darkness. The little
slow mare crawled up the winding hill to the top of the Green;
Rowcliffe's horse was slower. But no sooner had Peacock's trap passed
the doctor's house on its way out of the village square, than the
clanking hoofs went fast.

Rowcliffe was free to go his own pace now.

* * * * *

"Which of you two is going to hook me up?" said Mary.

She was in the Vicar's room, putting on her wedding-gown before the
wardrobe glass. Her two sisters were dressing her.

"I will," said Gwenda.

"You'd better let me," said Alice. "I know where the eyes are."

Gwenda lifted up the wedding-veil and held it ready. And while Alice
pulled and fumbled Mary gazed at her own reflection and at Alice's.

"You should have done as Mummy said and had your frock made in London,
like Gwenda. They'd have given you a decent cut. You look as if you
couldn't breathe."

"My frock's all right," said Alice.

Her fingers trembled as she strained at the hooks and eyes.

And in the end it was Gwenda who hooked Mary up while Alice held the
veil. She held it in front of her. The long streaming net shivered
with the trembling of her hands.

* * * * *

The wedding was at two o'clock. The church was crowded, so were the
churchyard and the road beside the Vicarage and the bridge over the
beck. Morfe and Greffington had emptied themselves into Garthdale.
(Greffington had lent its organist.)

It was only when it was all over that somebody noticed that Jim
Greatorex was not there with the village choir. "Celebrating a bit too
early," somebody said.

And it was only when it was all over that Rowcliffe found Gwenda.

He found her in the long, flat pause, the half-hour of profoundest
realisation that comes when the bride disappears to put off her
wedding-gown for the gown she will go away in. She had come out to the
wedding-party gathered at the door, to tell them that the bride would
soon be ready. Rowcliffe and Harker were standing apart, at the end of
the path, by the door that led from the garden to the orchard.

He came toward her. Harker drew back into the orchard. They followed
him and found themselves alone.

For ten minutes they paced the narrow flagged path under the orchard
wall. And they talked, quickly, like two who have but a short time.

"Well--so you've come back at last?"

"At last? I haven't been gone six months."

"You see, time feels longer to us do