They strolled past the village and turned into the pasture that lay
between the high road and the beck. The narrow paths led up a slope
from field to field through the gaps in the stone walls. The fields
turned with the turning of the dale and with that turning of the road
that Rowcliffe knew, under Karva. Instinctively, with a hand on her
arm he steered her, away from the high road and its turning, toward
the beck, so that they had their backs to the thunder storm as it came
up over Karva and the High Moor.
It was when they were down in the bottom that it burst.
There was shelter on the further side of the last field. They ran to
it, climbed, and crouched together under the stone wall.
Rowcliffe took off the light overcoat he wore and tried to put it
on her. But Mary wouldn't let him. She looked at his clothes, at the
round dinner jacket with its silk collar and at the beautiful evening
trousers with their braided seams. He insisted. She refused. He
insisted still, and compromised by laying the overcoat round both of
them.
And they crouched together under the wall, sitting closer so that the
coat might cover them.
It thundered and lightened. The rain pelted them from the high
batteries of Karva. And Rowcliffe drew Mary closer. She laughed like a
happy child.
Rowcliffe sighed.
It was after he had sighed that he kissed her under the cover of the
coat.
* * * * *
They sat there for half an hour; three-quarters; till the storm ceased
with the rising of the moon.
* * * * *
"I'm afraid the pretty frock's spoiled," he said.
"That doesn't matter. Your poor suit's ruined."
He laughed.
"Whatever's been ruined," he said, "it was worth it."
Hand in hand they went back together through the drenched fields.
At the first gap he stopped.
"It's settled?" he said. "You won't go back on it? You _do_ care for
me? And you _will_ marry me?"
"Yes."
"Soon?"
"Yes; soon."
At the last gap he stopped again.
"Mary," he said, "I suppose you knew about Gwenda?"
"I knew there was something. What was it?"
He had said to himself, "I shall have to tell her. I shall have to say
I cared for her."
What he did say was, "There was nothing in it. It's all over. It was
all over long ago."
"I knew," she said, "it was all over."
And the solemn white moon came up, the moon that Gwenda loved; it came
up over Greffington Edge and looked at them.