Its lamps swung a shaft of light over the low garden wall.
At the garden gate the car made a shuddering pause.
Gwenda's face and all her body listened. A little unborn, undying hope
quivered in her heart always at that pausing of the car at her gate.
It hardly gave her time for one heart-beat before she heard the
grinding of the gear as the car took the steep hill to Upthorne.
But she was always taken in by it. She had always that insane hope
that the course of things had changed and that Steven had really
stopped at the gate and was coming to her.
* * * * *
It _was_ insanity, for she knew that Rowcliffe would never come to see
her in the evening now. After his outburst, more than five years ago,
there was no use pretending to each other that they were safe. He had
told her plainly that, if she wanted him to hold out, he must never be
long alone with her at any time, and he must give up coming to see her
late at night. It was much too risky.
"When I can come and see you _that_ way," he had said, "it'll mean
that I've left off caring. But I'll look in every Wednesday if I can.
Every Wednesday as long as I live."
He _had_ come now and then, not on a Wednesday, but "that way." He had
not been able to help it. But he had left longer and longer intervals
between. And he had never come ("that way") since last year, when his
second child was born.
Nothing but life or death would bring Rowcliffe out in his car after
nightfall.
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