tional. Gwenda, for her own amusement, and regardless of sect
and creed, the hopelessly distant hamlets and the farms scattered
on the long, raking hillsides and the moors. Alice declared herself
satisfied with her dominion over the organ and the village choir.

Alice was behaving like an angel in her Paradise. No longer listless
and sullen, she swept through the house with an angel's energy. A
benign, untiring angel sat at the organ and controlled the violent
voices of the choir.

The choir looked upon Ally's innocent art with pride and admiration
and amusement. It tickled them to see those little milk-white hands
grappling with organ pieces that had beaten the old schoolmaster.

Ally enjoyed the pride and admiration of the choir and was unaware of
its amusement. She enjoyed the importance of her office. She enjoyed
the massive, voluptuous vibrations that made her body a vehicle for
the organ's surging and tremendous soul. Ally's body had become a
more and more tremulous, a more sensitive and perfect medium for
vibrations. She would not have missed one choir practice or one
service.

And she said to herself, "I may be a fool, but Papa or the parish
would have to pay an organist at least forty pounds a year. It costs
less to keep me. So he needn't talk."

* * * * *

Then in November came the preparations for the village concert.

They were stupendous.

All morning the little Erad piano shook with the Grande Valse and the
Grande Polonaise of Chopin. The diabolic thing raged through the shut
house, knowing that it went unchallenged, that its utmost violence was
licensed until the day after the concert.

Rowcliffe heard it whenever he drove past the Vicarage on his way over
the moors.

XXII

Rowcliffe was now beginning to form that other habit (which was to
make him even more remarkable than he was already), the hunting down
of Gwendolen Cartaret in the open.

He was annoyed with Gwendolen Cartaret. When she had all the rest of
the week to walk in she would set out on Wednesdays before teatime and
continue until long after dark. He had missed her twice now. And on
the third Wednesday he saw her swinging up the hill toward Upthorne as
he, leaving his surgery, came round the corner of the village by the
bridge.

"I believe," he thought, "she's doing it on purpose. To avoid me."

He was determined not to be avoided.

* * * * *

"The do