Gwenda had no feeling in her as she left Rowcliffe's house. Her heart hid in her breast. It was so mortally wounded as to be unaware that it was hurt.
But at the turn of the white road her heart stirred in its hiding-place. It stirred at the sight of Karva and with the wind that brought her the smell of the flowering thorn-trees.
It discerned in these things a power that would before long make her suffer.
She had no other sense of them.
* * * * *
She came to the drop of the road under Karva where she had seen
Rowcliffe for the first time.
She thought, "I shall never get away from it."
Far off in the bottom the village waited for her.
It had always waited for her; but she was afraid of it now, afraid of what it might have in store for her. It shared her fear as it crouched there, like a beaten thing, with its huddled houses, naked and blackened as if fire had passed over them.
And Essy Gale stood at the Vicarage gate and waited. She had her child at her side. The two were looking for Gwenda.