Sometimes, returning from his northerly rounds, he would send the trap
on, and walk back to Morfe by Karva, on the chance. Once, when the
moon was up, he sighted her on the farther moors beyond Upthorne, when
he got down and walked with her for miles, while his man and the trap
waited for him in Garth.
Once, and only once, driving by himself on the Rathdale moors beyond
Morfe, he overtook her, picked her up and drove her through Morfe (to
the consternation of its inhabitants) all the way to Garth and to the
very gate of the Vicarage.
But that was reckless.
* * * * *
And in all those hours, for his opportunities counted by hours now,
he had never found his moment. There was plenty of time, and their
isolation (his and hers) in Garthdale left him dangerously secure. All
the same, by April Rowcliffe was definitely looking for the moment,
the one shining moment, that must sooner or later come.
It was, indeed, always coming. Over and over again he had caught
sight of it; it signaled, shining; he had been ready to seize it, when
something happened, something obscured it, something put him off.
He never knew what it was at the time, but when he looked back on
these happenings he discovered that it was always something that
Gwenda Cartaret did. You would have said that no scene on earth could
have been more favorable to a lover's enterprise than these long,
deserted roads and the vast, twilit moors; and that a young woman
could have found nothing to distract her from her lover there.
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