It was only five and twenty past four.
XLI
The Vicar was right. Rowcliffe did not want to be seen or heard of
at the Vicarage. He did not want to see or hear of the Vicarage or of
Gwenda Cartaret again. Twice a week or more in those five weeks he had
to pass the little gray house above the churchyard; twice a week or
more the small shy window in its gable end looked sidelong at him as
he went by. But he always pretended not to see it. And if anybody in
the village spoke to him of Gwenda Cartaret he pretended not to hear,
so that presently they left off speaking.
He had sighted Mary Cartaret two or three times in the village, and
once, on the moor below Upthorne, a figure that he recognised as
Alice; he had also overtaken Mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen
her at a shop door on Morfe Green. And each time Mary (absorbed in
what she was doing) had made it possible for him not to see her. He
was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. He had
always known that Mary was a person of tact.
He also knew that this preposterous avoidance could not go on forever.
It was only that Mary gave him a blessed respite week by week.
Presently one or other of the two would have to end it, and he didn't
yet know which of them it would be. He rather thought it would be
Mary.
And it _was_ Mary.
He met her that first Wednesday in May, as he was leaving Mrs. Gale's
cottage.
She was coming along the narrow path by the beck and there was no
avoiding her.
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