The Three Sisters Part 40

Ally's pale eyes lightened and grew large. They were transparent as gla.s.s in her white face.

"Did _you_ send for him?"

"No."

"Who did then?"

"Papa."

She closed her eyes. The old sense of ecstasy came over her, of triumph too, of solemn triumph, as if she, whom they thought so insignificant, had vindicated her tragic dignity at last.

For if her father had sent for Rowcliffe it could only mean that she was really dying. Nothing else--nothing short of that--would have made him send.

And of course that was what she wanted, that Rowcliffe should see her die. He wouldn't forget her then. He would be compelled to think of her.

"You _will_ see him, won't you, Ally?"

Ally smiled her little triumphant and mysterious smile.

"Oh yes, I'll see him."

The Vicar did not go on his rounds that afternoon. He stayed at home to talk to Rowcliffe. The two were shut up together in his study for more than half an hour.

As they entered the drawing-room at tea-time it could be seen from their manner and their faces that something had gone wrong. The Vicar bore himself like a man profoundly aggrieved, not to say outraged, in his own house, who nevertheless was observing a punctilious courtesy towards the offending guest. Rowcliffe's shoulders and his jaw were still squared in the antagonism that had closed their interview.

He too observed the most perfect courtesy. Only by the consummate restraint of his manner did he show how impossible he had found the Vicar, while his face betrayed a grave preoccupation in which the Vicar counted not at all.

Mary began to talk to him about the weather. Neither she nor Gwenda dared ask him what he thought of Alice.

And in ten minutes he was gone. The Vicar went with him to the gate.

Still standing as they had stood to take leave of Rowcliffe, the sisters looked at each other. Mary spoke first.

"Whatever _can_ Papa have said to him?"

This time Gwenda knew what Mary was thinking.

"It isn't that," she said. "It's something he's said to Papa."

x.x.xVI

That night, about nine o'clock, Gwenda came for the third time to Rowcliffe at his house.

She was shown into his study, where Rowcliffe was reading.

Though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of agitation.

Gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of a ghost, a face that to Rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the white face of Alice. He disliked Alice's face, he always had disliked it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of tenderness. He adored it because of that likeness, because of all that the likeness revealed to him and signified. And it increased, quite unendurably, his agitation.

Gwenda was supernaturally calm.

In another instant the illusion that her presence had given him pa.s.sed. He saw what she had come for.

"Has anything gone wrong?" he asked.

She drew in her breath sharply.

"It's Alice."

"Yes, I know it's Alice. _Is_ anything wrong?" he said. "What is it?"

"I don't know. I want you to tell me. That's what I've come for. I'm frightened."

"D'you mean, is she worse?"

She did not answer him. She looked at him as if she were trying to read in his eyes something that he was trying not to tell her.

"Yes," he said, "she _is_ worse."

"I know that," she said impatiently. "I can see it. You've got to tell me more."

"But I _have_ told you. You _know_ I have," he pleaded.

"I know you tried to tell me."

"Didn't I succeed?"

"You told me why she was ill--I know all that----"

"Do sit down." He turned from her and dragged the armchair forward.

"There." He put a cushion at her back. "That's better."

As she obeyed him she kept her eyes on him. The book he had been reading lay where he had put it down, on the hearthrug at her feet.

Its t.i.tle, "_etat mental des hysteriques_;" Janet, stared at him. He picked it up and flung it out of sight as if it had offended him. With all his movements her head lifted and turned so that her eyes followed him.

He sat down and gazed at her quietly.

"Well," he said, "and what didn't I tell you?"

"You didn't tell me how it would end."

He was silent.

"Is that what you told father?"