Chapter 23

Of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set aside in Rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on Reuben.

"No w?onder as she cudn't stick to him—hard, queer chap as he be."

"And thirty year older nor she, besides."

"Young Handshut wur a pr?aper lad, and valiant. I ?un't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold."

"And he ?un't got much o' that now, nuther. They say as he'll be bust by next fall."

Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which according to all decent tradition should have been flung at Rose, hurtled round her husband instead.

Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them fall—Alice Jury five years older than when she had struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before he married Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly, even though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to plead for her happiness and his. She remembered that moment uneasily—it hurt her pride. But she could not regret having used her most desperate effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken.

Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come back. Did men come back?—and if they did, was she the type of woman they came back to? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She told herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved Reuben, and yet, paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so.

She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their[Pg 322] marriage. Rose and she had never been friends, and Reuben she knew was shy of her. He had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrow—she was just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as she had always been. Though she knew that she had lost him through these very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no effort to force herself into a different mould. She refused to regret anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. If he came back he should find the same woman as he had left.

She felt that he would come—he would return to her in the reaction that swung him from Rose. But would she be able to keep him? She did not feel so sure of that—for that did not depend on her or on him, but on that mysterious force outside themselves with which they had both already struggled in vain.