All this complex pity and repugnance was latent in his one sense of horrible embarrassment.
Then their hands met.
"You want to see me?"
"I did—" She was writhing piteously in the trap.
"You'd better come into the surgery. There's a fire there."
He wasn't going to keep her out there in the cold; and he wasn't going to walk back with her to the Vicarage. He didn't want to meet the Vicar and have the door shut in his face. Rowcliffe, informed by Mrs. Blenkiron, was aware, long before Gwenda had warned him, that he ran this risk. The Vicar's funniness was a byword in the parish.
But he left the door ajar.
"Well," he said gently, "what is it?"
"Shall you be seeing Jim Greatorex soon?"
"I might. Why?"