nly in her own village that they knew. The head gamekeeper had
never told his tale in Garth. It would have made him too unpopular.

* * * * *

Gwenda Cartaret remained unaware of what was said. Rumor protected her
by cutting her off from its own sources.

And she had other consolations besides her ignorance. So long as she
knew that Rowcliffe cared for her and always had cared, it did not
seem to matter to her so much that he had married Mary. She actually
considered that, of the two, Mary was the one to be pitied; it was so
infinitely worse to be married to a man who didn't care for you than
not to be married to a man who did.

Of course, there was the tie. Her sister had outward and visible
possession of him. But she said to herself "I wouldn't give what I
have for _that,_ if I can't have both."

And of course there was Steven, and Steven's misery which was more
unbearable to her than her own. At least she thought it was more
unbearable. She didn't ask herself how bearable it would have been if
Steven's marriage had brought him a satisfaction that denied her and
cast her out.

For she was persuaded that Steven also had his consolation. He knew
that she cared for him. She conceived this knowledge of theirs as
constituting an immaterial and immutable possession of each other.
And it did not strike her that this knowledge might be less richly
compensating to Steven than to her.

* * * * *

Her woman's passion, forced inward, sustained her with an inward
peace, an inward exaltation. And in this peace, this exaltation, it
became one with her passion for the place.

She was unaware of what was happening in her. She did not know that
her soul had joined the two beyond its own power to put asunder. She
still looked on her joy in the earth as a solitary emotion untouched
by any other. She still said to herself "Nothing can take this away
from me."

For she had hours, now and again, when she shook off the slave-woman
who held her down. In those hours her inner life moved with the large
rhythm of the seasons and was soaked in the dyes of the visible
world; and the visible world, passing into her inner life, took on its
radiance and intensity. Everything that happened and that was great
and significant in its happening, happened there.

Outside nothing happened; nothing stood out; nothing moved. No
procession of events trod down or blurred her perfect imp