"Well," said Peacock, "thot beats mae. I sud navver a thought thot t' owd maare could a got away from t' doctor's horse. Nat ef e'd a mind t' paass 'er."
"No," said Gwenda. She was thinking, "It's Mary. It's Mary. How could she, when she knew, when she was on her honor not to think of him?"
And she remembered a conversation she had had with her stepmother two months ago, when the news came. (Robina had seized the situation at a glance and she had probed it to its core.)
"You wanted him to marry Ally, did you? It wasn't much good you're going away if you left him with Mary."
"But," she had said, "Mary knew."
And Robina had answered, marvelously. "You should never have let her.
It was her knowing that did it. You were three women to one man, and
Mary was the one without a scruple. Do you suppose she'd think of Ally
or of you, either?"
And she had tried to be loyal to Mary and to Rowcliffe. She had said,
"If we were three, we all had our innings, and he made his choice."
And Robina, "It was Mary did the choosing."
She had added that Gwenda was a little fool, and that she ought to have known that though Mary was as meek as Moses she was that sort.
She went on, thinking, to the steady clanking of the hoofs.