hadn't interfered."

* * * * *

Alice had not got the pneumonia that had killed John Greatorex. Such
happiness, she reflected, was not for her. She had desired it too
much.

But she was doing very well with her anaemia.

Bloodless and slender and inert, she dragged herself about the
village. She could not get away from it because of the steep hills
she would have had to climb. A small, unhappy ghost, she haunted the
fields in the bottom and the path along the beck that led past Mrs.
Gale's cottage.

The sight of Alice was more than ever annoying to the Vicar. Only
you wouldn't have known it. As she grew whiter and weaker he braced
himself, and became more hearty and robust. When he caught her lying
on the sofa he spoke to her in a robust and hearty tone.

"Don't lie there all day, my girl. Get up and go out. What you want is
a good blow on the moor."

"Yes. If I didn't die before I got there," Alice would say, while she
thought, "Serve him right, too, if I did."

And the Vicar would turn from her in disgust. He knew what was the
matter with his daughter Alice.

At dinner time he would pull himself together again, for, after all,
he was her father. He was robust and hearty over the sirloin and the
leg of mutton. He would call for a glass and press into it the red
juice of the meat.

"Don't peak and pine, girl. Drink that. It'll put some blood into
you."

And Alice would refuse to drink it.

Next she refused to drink her milk at eleven. She carried it out to
Essy in the scullery.

"I wish you'd drink my milk for me, Essy. It makes me sick," she said.

"I don't want your milk," said Essy.

"Please--" she implored her.

But Essy was angry. Her face flamed and she banged down the dishes she
was drying. "I sail not drink it. What should I want your milk for?
You can pour it in t' pig's bucket."

And the milk would be left by the scullery window till it turned sour
and Essy poured it into the pig's bucket that stood under the sink.

* * * * *

Three weeks passed, and with every week Alice grew more bloodless,
more slender, and more inert, and more and more like an unhappy
ghost. Her small face was smaller; there was a tinge of green in its
honey-whiteness, and of mauve in the dull rose of her mouth. And under
her shallow breast her heart seemed to rise up and grow large, while
the rest of Alice shrank and grew small. It was as if her fragil