Not long after that night it struck Mary that Steven was run down. He
worked too hard. That was how she accounted to herself for his fits of
exhaustion, of irritability and depression.
But secretly, for all her complacence, she had divined the cause.
She watched him now; she inquired into his goings out and comings in.
Sometimes she knew that he had been to Garthdale, and, though he went
there many more times than she knew, she had noticed that these moods
of his followed invariably on his going. It was as if Gwenda left her
mark on him. So much was certain, and by that certainty she went on to
infer his going from his mood.
One day she taxed him with it.
Rowcliffe had tried to excuse his early morning temper on the plea
that he was "beastly tired."
"Tired?" she had said. "Of course you're tired if you went up to
Garthdale last night."