"Yes," answered Gwladys. "I am now going to prepare the tea. Thinking is my enemy, which I must keep out of my life until I am an old woman. Perhaps, then, when I am sitting here with my spectacles, and knitting, I shall be able to think again."
"Fforwel, then," said Mari; "perhaps I will not come to-morrow till afternoon." And she drew her shawl tightly around her and ran all the way home, helped by the winter wind, which blew icily from the sea.
Gwladys busied herself with her preparations for her husband's evening meal, clattering the tea-things, humming at her work, and making believe to be a busy housewife absorbed in her small duties; and her attempts at cheerfulness were not without some measure of success. But it was a fictitious and unreal calm, and one which she was conscious might at any moment crumble into ruins. But for the present her newly-formed resolutions kept her up; and as she tossed the frizzling lightcakes on the griddle, she tried to hum an old familiar tune, which had of late been a stranger to her lips.
It was at this moment that Hugh came in from the gusty twilight; he heard the crooning song, and the sadness deepened in his face, and a light shot into his eyes from some hidden spark of jealous suspicion.
"She's happy," he thought; "she has seen Ivor!" for during the afternoon the latter had been absent from his work for an hour or so, and Hugh had noted it and had wondered.
He closed the door when he entered, fighting rather testily with the blustering sea-wind, which was accustomed to find easy access into every part of the house. Doors were always left open at Mwntseison, except in the stormiest weather or when a death had occurred, so Gwladys looked up with astonishment.
"Gwen is coming down the road, and I thought thou wouldst be better without her."
"Oh, yes—bolt it, bolt it!" she said, her colour coming and going. "I am afraid of her."
"Well, I think we shall all be afraid of her soon," he said; and while his wife placed a chair for him under the chimney, and drew the round table near the fire, and piled his plate with the crisp lightcakes, he explained to her his arrangements for sending Gwen to the asylum.
"Poor thing, poor thing! but it will be best indeed. I will be glad when thou art with me always, Hugh. 'Tis nervous work to be alone all day, while she haunts the village like a grey ghost."