When Mary put these things together, she saw that nothing could be more certain than that, sooner or later, Ally or no Ally, Gwenda would have gone away.
But this was after it had occurred to her that Rowcliffe ought to know what had happened and that she had got to tell him. And that was on the day after Gwenda's letter came, when Mrs. Gale, having brought in the tea-things, paused in her going to say, "'Ave yo' seen Dr. Rawcliffe, Miss Mary? Ey—but 'e's lookin' baad."
"Everybody," said Mary, "is looking bad this muggy weather. That reminds me, how's the baby?"
"'E's woorse again, Miss. I tall Assy she'll navver rear 'im."
"Has the doctor seen him to-day?"
"Naw, naw, nat yat. But 'e'll look in, 'e saays, afore 'e goas."
Mary looked at the clock. Rowcliffe left the surgery at four-thirty.
It was now five minutes past.
She wondered: Did he know, then, or did he not know? Would Gwenda have written to him? Was it because she had not written that he was looking bad, or was it because she had written and he knew?
She thought and thought it over; and under all her thinking there lurked the desire to know whether Rowcliffe knew and how he was taking it, and under her desire the longing, imperious and irresistible, to see him.
She would have to ask him to the house. She had not forgotten that she had to ask him, that she was pledged to ask him on Ally's account if, as Gwenda had put it, she was to play the game.