Yet the thing had her every time. And it was as if her
heart was ground with the grinding and torn with the tearing of the
car.
Then she said to herself, "I must end it somehow. It's horrible to go
on caring like this. He was right. It would be better not to see him
at all."
And she began counting the days and the hours till Wednesday when she
would see him.
LIX
Wednesday was still the Vicar's day for visiting his parish. It was
also Rowcliffe's day for visiting his daughter. But the Vicar was not
going to change it on that account. On Wednesday, if it was a fine
afternoon, she was always sure of having Rowcliffe to herself.
Rowcliffe himself had become the creature of unalterable habit.
She was conscious now of the normal pulse of time, a steady pulse that
beat with a large rhythm, a measure of seven days, from Wednesday to
Wednesday.
She filled the days between with reading and walking and parish work.
There had been changes in Garthdale. Mr. Grierson had got married in
one of his bursts of enthusiasm and had gone away. His place had been
taken by Mr. Macey, the strenuous son of a Durlingham grocer. Mr.
Macey had got into the Church by sheer strenuousness and had married,
strenuously, a sharp and sallow wife. Between them they left very
little parish work for Gwenda.
She had become a furious reader. She liked hard stuff that her brain
could bite on. It fell on a book and gutted it, throwing away the
trash.
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