The clanking ceased, the wheels slowed down, and Mary's peaceful heart
moved violently in her breast. The trap drew up at the Vicarage gate.
She went over to the window, the small, shy gable window that looked
on to the road. She saw her sister standing in the trap and Rowcliffe
beneath her, standing in the road and holding out his hand. She saw
the two faces, the man's face looking up, the woman's face looking
down, both smiling.
And Mary's heart drew itself together in her breast. Through her shut
lips her sister's name forced itself almost audibly.
"_Gwen_-da!"
* * * * *
Suddenly she shivered. A cold wind blew through the open window. Yet
she did not move to shut it out. To have interfered with the attic
window would have been a breach of compact, an unholy invasion of her
sister's rights. For the attic, the smallest, the coldest, the
darkest and most thoroughly uncomfortable room in the whole house,
was Gwenda's, made over to her in the Vicar's magnanimity, by way of
compensation for the necessity that forced her to share her room with
Alice. As the attic was used for storing trunks and lumber, only two
square yards of floor could be spared for Gwenda. But the two square
yards, cleared, and covered with a strip of old carpet, and furnished
with a little table and one chair; the wall-space by the window with
its hanging bookcase; the window itself and the corner fireplace near
it were hers beyond division and dispute.
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