* * * * *
She then considered how she was to account to her family for her departure.
She decided that she would tell Mary first. And she might as well tell her the truth while she was about it, since, if she didn't, Mary would be sure to find it out. She was sweet and good. Not so sweet and good that she couldn't hold her own against Papa if she was driven to it, but sweet enough and good enough to stand by Ally and to see her through.
It would be easy for Mary. It wasn't as if she had ever even begun to care for Rowcliffe. It wasn't as if Rowcliffe had ever cared for her.
And she could be trusted. A secret was always safe with Mary. She was positively uncanny in her silence, and quite superhumanly discreet.
Mary, then, should be told the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Her father should be told as much of it as he was likely to believe.
Ally, of course, mustn't have an inkling.
Mary herself had an inkling already when she appeared that evening in the attic where Gwenda was packing a trunk. She had a new Bradshaw in her hand.
"Peacock gave me this," said Mary. "He said you ordered it."
"So I did," said Gwenda.
"What on earth for?"