She saw it as if
through some medium, once troubled and now made suddenly transparent.
It was because of that queer kinship that Ally had divined her.
However awful she was, however tragically foredoomed and driven, Ally
was decent. She knew what Gwenda was doing because it was what, if any
sustained lucidity were ever given her, she might have done herself.
But in Ally no idea but the one idea was very deeply rooted. Sustained
lucidity never had been hers. It would be easy to delude her.
"I'm going," Gwenda said, "because I want to. If I stayed I wouldn't
marry Steven Rowcliffe, and Steven Rowcliffe wouldn't marry me."
"But--I thought--I thought----"
"What did you think?"
"That there was something between you. Papa said so."
"If Papa said so you might have known there was nothing in it."
"And isn't there?"
"Of course there isn't. You can put that idea out of your head
forever."
"All the same I believe that's why you're going."
"I'm going because I can't stand this place any longer. You said I'd
be sick of it in three months."
"You're not sick of it. You love it. It's me you can't stand."
"No, Ally--no."
She plunged for another argument and found it.
"What I can't stand is living with Papa."
Ally agreed that this was rather more than plausible.
XXXVIII
The next person to be told was Rowcliffe.
It was known in the village through the telegrams that Gwenda was
going away.
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