olation it was not in her to cast Alice off.
She had felt bound to Alice, not as Gwenda was bound, but pitiably,
irrevocably, for better, for worse. The solidarity of the family had
held.

She had not had anything to lose by sticking to her sister. Now it
seemed to her that she had everything to lose. The thought of Alice
was a perpetual annoyance to her.

For the neighborhood that had received Mrs. Steven Rowcliffe had
barred her sister.

As long as Alice Greatorex lived at Upthorne Mary went in fear.

This fear was so intolerable to her that at last she spoke of it to
Rowcliffe.

They were sitting together in his study after dinner. The two
armchairs were always facing now, one on each side of the hearth.

"I wish I knew what to do about Alice," she said.

"What to _do_ about her?"

"Yes. Am I to have her at the house or not?"

He stared.

"Of course you're to have her at the house."

"I mean when we've got people here. I can't ask her to meet them."

"You must ask her. It's the very least you can do for her."

"People aren't going to like it, Steven."

"People have got to stick a great many things they aren't going to
like. I'm continually meeting people I'd rather not meet. Aren't you?"

"I'm afraid poor Alice is--"

"Is what?"

"Well, dear, a little impossible, to say the least of it. Isn't she?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see anything impossible about 'poor Alice.' I never did."

"It's nice of you to say so."

He maintained himself in silence under her long gaze.

"Steven," she said, "you are awfully good to my people."

She saw that she could hardly have said anything that would have
annoyed him more.

He positively writhed with irritation.

"I'm not in the least good to your people."

The words stung her like a blow. She flushed, and he softened.

"Can't you see, Molly, that I hate the infernal humbug and the cruelty
of it all? That poor child had a dog's life before she married. She
did the only sane thing that was open to her. You've only got to look
at her now to see that she couldn't have done much better for herself
even if she hadn't been driven to it. What's more, she's done the best
thing for Greatorex. There isn't another woman in the world who could
have made that chap chuck drinking. You mayn't like the connection. I
don't suppose any of us like it."

"My dear Steven, it isn't only the connection. I could get over that.
It's--the other thing."

His bla