting, rushed to the lighted front of Mary's mind; if the
thought of Rowcliffe followed its shining trail, it thrust him back,
it spread its luminous wings to hide him, it substituted its heavenly
form for his.
So effectually did it cover him that Mary herself never dreamed that
he was there.
Neither did the Vicar, when he saw her arrive, laden with parcels,
wholesomely cheerful and reddened by her ride. He had said to her
"You're a good girl, Mary," and the sadness of his tone implied that
he wished her sister Gwendolen and her sister Alice were more like
her. And he had smiled at her under his austere moustache, and carried
in the biggest parcels for her.
The Vicar was pleased with his daughter Mary. Mary had never given him
an hour's anxiety. Mary had never put him in the wrong, never made him
feel uncomfortable. He honestly believed that he was fond of her. She
was like her poor mother. Goodness, he said to himself, was in her
face.
There had been goodness in Mary's face when she went into Alice's room
to see what she could do for her. There was goodness in it now, up in
the attic, where there was nobody but God to see it; goodness at peace
with itself, and utterly content.
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