His real offense against God was his offense against Alice Cartaret.
He had got drunk in order to forget it.
But that resource would henceforth be denied him. He was not going to get drunk any more, because he knew that if he did Alice Cartaret wouldn't marry him.
Meanwhile he nourished his soul on its own longing, on the Psalms of
David and on the Book of Job.
Greatorex would have made a happy saint. But he was a most lugubrious sinner.
XLVII
The train from Durlingham rolled slowly into Reyburn station.
Gwenda Cartaret leaned from the window of a third class carriage and looked up and down the platform. She got out, handing her suit-case to a friendly porter. Nobody had come to meet her. They were much too busy up at the Vicarage.
From the next compartment there alighted a group of six persons, a lady in widow's weeds, an elderly lady and gentleman who addressed her affectionately as "Fanny, dear," and (obviously belonging to the pair) a very young man and a still younger woman.
There was also a much older man, closely attached to them, but not quite so obviously related.
These six people also looked up and down the platform, expecting to be met. They were interested in Gwenda Cartaret. They gazed at her as they had already glanced, surreptitiously and kindly, on the platform at Durlingham. Now they seemed to be saying to themselves that they were sure it must be she.