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"He's not, Aunt Aggie." Grace brought her head up from its dropped position, "He's not."

"Well, I have me own opinion and I'm going to stick to it. But it's your life I'm referring to; you've made a mess of it, and I'm going to say right now I told you so. But there, it's done, and now there's no way out for you that I can see, for if I know Mr. Donald there'll be no mention of divorce. He should never have married in the first place. I knew it, I had a feeling about it, but now that it's done he'll bring God on to his side and fasten you to him for life."

"I don't care. I've made up my mind, I'm going to leave him."

"And take up with this Maclntyre fellow?"

"Yes." She was looking straight ahead.

"Is it all cut and dried?"

"No." She turned and looked full at Aggie and her voice shook as she pleaded, "Don't condemn me. Aunt Aggie;

you don't know what it's been like. "

"Condemn you?" Aggie came swiftly forward and put her arms about her.

"Oh, lass, I'm not condemning you, I'm only sorry from the bottom of me heart that it needed to happen. The only criticism I've got to make is that I could wish you had gone off the rails with somebody nearer your own class. To take up with ... with that

kind of fellow, and after the education you've had. "

Grace sighed.

"Don't forget. Aunt Aggie, after all Dad was a coal man

"He was nothing of the sort," put in Aggie indignantly, 'not in that way. He managed his own business and was on a footing with men like old Arthur Wentworth, councillors and such. And there's Charlie Wentworth. There's not a time that I meet him but he asks after you.

"

"You don't know Andrew Maclntyre, Aunt Aggie. He's ... he's ... she could not find the words with which to describe Andrew and his effect on her. She only knew now that the feeling she had for him had been breeding in her for some time and that it was different from anything she had felt for Donald. She could now look on the love she had borne Donald as a girlish infatuation; she could even term it a 'pash' on a parson. She leant against Aggie's high breast and released the breath from her lungs as she said, " You've got no idea of the relief, Aunt Aggie, now that I've talked to you. "

"You should have done it earlier I knew there was something wrong.

There should be some way of stopping men like him marrying at all. "

Grace moved her head against Aggie, shutting out the light as she said,

"It was the look on his face; I don't think I'll ever forget it to my dying day."

"Nonsense." Aggie's body gave a quick wiggle of impatience.

"You can get that out of your head as soon as you like. He's no man, never was.

I knew that from the minute I clapped eyes on him. Why, my Arthur never wore a thread of anything from the day we married, and I might as well tell you now I didn't either. "

Grace's eyes were closed but she could not conjure up a picture of her Aunt Aggie running around naked before her husband, but she could still see the look on Donald's face.

"That man's as full of pride and conceit as an egg's full of meat, and that's all he's full of, for the rest he's boast. I told you that right at the beginning: he's as empty as a watery turnip.... What did you tell him afore you left?"

"I just said I was coming to you. But I'm not going back. Aunt Aggie, I'm not. I can't, I just can't."

"All right, all right, there's nobody forcing you. I'll phone and tell him that you're not feeling too good and you're staying the night, that'll give you a breathing space." She stroked Grace's hair back from her temples and then added softly, "Don't worry, child, things will straighten out. Rest yourself there till I put the car away."

She patted Grace's head, then added, "There's one thing I'm thankful for and that is, Susie and Ralph are away. You won't be having any committee meeting on the matter and that's something."

She smiled, but Grace could not return it. The committee meetings would eventually take place, they were merely being postponed. She sank deeper into the chair. Strangely now she found she was relaxed as she had not been since the day she became Grace Rouse. She no longer felt herself to be Grace Rouse, a parson's wife, and she could never again be Grace Cartner, the gullible, romantic-minded girl. Was she already Grace Maclntyre? Perhaps. Andrew had said last night that this kind of thing happened. Most people, nice people, would say that it didn't, not in a snap of the fingers like that. Yet it hadn't been a snap of the fingers, it had been maturing quietly for two years, justifying itself by some inward call that each had heard. Her call to him must have been loud and clear, for he recognised it and accepted it at once. He was much wiser than she. His wisdom was a natural part of himself and had nothing to do with learning. Last night, just before he had let

her go, he had said, "Tomorrow morning you will loathe yourself, but when you do, remember this: I love you, and no matter what happens I'll go on doing just that." He had added with just a trace of humour, "I'm not dour for nowt."

How right he had been. She had loathed herself, but thankfully this feeling had not lasted.

When she had returned through the garden last night she had been surprised to hear the church clock striking twelve. In just two hours her world had completed a somersault. The light was still on in the bedroom, there were also lights on in both the drawing-room and the hall, and she saw from the head of the stairs that the front door was wide open. Had he gone to the village to raise the alarm? She doubted it. To admit that his wife had run away would cause a loss of face.

She couldn't see him risking that until he was absolutely sure that she wouldn't come back when her tantrum was over. That was the name he would give to the episode.

She was crossing the landing going towards the spare room with some of her clothes when he came up the stairs, and just for a moment she felt sorry for him, for he had a frightened look about him. But her sorrow was short-lived, for immediately on sight of her his whole countenance darkened and subdued anger bubbled from his lips as he demanded, "Where have you been?"

When she turned from him without answering and pushed open the door of the spare room he strode quickly after her, and from the doorway he reprimanded her, saying in the same tense, subdued tone, "It's about time you grew up. Grace; this is no way for a woman to act. Don't you realise you are no longer a girl being petted and cajoled by your ..

family?" The stress he put on the word family brought her eyes flashing round on him.

His private opinion of her family had come over in the intonation he had given the word.

As she looked at him standing there filling the doorway with his bulk, she realised with surprise that she no longer stood in awe of him. An hour ago she had given herself to another man; she had sinned, a grievous sin, and yet because she had sinned she had the courage to look fearlessly at this man who had been to her as a god. If her journey into the darkness had resulted in nothing more than running wild through the woods and the quarry until she had come to her senses and returned penitent to this house, she knew that her abasement would have been complete, but on her wings of flight she had stopped to sin and in doing so had gathered courage into her body, together with a new and extraordinary feeling of easement. She had been unfaithful and in this moment she was exulting in it.

"Don't you realise that you've had me worried sick?"

It was on the point of her tongue to say, "Yes, so much so that you got a search party out to look for me," but instead she said flatly, "I'm very tired, I want to go to bed."

She watched him draw himself up even straighter.

"You're not sleeping in this room."

"Well, if I don't I won't sleep anywhere else." As she said this she made the movement of turning round a casual act. Then going towards the chest-of-drawers she added, "I'd like to be left alone."

"Grace ... Grace, do you know what you're saying?"

"Yes, I said I'd like to be left alone, to sleep alone." She looked at him over her shoulder.

"You shouldn't find that wish difficult to grant."

She saw the blood slowly leave his face until it looked a pasty smudge of flesh and became one with the colour of his eyes. Even his lips looked grey.

"We'll have this out in the morning." His voice, his whole body, emanated bluster.

When the door closed on him she felt a momentary feeling of triumph that settled into scorn. Her remark at least had struck home. His facade of working late, sermons to write, talks to rehearse, of being very, very tired, had at last been penetrated. No more would he be able to hide behind such lies. But Donald never lied, he simply evaded skilfully evaded.

She did not go to bed but sat by the window looking out on to the back garden and she wondered just why she had put up with the situation all this time. There were two answers. Ignorance of the sexual side of marriage, and a natural diffidence to speak of this side to anyone.

When she had entered into her marriage she felt she was equipped with all the necessary knowledge. You loved a man, you slept with him, the outcome was a baby. You became aware of this when your periods stopped and you felt sick. It took nine months to have a baby and during this time your husband worshipped you. And had not millions of women got by on no more knowledge than that? But how had the others made out? The ones that had been led up the garden path and then had the door quietly shut in their faces had they gone to their mothers, or their doctors, or their priests and poured out their pain? Perhaps. But there would be others like her who had been able to do none of these things. Then had they gone mad, had a nervous breakdown, or been gladly seduced?

She, she knew, had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but now she was saved. She had been gladly seduced.

She sat on until the night began to lift and the dawn appeared She had been sitting with the eiderdown hugged around her and now she pushed it off and made her way quietly out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen. There she made herself a cup of strong tea. She had no fear of being joined by Donald. The sound of his snoring as she crossed the landing had told her that, however much his mind was troubled, it was not preventing him from having his sleep out.

Back in her room she once more pulled the eiderdown about her, and as she gazed out into the swift rising light she tried to see into the day ahead and to what action she should take.

At what point in her thinking she fell asleep she did not know, but she was woken with startling suddenness by the sound of Ben's voice yelling from the garden. She sat up, blinking her eyes rapidly, not sure for a moment where she was, and then as she rose painfully from the cramped position in which she had been sleeping Ben's voice came to her again.

When she put her face close to the window-pane she could see him near the greenhouse. He was standing waving his arms about and still yelling. What was happening? What was the matter? She could see no-one else in the garden. Then, as she watched and saw him coming towards her window, she knew he was making for the side of the house and the kitchen door. Hurriedly she smoothed down her hair and her dress. She still felt dazed with sleep, and her eyes seemed full of sand. On crossing the landing she saw that Donald was already about, for the bedroom door was wide open and there was no sign of him.

As she entered the kitchen she saw Ben through the far open door; his fist was clenched and shaking in front of Donald's face, and he was crying at the top of his voice, "Sawed down her hedge, did you? Sawed it down, you cruel bugger! That's what you are, you're no man. Well, this is the finish for me. I'll not work for you another minute, no, not if I was starvin'. Do you hear?"

"I told you I wanted that hedge cutting well down; I told you quite plainly yesterday and all you did was to take an inch or so off the top."

"You go to hell's flames. I know why that hedge was put there in the first place an' I told you." He thrust his hand outwards in the direction of the drive.

"There's no green hedge there now, is there?

No, all you can see is a tarred roof. Nice, isn't it? But if it hadn't been that it would've been something' else. You were just waitin', weren't you? Giving your orders right, left and centre about things you know nowt about. Playing God Almighty inside and outside the church. Well, let me tell you, mister, you're not comin' God Almighty on me. I'm on to you and your ways. I saw through you from the start.

It's folk like you that cause murder, aye it is that. Well, now I'm finished. You get me cards and me pay ready and I'm downin' me tools.

And I'll say to you me last word . Ben's old face quivered upwards.

"You're a two-faced, mealy-mouthed nowt, and a cruel bugger into the bargain, and there you have it."

The old man turned away, and after a moment Grace stepped slowly out of the kitchen and into the yard and looked at Donald. She saw that he was going to great lengths to control himself. And when she spoke to him it was not so much a question as a statement. Coldly she said,

"You cut down that hedge? You must have got up early this morning and purposely gone out to cut down that hedge, Ben's hedge."

"It is not Ben's hedge."

"Then it is my hedge."

His face became scarlet and his jaw-bones seemed to lift from their sockets before he said, "Very well, Grace, since you emphasise your ownership, I shall make arrangements for us to return to the vicarage it is still available."

As she turned from him, his voice rapped at her, "Where are you going?

I forbid you to go near that man. "

She stopped and, turning round, looked at him. And there rose to her tongue Ben's words, "You cruel bugger', and it was as much as she could do not to repeat them. But had she said them they would not have surprised him any more than when she said, " You can forbid me to do nothing that I want to do. "