"I'll tell yo anoother quare thing. 'T' assn't got mooch t' do wi'
good and baad. T' drink 'll nat drive it from yo, an' sin'll nat drive
it from yo. Saw I raakon 't is mooch t' saame thing as t' graace o'
Gawd."
"Did the grace of God go away from you when you married, Jim?"
"Mebbe t' would 'aave ef I'd roon aaffter it. 'Tis a tricky thing is
Gawd's graace."
"But _it's_ gone," she said. "You gave your _soul_ for Ally when you
married her."
He smiled. "I toald 'er I'd give my sawl t' marry 'er," he said.
LXII
As she went home she tried to recapture the magic of the flowering
thorn-trees. But it had gone and she could not be persuaded that it
would come again. She was still too young to draw joy from the memory
of joy, and what Greatorex had told her seemed incredible.
She said to herself, "Is it going to be taken from me like everything
else?"
And a dreadful duologue went on in her.
"It looks like it."
"But it _was_ mine. It was mine like nothing else."
"It never had anything for you but what you gave it."
"Am I to go on giving the whole blessed time? Am I never to have
anything for myself?"
"There never is anything for anybody but what they give. Or what they
take from somebody else. You should have taken. You had your chance."
"I'd have died, rather."
"Do you call this living?"
"I _have_ lived."
"He hasn't. Why did you sacrifice him?"
"For Mary."
"It wasn't for Mary.
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