't
want her milk.

"In that case," said Mr. Cartaret, "you had better go to bed."

Alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the
backs of her hands, like a child dropping with sleep.

One after another, they rose and followed her.

* * * * *

At the half-landing five steep steps in a recess of the wall led aside
to the door of Essy's bedroom. There Gwenda stopped and listened.

A sound of stifled crying came from the room. Gwenda went up to the
door and knocked.

"Essy, are you in bed?"

A pause. "Yes, miss."

"What is it? Are you ill?"

No answer.

"Is there anything wrong?"

A longer pause. "I've got th' faace-ache."

"Oh, poor thing! Can I do anything for you?"

"Naw, Miss Gwenda, thank yo."

"Well, call me if I can."

But somehow she knew that Essy wouldn't call.

She went on, passing her father's door at the stair head. It was shut.
She could hear him moving heavily within the room. On the other side
of the landing was the room over the study that she shared with Alice.

The door stood wide. Alice in her thin nightgown could be seen sitting
by the open window.

The nightgown, the small, slender body showing through, the hair,
platted for the night, in two pig-tails that hung forward, one over
each small breast, the tired face between the parted hair made Alice
look childlike and pathetic.

Gwendolen had a pang of compassion.

"Dear lamb," she said. "_That_ isn't any good. Fresh air won't do it.
You'd much better wait till Papa gets a cold. Then you can catch it."

"It'll be his fault anyway," said Alice. "Serve him jolly well right
if I get pneumonia."

"Pneumonia doesn't come to those who want it. I wonder what's wrong
with Essy."

Alice was tired and sullen. "You'd better ask Jim Greatorex," she
said.

"What do you mean, Ally?"

But Ally had set her small face hard.

"Can't you he sorry for her?" said Gwenda.

"Why should I be sorry for her? _She's_ all right."

She had sorrow enough, but none to waste on Essy. Essy's way was easy.
Essy had only to slink out to the back door and she could have her
will. _She_ didn't have to get pneumonia.

XII

John Greatorex did not die that night. He had no mind to die: he was a
man of stubborn pugnacity and he fought his pneumonia.

The long gray house at Upthorne looks over the marshes of the high
land above Garth. It stands alone, cut off by the marshes from the
network o