CHAPTER XVII

THE CLIFF AND THE VALLEY


A month later Annie's religiosity, which had been increasing in
violence, unmistakably took the form of mania. She became very violent,
and for her own sake as much as for her family's she was removed to a
doctor's establishment for such cases in Devonshire. The whole affair
left the three at home very untouched--John-James because he was of a
stolid habit, Vassie because she was never in sympathy with her mother
and had borne much from her of late, and Ishmael because it seemed to
him to have really no more to do with him intimately than if she had
been a stranger woman living in his house. Both he and Vassie felt
guiltily on the subject, not realising that reaction from strain was at
the bottom of their seeming impassivity. To be able to take definite
action instead of having merely to put up with the thing day by day was,
when it came, a blessing to both of them, although it took what might
conventionally have been assumed to be such a terrible shape. They were
both very honest people, their strongest quality in common, and kept up
no pretence even in outward appearance, unlike most people who keep it
up even to themselves. They hardly spoke of the matter beyond making the
necessary arrangements, and when Vassie had a fit of weeping in her room
it was for the mother she remembered from her childhood, the mother of
stormy tendernesses that nevertheless were sweet to her at the time, and
whom she thought of now instead of letting her mind dwell on the woman