"Mebbe t' would 'aave ef I'd roon aaffter it. 'Tis a tricky thing is
Gawd's graace."
"But it's gone," she said. "You gave your soul for Ally when you married her."
He smiled. "I toald 'er I'd give my sawl t' marry 'er," he said.
LXII
As she went home she tried to recapture the magic of the flowering thorn-trees. But it had gone and she could not be persuaded that it would come again. She was still too young to draw joy from the memory of joy, and what Greatorex had told her seemed incredible.
She said to herself, "Is it going to be taken from me like everything else?"
And a dreadful duologue went on in her.
"It looks like it."
"But it was mine. It was mine like nothing else."
"It never had anything for you but what you gave it."