"It will be time enough," she thought, "to tell Ally tomorrow."
Ally was in her room. She never came downstairs now; and this week she was worse and had stayed all day in bed. They couldn't rouse her.
But something had roused her this evening.
A sort of scratching on the door made Gwenda look up from her packing.
Ally stood on the threshold. She had dressed herself completely in her tweed skirt, white blouse and knitted tie. Her strength had failed her only in the struggle with her hair. The coil had fallen, and hung in a loose pigtail down her back. Slowly, in the weakness of her apathy, she trailed across the floor.
"Ally, what is it? Why didn't you send for me?"
"It's all right. I wanted to get up. I'm coming down to supper. You can leave off packing that old trunk. You haven't got to go."
"Who told you I was going?"
"Nobody. I knew it." She answered Gwenda's eyes. "I don't know how
I knew it, but I did. And I know why you're going and it's all rot.
You're going because you know that if you stay Steven Rowcliffe'll
marry you, and you think that if you go he'll marry me."
"Whatever put that idea into your head?"