From nothing at all it built up drama after drama. It was all
beautiful what Ally's brain did, all noble, all marvelously pure. (The
Vicar would have been astonished if he had known how pure.) There
was no sullen and selfish Ally in Ally's dreams. They were all of
sacrifice, of self-immolation, of beautiful and noble things done for
Rowcliffe, of suffering for Rowcliffe, of dying for him. All without
Rowcliffe being very palpably and positively there.
It was only at night, when Ally's brain slept among its dreams, that
Rowcliffe's face leaned near to hers without ever touching it, and his
arms made as if they clasped her and never met. Even then, always
at the first intangible approach of him, she woke, terrified because
dreams go by contraries.
"Is your sister always so silent?" Rowcliffe asked that Wednesday (the
Wednesday when Ally had been caught).
He was alone with Mary.
"Who? Ally? No. She isn't silent at all. What do you think of her?"
"I think," said Rowcliffe, "she looks extraordinarily well."
"That's owing to you," said Mary. "I never saw her pull round so fast
before."
"No? I assure you," said Rowcliffe, "I haven't anything to do with
it." He was very stiff and cold and stern.
Rowcliffe was annoyed because it was two Wednesdays running that
he had found himself alone with the eldest and the youngest Miss
Cartaret. The second one had gone off heaven knew where.
XXI
The Vicar of Garth considered himself unhappy (to say the least of it)
in his three children, but he had never asked himself what, after all,
would he have done without them? After all (as they had frequently
reminded themselves), without them he could never have lived
comfortably on his income.
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