* *

After tea the Vicar took him into his study. If Rowcliffe had a moment
to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him.

Rowcliffe looked at his watch. The idea of being talked to frightened
him.

The Vicar observed his nervousness.

"It's about my daughter Alice," he said.

And it was.

The Vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in
order to tell him that Alice had completely recovered. He went into
it. The girl was fit. She was happy. She ate well. She slept well (he
had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for
miles. She was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped
she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate.

Rowcliffe expressed his wonder. It was, he said, _very_ wonderful.

But the Vicar would not admit that it was wonderful at all. It was
exactly what he had expected. He had never thought for a moment that
there was anything seriously wrong with Alice--anything indeed in the
least the matter with her.

Rowcliffe was silent. But he looked at the Vicar, and the Vicar did
not even pretend not to understand his look.

"I know," he said, "the very serious view you took of her. But I
think, my dear fellow, when you've seen her you'll admit that you were
mistaken."

Rowcliffe said there was nothing he desired more than to have been
mistaken, but he was afraid he couldn't admit it. Miss Cartaret's
state, when he last saw her, had been distinctly serious.

"You will perhaps admit that whatever danger there may have been then
is over?"

"I haven't seen her yet," said Rowcliffe. "But"--he looked at him--"I
told you the thing was curable."

"That's my point. What is there--what can there have been to cure
her?"

Rowcliffe ignored the Vicar's point.

"Can you date it--this recovery?"

"I date it," said the Vicar, "from the time her sister left. She
seemed to pull herself together after that."

Rowcliffe said nothing. He was reviewing all his knowledge of the
case. He considered Ally's disastrous infatuation for himself. In the
light of his knowledge her recovery was not only wonderful, it was
incomprehensible. So incomprehensible that he was inclined to suspect
her father of lying for some reason of his own. Family pride, no
doubt. He had known instances.

The Vicar went on. He gave himself a long innings. "But that does not
account for it altogether, though it may have started it. I really put
it down