The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy — Free Audiobook

1 Chapter 01 11:39

The Rambler, who, for old association or other reasons, Should trace the forsaken coach-road, running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half of his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed with apple orchards. Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing as the case may be, make the wayside hedges ragged by their drip and shade, stretching over the road with easeful horizontality, as if they found the unsubstantial air an adequate support for their limbs. At one place, where a hill is crossed, the largest of the woods shows itself bisected by a highway, as the head of thick hair is bisected by the white line of its parting.

The spot is lonely. The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of what is with what might be probably accounts for this. To step, for instance, at the place under notice, from the hedge of the plantation into the adjoining pale thoroughfare, and pause amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange by the act of a single stride, the simple absence of human companionship, for an incubus of the forlorn. At this spot, on the lowering evening of a bygone winter's day, there stood a man who had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid manner.

Alighting into the road from a stile hard by, he, though by no means a chosen vessel for impressions, was temporarily influenced by some such feeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had emerged upon the highway. It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that he did not belong to the country proper, and from his air, after a while, That though there might be a sombre beauty in the scenery, music in the breeze, and a wan procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment of this old turnpike road, he was mainly puzzled about the way. The dead man's work that had been expended in climbing that hill, the blistered souls that had trodden it, and the tears that had whetted it, were not his concern, for fate had given him no time for any but practical things.

He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his walking-stick. A closer glance at his face corroborated the testimony of his clothes. It was self-complacent, yet there was small apparent ground for such complacence. Nothing irradiated it. To the eye of the magician in character, if not to the ordinary observer, the expression enthroned there was absolute submission to, and belief in, a little assortment of forms and habitudes. At first not a soul appeared who could enlighten him as he desired, or seemed likely to appear that night, but presently a slight noise of laboring wheels and the steady dig of a horse's shoe-tips became audible, and there loomed, in the notch of the hill and the plantation that the road formed here at the summit, a carrier's van drawn by a single horse.

When it got nearer he said with some relief to himself, "'Tis Mrs. Dollery's. This will help me." The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his stick at its approach, and the woman who was driving drew rein. "'I've been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last half-hour, Mrs. Dollery,' he said. "'But though I've been to Great Hintock, and Hintock House half a dozen times, I'm a fault about the small village. You can help me, I dare say.' She assured him that she could, that as she went to Great Hintock, her van passed near it, that it was only up the lane that branched out of the lane into which she was about to turn just ahead. "'No,' continued Mrs. Dollery, "'tis such a little small place, that as a town gentleman, you'd need to have a candle and lantern to find it if you don't know where it is.

Bedad, I wouldn't live there if they paid me to. Now at Great Hintock, you do see the world a bit." He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they were ever and anon brushed over by the horse's tail. This van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dollery, was rather a moveable attachment of the road than an extraneous object, to those who knew it well. The old horse, whose hair was of the roughness and colour of heather, whose leg-joints, shoulders, and hoofs were distorted by harness and drudgery from colthood, though if all had their rights he ought, symmetrically in outline, to have been picking the herbage of some eastern plain, instead of tugging here, had trodden this road almost daily for twenty years.

Even his subjection was not made congruous throughout, for the harness being too short, his tail was not drawn through the crupper, so that the breeching slipped awkwardly to one side. He knew every subtle incline of the seven or eight miles of ground between Hintock and Sherton Abbas, the market-town to which he journeyed, as accurately as any surveyor could have learnt it by a dumpy level. The vehicle had a square black tilt which nodded with the motion of the wheels, and at a point in it over the driver's head was a hook to which the reins were hitched at times when they formed a catenary curve from the horse's shoulders. Somewhere about the axles was a loose chain whose only known purpose was to clink as it went.

Mrs. Dollery, having to hop up and down many times in the service of her passengers, wore, especially in windy weather, short leggings under a gown for modesty's sake, and instead of a bonnet, a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief, to guard against the earache to which she was frequently subject. In the rear of the van was a glass window, which she cleaned with her pocket-handkerchief every market-day before starting. Looking at the van from the back, the spectator could thus see, through its interior, a square piece of the same sky and landscape that he saw without, but intruded on by the profiles of the seated passengers, who, as they rumbled onward, their lips moving and heads nodding in animated private converse, remained in happy unconsciousness that their mannerisms and facial peculiarities were sharply defined to the public eye.

This hour of coming home for market was the happy one, if not the happiest of the week for them. Snugly ensconced under the tilt, they could forget the sorrows of the world without, and survey life and recapitulate the incidents of the day with placid smiles. The passengers in the back part formed a group to themselves, and while the newcomer spoke to the proprietress, they indulged in a confidential chat about him as about other people, which the noise of the van rendered inaudible to himself and Mrs. Dollery sitting forward. "'Tis Barber Perkham, he that's got the waxen woman in his window at the top of Abbey Street," said One. "'What business can bring him from his shop out here at this time, and not a journeyman haircutter, but a master barber that's left off his pole, because there's not genteel?' They listened to his conversation, but Mr.

Perkham, though he had nodded and spoken genially, seemed indisposed to gratify the curiosity which he had aroused, and the unrestrained flow of ideas which had animated the inside of the van before his arrival was checked thenceforth. Thus they rode on till they turned into a half-invisible little lane, whence, as it reached the verge of an eminence, Could be discerned in the dusk about half a mile to the right, gardens and orchards sunk in a concave, and, as it were, snipped out of the woodland. From this self-contained place rose in stealthy silence tall stems of smoke, which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches.

It was one of these sequestered spots outside the gates of the world where may usually be found more meditation than action, and more passivity than meditation, where reasoning proceeds on narrow premises, and results in inferences wildly imaginative, yet where, from time to time, no less than in other places, dramas of grandeur and unity, truly Sophoclean, are enacted in the real, by virtue of the concentrated passions and closely-knit interdependence of the lives therein. This place was the little hintock of the master barber's search. The coming night gradually obscured the smoke of the chimneys, but the position of the sequestered little world could still be distinguished by a few faint lights, winking more or less ineffectually through the leafless boughs, and the undiscernt songsters they bore in the form of balls of feathers at roost among them.

Out of the lane followed by the van branched a yet smaller lane, at the corner of which the barber alighted. Mrs. Dollery's van going on to the larger village, whose superiority to the despised smaller one as an exemplar of the world's movements was not particularly apparent in its means of approach. A very clever and learned young doctor, who they say is in league with the devil, lives in the place you be going to, not because there's anybody find a cure there, but because tis in the middle of his district. This observation was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting as a last attempt to get at his errand that way. But he made no reply, and without further pause the pedestrian plunged towards the umbrageous nook, and paced cautiously over the dead leaves which nearly buried the road or street of the hamlet.

As very few people except themselves passed this way after dark, a majority of the Denzians of Little Hintock deemed window-curtains unnecessary. And on this account Mr. Perkham made it his business to stop opposite the casements of each cottage that he came to, with a demeanour which showed that he was endeavouring to conjecture from the persons and things he observed within, the whereabouts of somebody or other who resided there. Only the smaller dwellings interested him. One or two houses, whose size, antiquity, And rambling appurtenances signified that, notwithstanding their remoteness, they must formerly have been, if they were not still, inhabited by people of a certain social standing, being neglected by him entirely.

Smells of pomace and the hiss of fermenting cider which reached him from the back quarters of other tenements revealed the recent occupation of some of the inhabitants, and joined with the scent of decay from the perishing leaves underfoot. Half a dozen dwellings were passed without result. The next, which stood opposite a tall tree, was in an exceptional state of radiance, the flickering brightness from the inside shining up the chimney and making a luminous mist of the emerging smoke. The interior, as seen through the window, caused them to draw up with a terminative air and watch. The house was rather large for a cottage, and the door, which opened immediately into the living room, stood ajar.

So that a ribbon of light fell through the opening into the dark atmosphere without. Every now and then a moth decrepit from the late season would flit for a moment across the outcoming rays and disappear again into the night.

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In the room from which this cheerful blaze proceeded he beheld a girl seated on a willow chair, and busily occupied by the light of the fire, which was ample and of wood. With a bill-hook in one hand, and a leather glove, much too large for her, on the other, she was making spars, such as are used by thatchers, with great rapidity. She wore a leather apron for this purpose, which was also much too large for her figure. On her left hand lay a bundle of the straight, smooth sticks called spar-gads, the raw material of her manufacture. On her right, a heap of chips and ends, the refuse, with which the fire was maintained, in front a pile of the finished articles. To produce them she took up each gad, looked critically at it from end to end, cut it to length, split it into four, and sharpened each of the quarters with dexterous blows, which brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling that of a bayonet.

Beside her, in case she might require more light, a brass candlestick stood on a little round table. Curiously formed of an old coffin stool, with a deal top nailed on, the white surface of the latter contrasting oddly with the black carved oak of the substructure. The social position of the household in the past was almost as definitely known by the presence of this article as that of an esquire or nobleman by his old helmets or shields. It had been customary for every well-to-do villager, whose tenure was by copy of Court Roll, or in any way more permanent than that of mere cotter, to keep a pair of these stools for the use of his own dead. But for the last generation or two a feeling of cooibono had led to the discontinuance of the custom, and the tools were frequently made use of in the manner described.

The young woman laid down the billhook for a moment, and examined the palm of her right hand, which, unlike the other, was ungloved, and showed little hardness or roughness about it. The palm was red and blistering, as if the present occupation were not frequent enough with her to subdue it to what it worked in. As with so many right hands born to manual labor, there was nothing in its fundamental shape to bear out the physiological conventionalism that gradations of birth, gentle or mean, show themselves primarily in the form of this member. Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had decided that the girl should handle the tool, and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash haft might have skilfully guided the pencil or swept the string, had they only been set to do it in good time.

Her face had the usual fullness of expression which is developed by a life of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves upon a countenance, they seem to wear away its individuality, but in the still water of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment shoots out in visible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a child's look by an intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, But the necessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forced the provisional curves of her childhood's face to a premature finality. Thus she had but little pretension to beauty, save in one prominent particular—her hair. Its abundance made it almost unmanageable. Its color was, roughly speaking, and, as seen here by firelight, brown.

But careful notice—but Or an observation by day would have revealed that its true shade was a rare and beautiful approximation to chestnut. On this one bright gift of time to the particular victim of his now before us, the newcomer's eyes were fixed. Meanwhile, the fingers of his right hand mechanically played over something sticking up from his waistcoat pocket, the bows of a pair of scissors, whose polish made them feebly responsive to the light within. In her present beholder's mind, the scene formed by the girlish spar-maker composed itself into a post-raphaelite picture of extremist quality, wherein the girl's hair alone, as the focus of observation, was depicted with intensity and distinctness, and her face, shoulders, hands, and figure in general being a blurred mass of unimportant detail, lost in haze and obscurity.

He hesitated no longer, but tapped at the door and entered. The young woman turned at the crunch of his boots on the sanded floor, and exclaiming, "'Oh, Mr. Perkham, how you frightened me?' Quite lost her colour for a moment. He replied, "'You should shut your door, then you'd hear folk open it.' "'I can't,' she said. "'The chimney smokes so. Mr. Perkham, you look as unnatural out of your shop as a canary in a thorn hedge. Surely you have not come here on my account for it.' Yes, to have your answer about this. He touched her head with his cane, and she winced. Do you agree? He continued. It is necessary that I should know at once, as the lady is soon going away, and it takes time to make up.

Don't press me. It worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no more of it. I cannot part with it. So there. Now look here, Marty, said the barber, sitting down on the coffin-stool table. "'How much do you get for making these spars?' "'Hush, Father's upstairs awake, and he don't know that I'm doing his work.' "'Well, now tell me,' said the man more softly, "'how much do you get?' "'Eighty-and-pence a thousand,' she said reluctantly. "'Who are you making them for?' "'Mr. Melbury, the timber dealer just below here.' "'And how many can you make in a day?' "'In a day and half the night,' Three bundles. That's a thousand and a half. Two and threepence. The barber paused. Well, look here, he continued, with the remains of a calculation in his tone, which calculation had been the reduction to figures of the probable monetary magnetism necessary to overpower the resistant force of her present purse, and the woman's love of comeliness.

Here's a sovereign, a gold sovereign almost new. He held it out between his finger and thumb. That's as much as you'd earn in a week and a half at that rough man's work, and it's yours for just letting me snip off what you've got too much of. The girl's bosom moved a very little. Why can't a lady send to some other girl who don't value her hair, not to me? She exclaimed. Why, Simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and it's a shade you can't match by dyeing. But you are not going to refuse me now, I've come all the way from Sherton and Porpoise. I say I won't sell it—to you or anybody. Now, listen—he drew up a little closer beside her—the lady is very rich, and won't be particular to a few shillings, so I will advance to this on my own responsibility.

I'll make the one sovereign, too, rather than go back empty-handed. No, no, no! she cried, beginning to be much agitated. You are tempting me, Mr. Perkham. You go on like the devil to Dr. Faustus in the penny-book. But I don't want your money, and I won't agree. Why did you come? I said when you got me into your shop and urged me so much that I didn't mean to sell my hair. The speaker was hot and stern. Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly, and between you and me you'd better let her have it. It will be bad for you if you don't. Bad for me? Who is she, then? The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated the question. "'I'm not at liberty to tell you, and as she's going abroad soon, it makes no difference who she is at all.' "'She wants it to go abroad with.' Perkham assented by a nod.

The girl regarded him reflectively. "'Barber Perkham,' she said, "'I know who it is. "'Tis she at the house, Mrs. Charmond. "'That's my secret.' However, if you agree to let me have it, I'll tell you in confidence. I'll certainly not let you have it unless you tell me the truth. It is Mrs. Charmond. The barber dropped his voice. Well, tis. You sat in front of her in church the other day, and she noticed how exactly your hair matched her own. Ever since then she's been hankering for it, and at last decided to get it. She won't wear it till she goes off abroad. She knows nobody will recognize the change. I'm commissioned to get her for her, and then it's to be made up. I shouldn't have vamped all these miles for any less important employer.

Now mind, tis as much as my business is worth with her, if it should be known that I've let out her name. But honor between the two of us, Marty, and you'll say nothing that would injure me. I don't wish to tell upon her, said Marty coolly, but my hair is my own, and I'm going to keep it. Now that's not fair, after what I've told you. said the nettle barber. You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish and in one of her cottages, and your father is ill, and wouldn't I turn out, it would be as well to oblige her. I say it as a friend, but I won't press you to make up your mind tonight. You'll be coming to market tomorrow, I dare say, and you can call then. If you think it over, you'll be inclined to bring what I want, I know.

I've nothing more to say, she answered. Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her further by speech. As you were a trusty young woman, he said, I'll put these sovereigns up here for ornament, that you may see how handsome they are. Bring the hair tomorrow, and return the sovereigns. He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small mantel-looking-glass. I hope you'll bring it for your sake and mine. I should have thought she could have suited herself elsewhere. But, as tis her fancy, it must be indulged, if possible. If you cut it off yourself, mind how you do it, so as you keep all the locks the one way. He showed her how this was to be done. But I shan't, she replied, with iconic indifference.

I value my looks too much to spoil em. She wants my hair to get another lover with, though if stories be true, she's broke the heart of many a noble gentleman already. Lord, it's wonderful how you guess things, Marty. said the barber. I've had it from them that know that there certainly is some foreign gentleman in her eye. However, mind what I ask. She's not going to get to him through me. Perkham had retired as far as the door. He came back, planted his cane on the coffin stool, and looked her in the face. Marty South, he said, with deliberate emphasis. You've got a love of yourself, and that's why you won't let it go. She reddened so intensely as to pass the mild blush that suffices to heighten beauty.

She put the yellow leather glove on one hand, took up the hook with the other, and sat down doggedly to her work without turning her face to him again. He regarded her head for a moment, went to the door, and with one look back at her departed on his way homeward. Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly laying down the bill-hook, She jumped up and went to the back of the room, where she opened a door which disclosed a staircase so whitely scrubbed that the grain of the wood was well-nigh sodden away by such cleansing. At the top she gently approached the bedroom, and without entering said, "'Father, do you want anything?' A weak voice inside answered in the negative, adding, "'I should be all right by tomorrow, if it were not for the tree.' The tree again, always the tree.

Oh, father, don't worry so about that. You know it can do you no harm. Who have you had talking to you downstairs? A sherton man called. Nothing to trouble about, she said soothingly. Father, she went on, can Mrs. Charmant turn us out of our house if she's minded to? Turn us out? No, nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned out of my body. "'Tis life hold like Ambrose Winterbourne's, but when my life drops, twill be hers, not till then." His words on this subject so far had been rational and firm enough, but now he lapsed into his moaning strain. "'And the tree'll do it. That tree'll soon be the death of me.' "'Nonsense. You know better. How can it be?' She refrained from further speech, and descended to the ground floor again.

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One of these came from a residence on the hillside, of which there is nothing to say at present. The other shone from the window of Marty South. Precisely the same outward effect was produced here, however, by her rising when the clock struck ten and hanging up a thick cloth curtain. The door, it was necessary to keep ajar in hers, as in most cottages, because of the smoke, but she obviated the effect of the ribbon of light through the chink by hanging a cloth over that also. She was one of those people who, if they have to work harder than their neighbors, prefer to keep the necessity a secret as far as possible. And but for the slight sounds of wood splintering which came from within, no wayfarer would have perceived that here the cottager did not sleep as elsewhere.

Eleven, twelve, one o'clock struck. The heap of spars grew higher, and the pile of chips and ends more bulky. Even the light on the hill had now been extinguished, but still she worked on. When the temperature of the night without had fallen so low as to make her chilly, She opened a large blue umbrella to ward off the draught from the door. The two sovereigns confronted her from the looking-glass in such a manner as to suggest a pair of jaundiced eyes on the watch for an opportunity. Whenever she sighed for weariness, she lifted her gaze towards them, but withdrew it quickly, stroking her tresses with her fingers for a moment, as if to assure herself that they were still secure. When the clock struck three, she arose and tied up the spars she had last made in a bundle resembling those that lay against the wall.

She wrapped round her a long red-woollen cravat and opened the door. The night, in all its fullness, met her flatly on the threshold, like the very brink of an absolute void, or the antimundane ginning gap, believed in by her Teuton forefathers, for her eyes were fresh from the blaze, and here there was no street-lamp or lantern to form a kindly transition between the inner glare and the outer dark. A lingering wind brought to her ear the creaking sound of two overcrowded branches in the neighboring wood, which were rubbing each other into wounds, and other vocalized sorrows of the trees, together with the screech of owls and the fluttering tumble of some awkward wood-pigeon, ill-balanced on its roosting bough.

But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded, and she could see well enough for her purpose. Taking a bundle of spars under each arm, and guided by the serrated line of tree-tops against the sky, she went some hundred yards or more down the lane till she reached a long-open shed, carpeted around with the dead leaves that lay throughout everywhere. Night, that strange personality, which within walls brings ominous introspectiveness and self-distrust, But under the open sky banishes such subjective anxieties as too trivial for thought, inspired Marty South with her less perturbed and brisker manner now.

She laid the spars on the ground within the shed, and returned for more, going to and fro till her whole manufactured stock were deposited here. This erection was the wagon-house of the chief man of business hereabout, Mr. George Melbury, the timber, bark, and copseware merchant, For whom Marty's father did work of this sort by the peace. It formed one of the many rambling outhouses which surrounded his dwelling, an equally irregular block of building, whose immense chimneys could just be discerned even now. The four huge wagons under the shed were built on those ancient lines whose proportions have been ousted by modern patterns, their shapes bulging and curving at the base and ends, like Trafalgar line-of-battle-ships, with which venerable hulks, indeed, These vehicles evidence a constructed spirit curiously in harmony.

One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with hurdles, another with ash-poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had placed her thatching spars, was half full of similar bundles. She was pausing for a moment with that easeful sense of accomplishment which follows work done that has been a hard struggle in the doing, when she heard a woman's voice on the other side of the hedge say anxiously, "'George!' In a moment the name was repeated with, Do come indoors. What are you doing there? The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she saw enter the latter from the timber merchant's back door an elderly woman, sheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a moving thorn pattern of shade on Marty's face.

Its rays soon fell upon a man, whose clothes were roughly thrown on, standing in advance of the speaker. He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with a small, nervous mouth and a face cleanly shaven, and he walked along the path with his eyes bent on the ground. In the pair, Marty South recognized her employer, Melbury, and his wife. She was the second Mrs. Melbury, the first having died shortly after the birth of the timber merchant's only child. "'There's no use to stay in bed,' he said as soon as she came up to where he was pacing restlessly about. "'They can't sleep.' I keep thinking of things and worrying about the girl till I'm quite in a fever of anxiety. He went on to say that he could not think why.

She—martie knew he was speaking of his daughter—did not answer his letter. She must be ill. She must certainly. He said. No, no, tis all right, George, said his wife, and she assured him that such things always did appear so gloomy in the night-time, if people allow their minds to run on them. That when morning came, it was seen that such fears were nothing but shadows. Grace is as well as you or I, she declared. But he persisted, that she did not see all, that she did not see as much as he. His daughter's not writing was only one part of his worry. On account of her, he was anxious concerning money affairs, which he would never alarm his mind about otherwise. The reason he gave was that, As she had nobody to depend upon for a provision but himself, he wished her, when he was gone, to be securely out of risk of poverty.

To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would be sure to marry well, and that hence a hundred pounds more or less from him would not make much difference. Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs. Melbury, naturally thought, but there she was wrong, and in that lay the source of his trouble. "'I have a plan in my head about her,' he said. and according to my plan she won't marry a rich man. A plan for her not to marry well? said his wife, surprised. Well, in one sense it is that, replied Melbury. It's a plan for her to marry a particular person, and as he has not so much money as she might expect, it might be called, as you call it. I may not be able to carry it out, and even if I do, it may not be a good thing for her.

I want her to marry Giles Winterbourne. His companion repeated the name. "'Well, it is all right,' she said presently. "'He adores the very ground she walks on. Only he's close and won't show it much.' Marty appeared startled and could not tear herself away. "'Yes,' the timber-merchant asserted. "'He knew that well enough.' Winterbourne had been interested in his daughter for years. That was what had led him into the notion of their union, and he knew that she used to have no objection to him. But it was not any difficulty about that which embarrassed him. It was that, since he had educated her so well and so long, and so far above the level of daughters thereabout, it was wasting her to give her to a man of no higher standing than the young man in question.

"'That's what I have been thinking,' said Mrs. Melbury. "'Well, then, Lucy, now you've hit it,' answered the timbered merchant with feeling. "'There lies my trouble. I vowed to let her marry him, and to make her as valuable as I could to him by schooling her as many years and as thoroughly as possible. I mean to keep my vow. I made it because I did his father a terrible wrong, and it was a weight of my conscience ever since that time till this scheme of making amends occurred to me through seeing that Giles liked her. "'Wronged his father?' asked Mrs. Melbury. Yes, grievously wronged him, said her husband. Well, don't think of it tonight, she urged. Come indoors. No, no, the air cools my head.

I shall not stay long. He was silent a while. Then he told her, as nearly as Marty could gather, that his first wife, his daughter Grace's mother, was first the sweetheart of Winterbourne's father, who loved her tenderly, till he, the speaker, won her away from him by a trick. because he wanted to marry her himself. He sadly went on to say that the other man's happiness was ruined by it, that though he married Winterbourne's mother, it was but a half-hearted business with him. Melbury added that he was afterwards very miserable at what he had done, but that as time went on and the children grew up and seemed to be attached to each other, he determined to do all he could to right the wrong by letting his daughter marry the lad.

Not only that, but to give her the best education he could afford, so as to make the gift as valuable a one as it lay in his power to bestow. "'I still mean to do it,' said Melbury. "'Then do,' said she. "'But all these things trouble me,' he said, "'for I feel I am sacrificing her for my own sin. And I think of her, and often come down here to look at this.' "'Look at what?' asked his wife. He took the candle from her hand, held it to the ground, and removed the tile which lay in the garden-path. "'Tis a track of her shoe that she made when she ran down here the day before she went away all those months ago. I covered it up when she was gone, and when I come here and look at it, I ask myself again, why should she be sacrificed to a poor man?

"'It is not altogether a sacrifice,' said the woman. "'He is in love with her, and he's honest and upright.' If she encourages him, what can you wish for more? I wish for nothing definite, but there's a lot of things possible for her. Why, Mrs. Sharman is wanting some refined young lady, I hear, to go abroad with her, as companion or something of the kind. She'd jump at Grace. That's all uncertain. Better stick to what's sure. True, true, said Melbury, and I hope it will be for the best. Yes, let me get him married as soon as I can, so as to have it all over and done with. He continued looking at the imprint, while he added, "'Suppose she should be dying, and never make a track on this path any more?' "'She'll write soon, depend upon it.

Come, "'tis wrong to stay here and brood so.' He admitted it, but said he could not help it. "'Whether she write or no, I shall fetch her in a few days,' and thus speaking, he covered the track and preceded his wife indoors. Melbury, perhaps, was an unlucky man in having within him the sentiment which could indulge in this foolish fondness about the imprint of a daughter's footstep. Nature does not carry on her government with a view to such feelings, and when advancing years render the open hearts of those who possess them less dexterous than formerly in shutting against a blast, they must suffer buffeting at will by rain and storm, no less than little Celendines. But her own existence, and not Mr.

Melbury's, was the centre of Marty's consciousness, and it was in relation to this that the matter struck her as she slowly withdrew. "'That, then, is the secret of it all,' she said. "'And Giles Winterbourne is not for me, and the less I think of him, the better.' She returned to her cottage. The sovereigns were staring at her from the looking-glass as she had left them. With a preoccupied countenance, and with tears in her eyes, she got a pair of scissors, and began mercilessly cutting off the long locks of her hair, arranging and tying them with her points all one way, as the barber had directed. Upon the pale, scrubbed deal of the coffin-stool table, they stretched like waving and ropey weeds over the washed gravel-bed of a clear stream.

She could not turn again to the little looking-glass, out of humanity to herself, knowing what a deflowered visage would look back at her. and almost break her heart. She dreaded it as much as did her ancestral goddess Sif the reflection in the pool after the rape of her locks by Loke the malicious. She steadily stuck to business, wrapped the hair in a parcel and sealed it up, after which she raked out the fire and went to bed, having first set up an alarum made of a candle and piece of thread with a stone attached. But such a reminder was unnecessary to-night. Having tossed till about five o'clock, Marty heard the sparrows walking down their long holes in the thatch above her sloping ceiling to their orifice at the eaves, whereupon she also arose and descended to the ground floor again.

It was still dark, but she began moving about the house in those automatic initiatory acts and touches which represent among housewives the installation of another day. While thus engaged, she heard the rumbling of Mr. Melbury's wagons, and knew that there, too, the day's toil had begun.

An armful of gads thrown on the still-hot embers caused them to blaze up cheerfully and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden prominence as a shadow. At this, a step approached the door. "'Are the folks a stir yet?' inquired a voice she knew well. "'Yes, Mr. Winterbourne,' said Marty, throwing on a tilt-bonnet which completely hid the recent ravages of the scissors. "'Come in.' The door was slung back, and there stepped in upon the mat, A man not particularly young for a lover, nor particularly mature for a person of affairs. There was reserve in his glance, and restraint upon his mouth. He carried a horn-lantern which hung upon a swivel, and, wheeling as it dangled, marked grotesque shapes upon the shadier part of the walls.

He said that he had looked in on his way down to tell her that they did not expect her father to make up his contract if he was not well. Mr. Melbury would give him another week. and they would go their journey with a short load that day. "'They are done,' said Marty, "'and lying in the cart-house.' "'Done?' he repeated. "'Your father has not been too ill to work after all, then?' She made some evasive reply. "'I'll show you where they be if you are going down,' she added. They went out and walked together, the pattern of the air-holes in the top of the lantern being thrown upon the mist overhead, where they appeared of giant size, as if reaching the tent-shaped sky. They had no remarks to make to each other, and they uttered none.

Hardly anything could be more isolated or more self-contained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when grey shades, material and mental, are so very grey, and yet, Looked at in a certain way, their lonely courses formed no detached design at all, but were of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in both hemispheres, from the White Sea to Cape Horn. The Shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborne regarded them silently, then looked at her. "'Now, Marty, I believe,' he said, and shook his head. "'What?' "'That you've done the work yourself.' "'Don't tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?' she pleaded by way of answer. "'Because I'm afraid Mr.

Melbury may refuse my work if he knows it's mine.' "'But how could you learn to do it? "'Tis a trade.' "'Trade,' she said. "'I'd be bound to learn it in two hours.' "'Oh, no, you wouldn't, Miss Marty.' Winterborne held down his lantern and examined the cleanly split hazels as they lay. "'Marty,' he said with dry admiration, Your father, with his forty years of practice, never made a spar better than that. They're too good for the attaching of houses. They are good enough for the furniture. But I won't tell. Let me look at your hands—your poor hands." He had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone, and when she seemed reluctant to show her hands, he took hold of one and examined it as if it were his own.

Her fingers were blistered. "'They'll get harder in time,' she said. For if Father continues ill, I shall have to go on with it. Now, I'll help put him in the wagon. Winterborne, without speaking, set down his lantern, lifted her as she was about to stoop over the bundles, placed her behind them, and began throwing up the bundles himself. Rather than you should do it, I will, he said. But the men will be here directly. Why, Marty, whatever has happened to your head? Lord, it has shrunk to nothing. It looks like an apple upon a gate-post. Her heart swelled, and she could not speak. At length she managed to groan, looking on the ground. I've made myself ugly and hateful. That's what I've done. No, no, he answered.

You've only cut your hair. I see it now. Then why must you need say that about apples and gate-posts? Let me see. No, no, she ran off in the gloom of the sluggish dawn. He did not attempt to follow her. When she reached her father's door, she stood on the step and looked back. Mr. Melbury's men had arrived and were loading up the spars, and their lanterns appeared from the distance at which she stood, to have wand circles round them, like eyes weary with watching. She observed them for a few seconds as they set about harnessing the horses, and then went indoors.

4 Chapter 04 24:47

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter Four.

There was now a distinct manifestation of morning in the air, and presently the bleared white visage of a sunless winter-day emerged like a dead-born child. The villagers everywhere had already bestirred themselves, rising at this time of the year at the far less dreary hour of absolute darkness. It had been above an hour earlier, before a single bird had untucked his head, that twenty lights were struck in as many bedrooms, twenty pairs of shutters opened, and twenty pairs of eyes stretched to the sky, to forecast the weather for the day. Owls that had been catching mice in the outhouses, rabbits that had been eating the winter greens in the gardens, and stoats that had been sucking the bloods of the rabbits, discerning that their human neighbors were on the move, discreetly withdrew from publicity, and were seen and heard no more that day.

The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury's homestead, of which the wagon sheds had been an outlying erection. It formed three sides of an open quadrangle, and consisted of all sorts of buildings, the largest and central one being the dwelling itself. The fourth side of the quadrangle was the public road. It was a dwelling-house of respectable, roomy, almost dignified aspect, which, taken with the fact that there were the remains of other such buildings thereabout, indicated that little Hintock had, at some time or other, been of greater importance than now, As its old name of Hintock St. Osmond also testified. The house was of no marked antiquity, yet of well-advanced age, older than a stale novelty, but no canonized antique, faded, not hoary.

Looking at you from the still distinct middle distance of the early Georgian time, And awakening on that account the instincts of reminiscence more decidedly than the remoter and far grander memorials which have to speak from the misty reaches of medievalism. The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and revenues of the great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, who had been the first to gaze from those rectangular windows, and had stood under that keystone doorway, could be divined and measured by homely standards of today. It was a house in whose reverberations queer old personal tales were yet audible, if properly listened for, and not, as with those of the castle and cloister, silent beyond the possibility of echo.

The garden-front remained much as it had always been, and there was a porch and entrance that way. But the principal house door opened on the square yard or quadrangle towards the road, formerly a regular carriage entrance, though the middle of the area was now made use of for stacking timber, faggots, bundles, and other products of the wood. It was divided from the lane by a lichen-coated wall, in which hung a pair of gates, flanked by piers out of the perpendicular, with a round white ball on the top of each. The building on the left of the enclosure was a long back direction, now used for spar-making, sawing, crib-framing, and copseware manufacture in general. Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty had deposited her spars.

Here Winterbourne had remained after the girls' abrupt departure to see that the wagon-loads were properly made up. Winterbourne was connected with the Melbury family in various ways. In addition to the sentimental relationship which arose from his father having been the first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterbourne's aunt had married and emigrated with the brother of the timber-merchant many years before, an alliance that was sufficient to place Winterbourne, though the poorer, on a footing of social intimacy with the Melburys. As in most villages so secluded as this, Intermarriages were of Habsburgian frequency among the inhabitants, and there were hardly two houses in Little Hintock unrelated by some matrimonial tie or other.

For this reason, a curious kind of partnership existed between Melbury and the younger man, a partnership based upon an unwritten code, by which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a give-and-take principle. Melbury, with his timber and copseware business, found that the weight of his labor came in winter and spring. Winterbourne was in the apple and cider trade, and his requirements in cartage and other work came in the autumn of each year. Hence, horses, wagons, and in some degree men, were handed over to him when the apples began to fall, he in return lending his assistance to Melbury in the busiest wood-cutting season as now. Before he had left the shed, a boy came from the house to ask him to remain till Mr.

Melbury had seen him. Winterbourne thereupon crossed over to the spar-house, where two or three men were already at work, two of them being travelling spar-makers from White Hart Lane, who, when this kind of work began, made their appearance regularly, and when it was over, disappeared in silence till the season came again. Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little Hintock. And a blaze of gadcuds made the outhouse gay with its light, which vied with that of the day as yet. In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen dangling, etiolated arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles, and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight.

Others were pushing in with such force at the eaves as to lift from their supports the shelves that were fixed there. Besides the itinerant journey workers, there were also present John Upjohn, engaged in the hollow ternary trade, who lived hard by. Old Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawers, at work in Mr. Melbury's pit outside. Farmer Bawtree, who kept the cider house, and Robert Creel, an old man who worked for Winterbourne, and stood warming his hands, these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze, though they had no particular business there. None of them called for any remark except perhaps creedle. To have completely described him, it would have been necessary to write a military memoir, for he wore under his smock-frock a cast-off soldier's jacket that had seen hot service, its collar showing just above the flap of the frock.

Also a hunting memoir, to include the top-boots that he had picked up by chance. Also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocket-knife had been given him by a weather-beaten sailor. But Credle carried about with him on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of war, sport, and adventure, and thought nothing of their associations or their stories. Copps' work, as it was called, being an occupation which the secondary intelligence of the hands and arms could carry on without requiring the sovereign attention of the head, the minds of its professors wandered considerably from the objects before them. Hence the tales, chronicles, and ramifications of family history which were recounted here were of a very exhaustive kind, and sometimes so interminable as to defy description.

Winterbourne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived, stepped back again outside the door, and the conversation, interrupted by his momentary presence, flowed anew, reaching his ears as an accompaniment to the regular dripping of the fog from the plantation boughs around. The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one, the personal character of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding woods and groves. My brother-in-law told me, and I have no reason to doubt it, said Creel, that she'd sit down to her dinner with her frock hardly higher than her elbows. Oh, you wicked woman! He said to himself when he first seed her, you go to church and sit and kneel as if your knee-joints were greased with very saint's ointment, and tell off your hero's good laws like a businessman counting money, and yet you can eat your victual such a figure as that.

Whether she's a reformed character by this time I can't say, but I don't care who the man is. That's how she went on when my brother-in-law lived there. Did she do it in her husband's time? That I don't know. Hardly, I should think, considering his temper. Ah! Here Creedle threw grieved remembrance to physical form by slowly resigning his head to obliquity and letting his eyes water. That man—not if the angels of heaven came down, Creedle, he said. Shall you do another day's work for me? Yes, he'd say anything—anything, and would as soon take a winged creature's name in vain as yours or mine. Well, now I must get these spars home along, and tomorrow, thank God, I must see about using them.

An old woman now entered upon the scene. She was Mr. Melbury's servant, and passed a great part of her time in crossing the yard between the house-door and the spar-shed, whither she had now come for fuel. She had two facial aspects, one of a soft and flexible kind she used indoors when assisting about the parlour or upstairs. The other, with stiff lines and corners, when she was bustling among the men in the spar-house or out of doors. "'Ah, Grammar Oliver,' said John Upjohn, "'it'd do my heart good to see an old woman like you so dapper and stirring, when I bear in mind that after fifty one year counts as two did before. But your smoke didn't rise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my beater, and that's late, Grammar Oliver.' "'If you was a full-sized man, John,' People might take notice of your scornful meaning, but your growing up was such a scrimped and scanty business that really a woman couldn't feel hurt if you were to spit fire and brimstone itself at her.

Here," she added, holding out a spar-guard to one of the workmen, from which dangled a long black pudding. Here's something for thy breakfast, and if you want tea, you must fetch it from indoors. Mr. Melbury is late this morning, said the bottom sawer. Yes, "'Twas a dark dawn," said Mrs. Oliver. "'Even when I opened the door, so late as I was, you couldn't have told poor men from gentlemen, or John from a reasonable-sized object, and I don't think Master slept at all well tonight. He's anxious about his daughter, and I know what that is, for I've cried bucketfuls for my own." When the old woman had gone, Creedle said, "'He'll fret his gizzard green if he don't soon hear from that maid of his.' Well, learning is better than houses and lands, but to keep a maid at school till she's taller out of patterns than her mother was in him, tis tempting providence.

It seems no time ago that she was a little playward thing, said young Timothy Tangs. I can mind her mother, said the hollow turner. Always a tuny, delicate piece. Her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind. She was inoculated for the smallpox, "'And had it beautifully fine, just about the time that I was out of my apprenticeship. Aye, and a long apprenticeship twas. I served that master of mine six years and three hundred and fourteen days.' The hollow-turner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, considering their number, they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years. "'Mr. Winterbourne's father walked with her at one time,' said old Timothy Tangs, "'but Mr. Melbury won her.' She was a child of a woman, and would cry like rain if so be he huffed her.

Whenever she and her husband came to a puddle in their walks together, he'd take her up like a halfpenny doll, and put her over without dirtying her a speck, and if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding school, he'll make her as nash as her mother was. But here he comes.

Just before this moment, Winterbourne had seen Melbury crossing the court from his door. He was carrying an open letter in his hand, and came straight to Winterbourne. His gloom of the preceding night had quite gone. I'd no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to go and see why Grace didn't come or write, than I'd get a letter from her. Clifton, Wednesday. My dear father, says she, I'm coming home tomorrow, that's today, but I didn't think it worth my while to write long beforehand. The little rascal, and didn't she? Now, Giles, as you are going to Sherton Market to-day with your apple-trees, why not join me and Grace there, and we'll drive home altogether. He made the proposal with cheerful energy.

He was hardly the same man as the man of the small dark hours. Ever it happens that among the moodiest, the tendency to be cheered is stronger than the tendency to be cast down, and a soul's specific gravity stands permanently less than that of the sea of troubles into which it is thrown. Winterbourne, though not demonstrative, replied to this suggestion with something like alacrity. There was not much doubt that Marty's grounds for cutting off her hair were substantial enough if this man's eyes had been a reason for keeping it on. As for the timber-merchant, it was plain that his invitation had been given solely in pursuance of a scheme for uniting the pair. He had made up his mind to the course as a duty, and was strenuously bent upon following it out.

Accompanied by Winterbourne, he now turned towards the door of the spar-house, when his footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid. "'Well, John and Lot,' he said, nodding as he entered, "'arry me morning.' "'Tis, sir,' said Creedle, energetically. For not having as yet been able to summon force sufficient to go away and begin work, he felt the necessity of throwing some into his speech. "'I don't care who the man is. "'Tis the rrymiest morning we've had this fall.' "'I heard you wondering why I kept my daughter so long at boarding-school,' resumed Mr. Melbury, looking up from the letter which he was reading anew by the fire, and turning to them with the suddenness that was a trait in him. "'Eh?' he asked with affected shrewdness.

"'But you did, you know. Well, now, though tis my own business, more than anybody else's, I'll tell ye. When I was a boy—another boy, the parson's son, along with a lot of others—he Ask me, who dragged whom round the walls of what? And I said, Sam Barrett, who dragged his wife in a chair round the tower corner when she went to be churched. They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn that I went home ashamed and couldn't sleep for shame, and I cried that night till my pillow was wet, till at last I thought to myself there and then. They may laugh at me for my ignorance, but that was Father's fault, and none of my making, and I must bear it. But they shall never laugh at my children, if I have any.

I'll starve first. Thank God I've been able to keep her at school without sacrifice, and her scholarship is such that she stayed on as governess for a time. Let them laugh now, if they can. Mrs. Charmon herself is not better informed than my girl Grace. There was something between high indifference and humble emotion in his delivery, which made it difficult for them to reply. Winterbourne's interest was of a kind which did not show itself in words, listening as he stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the embers with the spar-gad. "'You'll be, then, ready, Giles,' Melbury continued, awaking from a reverie. "'Well, what was the latest news at Shotford yesterday, Mr. Bawtree?' "'Well, Shotford is Shotford still.' You can't victual your carcass there unless you've got money, and you can't buy a cup of genuine there, whether or no.

But, as the saying is, go abroad, and you'll hear news from home. It seems that our new neighbor, this young doctor, what's-his-name, is a strange, deep-perusing gentleman, and there's good reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one. I'd name it all, murmured the timber merchant, unimpressed by the news, but reminded of other things by the subject of it. I've got to meet a gentleman this very morning, and yet I've planned to go to Sherton Abbas for the maid. I won't praise a doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of bargain he's made, said the top sawer. "'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree. But it seems that he wanted certain books on some mysterious science or black art, and in order that the people hereabout should not know anything about his dark readings, he ordered them direct from London, and not from the Sherton bookseller.

The parcel was delivered by mistake at the Parsons, and he wasn't at home, so his wife opened it, and went into hysterics when she read him, thinking her husband had torn heathen, and twould be the ruin of the children. But when he came, he said he knew no more about him than she, and found they were this Mr. Fitzpiers's property. So he wrote, Beware, outside, and set him on by the sexton. He must be a curious young man, mused the hollow turner. "'He must?' said Timothy Tangs. "'Nonsense,' said Mr. Melbury authoritatively. "'He's only a gentleman fond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every kind of knowledge. And, being lonely here, he passes his time on making such matters his hobby.' "'Well,' said old Timothy, "'tis a strange thing about doctors, that the worse they be, the better they be.' I mean that if you hear anything of this sort about him, ten to one that can cure you as nobody else can.

True, said Bawtree emphatically, and for my part I shall take my custom from Old Jones and go to this one directly of anything the matter with me. The last medicine Old Jones gave him, he had no taste in it at all. Mr. Mellory, as became a well-informed man, did not listen to these recitals. Being moreover preoccupied with the business appointment which had come into his head, he walked up and down, looking on the floor, his usual custom when undecided. That stiffness about the arm, hip, and knee-joint which was apparent when he walked was the net product of the diverse sprains and over-exertions that had been required of him in handling trees and timber when a young man, for he was of the sort called self-made and had worked hard.

He knew the origins of every one of these cramps. That in his left shoulder had come of carrying a pollard unassisted from tutkumbottom home. That in one leg was caused by the crash of an elm against it when they were felling. That in the other was from lifting a bowl. On many a morrow, after wearing himself by these prodigious muscular efforts, he had risen from his bed fresh as usual. His lassitude had departed apparently forever, and confident in the recuperative power of his youth, he had repeated the strains anew. But treacherous time had been only hiding ill results when they could be guarded against, for greater accumulation when they could not. In his declining years the store had been unfolded, in the form of rheumatisms, pricks, and spasms, in every one of which Melbury recognized some act which, had its consequence been contemporaneously made known, he would wisely have abstained from repeating.

On a summons by Grammar Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed. Reaching the kitchen, where the family breakfasted in winter to save house labor, he sat down by the fire and looked a long time at the pair of dancing shadows cast by each fire-iron and dog-knob on the whitewashed chimney corner, a yellow one from the window and a blue one from the fire. I don't quite know what to do today, he said to his wife at last. I've recollected that I promised to meet Mrs. Charm and Stewart in Roundwood at twelve o'clock, and yet I want to go for Grace. Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? "'T'will bring them together all the quicker.' "'I could do that, but I should like to go myself. I always have gone without fail every time hitherto.

It has been a great pleasure to drive to Sheraton, and wait to see her arrive, and perhaps she'll be disappointed if I stay away.' "'Yan may be disappointed, but I don't think she will if you send Giles,' said Mrs. Melbury dryly. "'Very well, I'll send him.' Melbury was often persuaded by the quietude of his wife's words when strenuous argument would have had no effect. This second Mrs. Melbury was a placid woman who had been nursed to his child Grace before her mother's death. After that melancholy event, little Grace had plung to the nurse with much affection, and ultimately Melbury, in dread lest the only woman who cared for the girl should be induced to leave her, persuaded the mild Lucy to marry him.

The arrangement, for it was little more, had worked satisfactorily enough. Grace had thriven, and Melbury had not repented. He returned to the spar-house, and found Giles near at hand, to whom he explained the change of plan. As she won't arrive till five o'clock, you can get your business very well over in time to receive her, said Melbury. The green gig will do for her. You'll spin along quicker than that, and won't be late upon the road. Her boxes can be called for by one of the wagons. Winterborne, knowing nothing of the timber-merchant's vestituary aims, quietly thought all this to be a kindly chance. Wishing, even more than her father, to dispatch his apple-tree business in the market before Grace's arrival, he prepared to start at once.

Melbury was careful that a turn-out should be seemly. The gig-wheels, for instance, were not always washed during winter-time before a journey, The muddy roads, rendering that labour useless, but they were washed to-day. The harness was blacked, and when the rather elderly white horse had been put in, and Winterbourne was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blacking brush, and with his own hands touched over the yellow hoofs of the animal. "'You see, Giles,' he said as he blacked. Coming from a fashionable school, she might feel shocked at the homeliness of home, and tis these little things that catch a dainty woman's eye, if they are neglected. We, living here alone, don't notice how the whitey brown creeps out of the earth over us, but she, fresh from a city, why she'll notice everything.

That she will, said Giles, and scorn us if we don't mind. Not scorn us. No, no, no, that's only words. She's too good a girl to do that. But when we consider what she knows, and what she has seen since she last saws, tis as well to me her views as nearly as possible. Why, tis a year since she was in this old place, owing to her going abroad in the summer, which I agreed to, thinking it best for her, and naturally we shall look small, just at first. I only say just at first. Mr. Melbury's tone evinced a certain exultation in the very sense of that inferiority he affected to deplore. For this advanced and refined being was she not his own all the time. Not so, Giles. He felt doubtful, perhaps a trifle cynical, for that strand was wound to him with the rest.

He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then with indifference. It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen apple-tree to market with him, as an advertisement of what he dealt in. This had been tied across the gig, and as it would be left behind in town, it would cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury coming home. He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse, and Melbury went indoors. Before the gig had passed out of sight, Mr. Melbury reappeared and shouted after. "'Here, Giles!' he said, breathlessly, following with some raps. It may be very chilly tonight, and she may want something extra about her. And Giles, he added when the young man, having taken the articles, put the horse in motion once more, tell her that I should have come myself, but I had particular business with Mrs.

Sharman's agent which prevented me. Don't forget.

He watched Winterbourne out of sight, saying, with a jerk, a shape into which a motion with him often resolved itself. Now I hope the two will bring it to a point and have done with it. Tis a pity to let such a girl throw herself away upon him—a thousand pities! And yet, tis my duty for his father's sake.

5 Chapter 05 16:31

Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly, as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he might have felt pride in the discernment of a somewhat rare power in him. That of keeping not only judgment, but emotion suspended in difficult cases. But he noted it not. Neither did he observe what was also the fact, that though he cherished a true and warm feeling towards Grace Melbury, he was not altogether her fool just now. It must be remembered that he had not seen her for a year. Arrived at the entrance to a long, flat lane, which had taken the spirit out of many a pedestrian in times when, with the majority, to travel meant to walk, he saw before him the trim figure of a young woman in Patton's, journeying with that steadfast concentration which means purpose and not pleasure.

He was soon near enough to see that she was Marty South. Click, click, click went the Patton's, and she did not turn her head. She had, however, become aware before this that the driver of the approaching gig was Giles. She had shrunk from being overtaken by him thus, but as it was inevitable, she had braced herself up for his inspection by closing her lips so as to make her mouth quite unemotional, and by throwing an additional firmness into her tread. "'Why do you wear patterns, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, though the lanes are muddy. "'They saved my boots.' But twelve miles in pattens? "'Twill twist your feet off. Come, get up and ride with me." She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked the gravel out of them against the wheel, and mounted in front of the nodding specimen apple-tree.

She had so arranged her bonnet with a full border and trimmings, that her lack of long hair did not much injure her appearance, though Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and may have guessed her motive in parting with it, such sales, though infrequent, not being unheard of in that locality. But Nature's adornment was still hard by, in fact within two feet of him, though he did not know it. In Marty's basket was a brown paper packet, And in the packet the chestnut locks, which, by reason of the barber's request for secrecy, she had not ventured to entrust into other hands. Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her father was getting on. He was better, she said. He would be able to work in a day or two.

He would be quite well, but for his craze about the tree falling on him. "'You know why I don't ask for him so often as I might, I suppose,' said Winterbourne. "'Or don't you know?' "'I think I do.' "'Because of the houses?' she nodded. "'Yes, I'm afraid it might seem that my anxiety is about the houses, which I should lose by his death more than about him. Marty, I do feel anxious about the houses, since half my income depends upon them, but I do likewise care for him, and it almost seems wrong that houses should be leased for lives so as to lead to such mixed feelings. After Father's death, it will be Mrs. Sharman's.' They'll be hers. They're going to keep company with my hair, she thought.

Thus talking, they reached the town. By no pressure would she ride up the street with him. That's the right of another woman, she said, with playful malice, as she put on her patents. I wonder what you were thinking of. Thank you for the lift in that handsome gig. Good-bye. He blushed a little, shook his head at her, and drove on ahead into the streets, the churches, the abbey, and other buildings on this clear, bright morning, having the liney distinctness of architectural drawings, as if the original dream and vision of the conceiving master-mason, some medieval villars or other unknown to fame, were for a few minutes flashed down through the centuries to an unappreciative age. Giles saw their elegant look on this day of transparency, but could not construe it.

He turned into the inn-yard. Marty, following the same track, marched promptly to the hairdresser's Mr. Perkham's. Perkham was the chief of his trade in Sherton Abbas. He had the patronage of such county offshoots as had been obliged to seek the shelter of small houses in that ancient town, of the local clergy, and so on. For some of whom he had made wigs, while others among them had compensated for neglecting him in their lifetime by patronizing him when they were dead, and letting him shave their corpses. On the strength of all this he had taken down his pole, and called himself periquiere to the aristocracy. Nevertheless, this sort of support did not quite fill his children's mouths. And they had to be filled.

So behind his house there was a little yard, reached by a passage from the back street, and in that yard was a pole, and under the pole a shop of quite another description than the ornamental one in the front street. Here, on Saturday nights from seven till ten, he took an almost innumerable succession of twopences from the farm laborers who flocked thither in crowds from the country. And thus he lived. Marty, of course, went to the front shop. and handed her packet to him silently. "'Thank you,' said the barber quite joyfully. "'I hardly expected it after what you said last night.' She turned aside, while a tear welled up and stood in each eye at this reminder. "'Nothing of what I told you,' he whispered, there being other than the shop.

"'But I can trust you, I see.' She had now reached the end of this distressing business, and went listlessly along the street to attend to other errands. These occupied her till four o'clock, at which time she recrossed the marketplace. It was impossible to avoid rediscovering Winterbourne every time she passed that way, for, standing, as he always did at this season of the year, with his specimen apple-tree in the midst, the boughs rose above the heads of the crowd and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards among the crowded buildings there. When her eye fell upon him for the last time, he was standing somewhat apart, holding the tree like an ensign, and looking on the ground instead of pushing his produce as he ought to have been doing.

He was, in fact, not a very successful seller, either of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking his mind, when he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his business. While she regarded him, he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction away from Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and surprise. She followed his gaze, and saw, walking across to him, a flexible young creature, in whom she perceived the features of her she had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified and refined above her former level. Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his apple-tree, could not advance to meet her. He held out his spare hand with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood.

Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty could see, unexpected by Giles, which accounted for his not being ready to receive her. Indeed, her father had named five o'clock as her probable time, for which reason that hour had been looming out all the day in his forward perspective, like an important edifice on a plain. Now here she was come, he knew not how, and his arranged welcome stultified. His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road. and more still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers at having to perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet high in the middle of a market-place. Having had occasion to take off the new glove she had bought to come home in, she held out to him, a hand gradiating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the palm, and the reception formed a scene.

With the tree over their heads, which was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets. Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained type, which perhaps was not unnatural. For true it was that Giles Winterbourne, well-attired and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman, looked rough beside her. It had sometimes dimly occurred to him in his ruminating silence at Little Hintock, that external phenomena, Such as the lowness or height or color of a hat, the fold of a coat, the make of a boot, or the chance attitude or occupation of a limb at the instant of view, may have a great influence upon feminine opinion of a man's worth, so frequently founded on non-essentials.

But a certain causticity of mental tone towards himself and the world in general had prevented today, as always, any enthusiastic action on the strength of that reflection. And her momentary instinct of reserve at first sight of him was the penalty he paid for his laxness. He gave away the tree to a bystander as soon as he could find one who would accept the cumbersome gift, and the twain moved on towards the inn at which he had put up. Marty made as if to step forward for the pleasure of being recognized by Miss Melbury, but abruptly checking herself, she glided behind a carrier's van, saying dryly, "'No, I bain't wanted there.' and critically regarded Winterbourne's companion. It would have been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with precision, either now or at any time.

Nay, from the highest point of view, to precisely describe a human being, the focus of a universe, how impossible. But apart from transcendentalism, there never probably lived a person who was in herself more completely a reductio ad absurdum of attempts to appraise a woman. Even externally, by items of face and figure. Speaking generally, it may be said that she was sometimes beautiful, at other times not beautiful, according to the state of her health and spirits. In simple corporeal presentiment she was of a fair and clear complexion, rather pale than pink, slim in build and elastic in movement. Her look expressed a tendency to wait for others' thoughts before uttering her own, and possibly also to wait for others' deeds before her own doing.

In her small, delicate mouth, which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves, there was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for her own good. She had well-formed eyebrows, which, had her portrait been painted, would probably have been done in Prout's or Van Dyke Brown. There was nothing remarkable in her dress just now, beyond a natural fitness and style that was recent in the streets of Sheraton, but indeed, had it been the reverse and quite striking, it would have meant just as little. For there can be hardly anything less connected with a woman's personality than drapery which she has neither designed, manufactured, cut, sewed, or even seen, except by a glance of approval when told that such and such a shape and colour must be had, Because it has been decided by others as imperative at that particular time.

What people, therefore, saw of her in a cursory view was very little. In truth, mainly something that was not she. The woman herself was a shadowy, conjectural creature, who had little to do with the outlines presented to Sheraton Eyes. A shape in the gloom, Whose true description could only be approximated by putting together a movement now and a glance then, in that patient and long-continued attentiveness which nothing but watchful loving kindness ever troubles to give. There was a little delay in their setting out from the town, and Marty South took advantage of it to hasten forward, with a view of escaping them on the way, lest they should feel compelled to spoil their tete-a-tete by asking her to ride.

She walked fast, And one-third of the journey was done, and the evening rapidly darkening, before she perceived any sign of them behind her. Then, while ascending a hill, she dimly saw their vehicle drawing near the lowest part of the incline, their heads slightly bent towards each other, drawn together, no doubt, by their soles, as the heads of a pair of horses well in hand are drawn in by the rain. She walked still faster. But between these and herself there was a carriage. Apparently a brougham coming in the same direction, with lighted lamps. When it overtook her, which was not soon on account of her pace, the scene was much darker, and the lights glared in her eyes sufficiently to hide the details of the equipage.

It occurred to Marty that she might take hold behind this carriage, and so keep along with it, to save herself the mortification of being overtaken and picked up for pity's sake by the oncoming pair. Accordingly, as the carriage drew abreast of her in climbing the long ascent, she walked close to the wheels, the rays of the nearest lamp penetrating her very pores. She had only just dropped behind when the carriage stopped, and to her surprise the coachman asked her, over his shoulder, if she would ride. What made the question more surprising was that it came in obedience to an order from the inside of the vehicle. Marty gladly assented, for she was weary, very weary, After working all night and keeping a foot all day.

She mounted beside the coachman, wondering why this good fortune had happened to her. He was rather a great man in aspect, and she did not like to inquire of him for some time. At last she said, "'Who has been so kind as to ask me to ride?' Mrs. Charmond, replied her statuesque companion. Marty was stirred at the name, so closely connected with her last night's experiences. "'Is this her carriage?' she whispered. "'Yes, she's inside.' Marty reflected, and perceived that Mrs. Charmond must have recognized her plodding up the hill under the blaze of the lamp, recognized probably her stubbly Paul, since she had kept away her face, and thought that those stubbles were the result of her own desire.

Marty South was not very far wrong. Inside the carriage a pair of bright eyes looked from a ripely handsome face, And though behind those bright eyes was a mind of unfathomed mysteries, beneath them there beat a heart capable of quick extemporary warmth, a heart which could indeed be passionately and imprudently warm on certain occasions. At present, after recognizing the girl, she had acted on a mere impulse, possibly feeling gratified at the denuded appearance which signified the success of her agent in obtaining what she had required. "'Tis wonderful that she should ask you." observed the magisterial coachman presently. I've never known her to do it before, for as a rule she takes no interest in the village folk at all.

Marty said no more, but occasionally turned her head to see if she could get a glimpse of the Olympian creature who, as the coachman had truly observed, hardly ever descended from her clouds into the temper of the parishioners. But she could discern nothing of the lady. She also looked for Miss Melbury in Winterbourne. The nose of their horse sometimes came quite near to the back of Mrs. Sharman's carriage, but they never attempted to pass it till the latter conveyance turned towards the park gate when they sped by. Here the carriage drew up that the gate might be opened, and in the momentary silence Marty heard a gentle aural sound, soft as a breeze. "'What's that?' she whispered. "'Mrs. Yawning.' Why should she yawn?' Oh, because she's been used to such wonderfully good life and finds it dull here.

She'll soon be off again on account of it.

"'So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn,' the girl murmured. "'Then things don't fae with she any more than with we?' Marty now alighted. The lamp again shone upon her as the carriage rolled on, and a soft voice said to her from the interior, "'Good-night. Good-night, ma'am.' said Marty, but she had not been able to see the woman who began so greatly to interest her, the second person of her own sex who had operated strongly on her mind that day.

6 Chapter 06 20:58

Meanwhile Winterbourne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their little experiences of the same homeward journey. As he drove off with her out of the town, the glances of people fell upon them. The younger, thinking that Mr. Winterbourne was in a pleasant place, and wondering in what relation he stood towards her. Winterbourne himself was unconscious of this. Occupied solely with the idea of having her in charge, he did not notice much with outward eye, neither observing how she was dressed, nor the effect of the picture they together composed in the landscape. Their conversation was in the briefest phrase for some time, Grace being somewhat disconcerted, through not having understood till they were about to start, that Giles was to be her sole conductor in place of her father.

When they were in the open country, he spoke. "'Don't Brownlee's farm buildings look strange to you, now that they have been moved bodily from the hollow where the old one stood, to the top of the hill?' She admitted that they did, though she should not have seen any difference in them if he had not pointed it out. They had a good crop of bittersweets. They couldn't grind them all. Nodding towards an orchard where some heaps of apples had been left lying ever since the inn-gathering. She said, Yes, but looking at another orchard. Why, you're looking at John Apple-trees. You know bittersweets. You used to well enough. I am afraid I have forgotten, and it is getting too dark to distinguish. Winterbourne did not continue.

It seemed as if the knowledge and interest which had formerly moved Grace's mind had quite died away from her. He wondered whether the special attributes of his image in the past had evaporated like these other things.

However that might be, the fact at present was merely this, that where he was seeing John Appletrees and farm-buildings, she was beholding a far remoter scene, a scene no less innocent and simple, indeed, but much contrasting, A broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a fast city, the evergreen leaves shining in the evening sun, amid which bounding girls, gracefully clad in artistic arrangements of blue, brown, red, black, and white, were playing at games, with laughter and chat, in all the pride of life, the notes of a piano and harp trembling in the air from the open windows adjoining. Moreover, they were girls, and this was a fact which Grace Melbury's delicate femininity could not lose sight of, whose parents Giles would have addressed with the deferential sir or madam.

Beside this vision seen, the Homely farmsteads did not quite hold their own from her present twenty-year point of survey. For all his woodland sequestration, Giles knew the primitive simplicity of the subject he had started, and now sounded a deeper note. "'Twas very odd what we said to each other years ago. I often think of it. I mean, our saying that if we still liked each other when you were twenty and I twenty-five, we'd—that was Charles Tattle." "'H'm,' said Giles suddenly. "'I mean, we were young,' she said more considerately. That gruff manner of his in making inquiries reminded her that he was unaltered in much. "'Yes, I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury. Your father sent me to meet you to-day.' I know it, and I'm glad of it.

He seemed satisfied with her tone, and went on. At that time you were sitting beside me at the back of your father's covered car, when we were coming home from gypsying, all the party being squeezed in together as tight as sheep in an auction pen. It got darker and darker, and I said, I forget the exact words, but I put my arm around your waist. And there you let it stay till your father, sitting in front, suddenly stopped telling his story to Farmer Bolland to light his pipe. The flash shot into the car and showed us all up distinctly. My arm flew from your waist like lightning, yet not so quickly but that some of them had seen and laughed at us. Yet your father, to our amazement, instead of being angry, was mild as milk and seemed quite pleased.

Have you forgotten all that, or haven't you? She owned that she remembered it very well, now that he mentioned the circumstances. "'But, goodness, I must have been in short frocks,' she said. "'Come now, Miss Melbury, that won't do. Short frocks, indeed. You know better, as well as I.' Grace thereupon declared that she would not argue with an old friend she valued so highly as she valued him, saying the words, with the easy elusiveness that will be polite at all costs. It might possibly be true, she added, that she was getting on in girlhood when that event took place, but if it were so, then she was virtually no less than an old woman now, so far that the time seemed removed from her present.

Do you ever look at things philosophically instead of personally? she asked. I can't say that I do, answered Giles, his eyes lingering far ahead upon a dark spot, which proved to be a brougham. I think you may sometimes, with advantage, said she. Look at yourself as a pitcher drifting on the stream with other pitchers, and consider what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding cracks in general, and not only for saving your poor one. Shall I tell you all about Bath or Cheltenham, or places on the continent that I have visited last summer? With all my heart. Then she described places and persons, in such terms as might have been used for that purpose by any woman to any man within the four seas.

So entirely absent from that description was everything specially appertaining to her own existence. And when she had done, she said gaily, "'Now, do you tell me in return what has happened in Hintock since I have been away?' "'Anything to keep the conversation away from her and me,' said Giles within him. It was true cultivation had so far advanced in the soil of Miss Melbury's mind, as to lead her to talk by rote, of anything save of that she knew well, and had the greatest interest in developing—that is, to say, herself. He had not proceeded far with his somewhat bald narration when they drew near the carriage that had been preceding them for some time. Miss Melbury inquired if he knew whose carriage it was.

Winterbourne, although he had seen it, had not taken it into account. On examination he said it was Mrs. Charmin's. Grace watched the vehicle, and its easy roll. and seemed to feel more nearly akin to it than to the one she was in. Puh! We can polish off the mileage as well as they, come to that, said Winterbourne, reading her mind, and rising to emulation at what had bespoke, he whipped on the horse. This it was which had brought the nose of Mr. Melbury's old grey close to the back of Mrs. Sharman's much-eclipsing vehicle. There's Marty South sitting up with the coachman, he said, discerning her by her dress. Ah! Poor Marty! I must ask her to come to see me this very evening. How does she happen to be riding there?

I don't know. It's very singular. Thus these people with converging destinies went along the road together, till Winterbourne, leaving the track of the carriage, turned into Little Hintock, where almost the first house was the timber-merchant's. Pencils of dancing lights streamed out of the windows sufficiently to show the white loristinous flowers, and glance over the polished leaves of laurel. The interior of the rooms could be seen distinctly, warmed up by the fire-flames, which, in the parlour, were reflected from the glass of the pictures and bookcase, and in the kitchen from the utensils and ware.

"'Let us look at the dear place for a moment before we call them,' she said. In the kitchen dinner was preparing, for though Melbury dined at one o'clock at other times, to-day the meal had been kept back for grace. A rickety old spit was in motion, its end being fixed in the fire-dog, and the whole kept going by means of a cord, conveyed over pulleys along the ceiling to a large stone suspended in a corner of the room. Old Grammar Oliver came in and wound it up with a rattle like that of a mill. In the parlour, a large shade of Mrs. Melbury's head fell on the wall and ceiling, but before the girl had regarded this room many moments, their presence was discovered, and her father and stepmother came out to welcome her.

The characters of the Melbury family was of that kind which evinces some shyness in showing strong emotion among each other, a trait frequent in rural households, and one which stands in curiously inverse relation to most of the peculiarities distinguishing villagers from the people of towns. Thus, hiding their warmer feelings under their commonplace talk all round, Grace's reception produced no extraordinary demonstrations. But that more was felt than was enacted appeared from the fact that her father, in taking her indoors, quite forgot the presence of Giles without, as did also Grace herself. He said nothing, but took the gig around to the yard, and called out from the spar-house the man who particularly attended to these matters, when there was no conversation to draw him off among the copse-workers inside.

Winterbourne then returned to the door with the intention of entering the house. The family had gone into the parlour, and were still absorbed in themselves. The fire was, as before, the only light, and it irradiated Grace's face and hands so as to make them look wondrously smooth and fair besides those of the two elders, shining also through the loose hair about her temples as sunlight through a break. Her father was surveying her in a dazed conjecture. So much had she developed and progressed in manner and stature since he had last set eyes on her. Observing these things, Winterbourne remained dubious by the door, mechanically tracing with his fingers certain time-worn letters carved in the jams, initials of bygone generations of householders who had lived and died there.

No, he declared to himself, he would not enter and join the family. They had forgotten him, and it was enough for today that he had brought her home. Still, he was a little surprised that her father's eagerness to send him for grace should have resulted in such an anticlimax as this. He walked softly away into the lane towards his own house, looking back when he reached the turning, from which he could get a last glimpse of the timber merchant's roof. He hazarded guesses as to what Grace was saying just at that moment, and murmured with some self-derision. "'Nothing about me.' He looked also in the other direction, and saw against the sky the thatched hip and solitary chimney of Marty's cottage, and thought of her, too, struggling bravely along under that humble shelter, among her spar-gads and pots and skimmers.

At the timber-merchance's in the meantime the conversation flowed, and as Giles Winterbourne had rightly enough deemed, on subjects in which he had no share. Among the excluding matters there was, for one, the effect upon Mr. Melbury of the womanly mien and manners of his daughter, which took him so much unawares that, though it did not make him absolutely forget the existence of her conductor homeward, thrust Giles's image back into quite the obscurest celerage of his brain. Another was his interview with Mrs. Sharman's agent that morning, at which the lady herself had been present for a few minutes. Melbury had purchased some standing timber from her a long time before, and now that the date had come for felling it, he was left to pursue almost his own course.

This was what the household were actually talking of during Giles's cogitation without, and Melbury's satisfaction with the clear atmosphere that had arisen between himself and the deity of the groves which enclosed his residence was the cause of a counterbalancing mistiness on the side towards Winterbourne. So thoroughly does she trust me? said Melbury, that I might fell, top, lop, on my own judgment, any stick of timber, whatever in her wood, and fix the price in it and settle the matter. But name it all, I wouldn't do such a thing. However, it may be useful to have this good understanding with her. I wish she took more interest in the place, and stayed here all the year round. I'm afraid it is not her regard for you, but her dislike of hintock that makes it so easy about the trees, said Mrs.

Melbury. When dinner was over, Grace took a candle and began to ramble pleasurably through the rooms of her old home, from which she had latterly become well-nigh an alien. Each nook and each object revived a memory, and simultaneously modified it. The chambers seemed lower than they had appeared on any previous occasion of a return, the surfaces of both walls and ceiling standing in such relations to the eye that it could not avoid taking microscopic note of their irregularities and old-fashioned. Her own bedroom wore at once a look more familiar than when she had left it, and yet a face estranged. The world of little things therein gazed at her in helpless stationeriness, as though they had tried and been unable to make any progress without her presence.

Over the place where her candle had been accustomed to stand, when she had used to read in bed till the midnight hour, there was still the brown spot of smoke. She did not know that her father had taken especial care to keep it from being cleaned off. Having concluded her perambulation of this now uselessly commodious edifice, Grace began to feel that she had come a long journey since the morning, and when her father had been up himself as well as his wife to see that her bedroom was comfortable and the fire burning, she prepared to retire for the night. No sooner, however, was she in bed than her momentary sleepiness took itself off, and she wished she had stayed up longer. She amused herself by listening to the old familiar noises that she could hear still to be going on downstairs, and by looking towards the window as she lay.

The blind had been drawn up, as she used to have it when a girl, and she could just discern the dim tree-tops against the sky on the neighbouring hill. Beneath this meeting line of light and shade nothing was visible save one solitary point of light, which blinked as the tree-twigs waved to and fro before its beams. From its position it seemed to radiate from the window of a house on the hillside. The house had been empty when she was last at home, and she wondered who inhabited the place now. Her conjectures, however, were not intently carried on. And she was watching the light quite idly, when it gradually changed colour, and at length shone blue as a sapphire. Thus it remained several minutes, and then it passed through violet to red.

Her curiosity was so widely awakened by the phenomenon that she sat up in bed, and stared steadily at the shine. An appearance of this sort, sufficient to excite attention anywhere, was no less than a marvel in Hintuck, as Grace had known to Hamlet. Almost every diurnal and nocturnal effect in that woodland place had hitherto been the direct result of the irregular terrestrial roll which produced the season's changes, but here was something dissociated from these normal sequences, and foreign to local habit and knowledge.

It was about this moment that Grace heard the household below preparing to retire, the most emphatic noise in the proceeding being that of her father bolting the doors. Then the stairs creaked, and her father and mother passed her chamber. The last to come was Grammar Oliver. Grace slid out of bed, ran across the room, and, lifting the latch, said, "'I am not asleep, Grammar. Come in and talk to me.' Before the old woman had entered, Grace was again under the bedslows. Grammar set down her candlestick and seated herself on the edge of Miss Melbury's coverlet. "'I want you to tell me what light that is I see on the hillside.' said Grace. Mrs. Oliver looked across. Oh, that, she said, is from the doctor's.

He's often doing things of that sort. Perhaps you don't know that we've a doctor living here now. Mr. Fitzpiers, by name. Grace admitted that she had not heard of him. Well, then, Miss, he's come here to get up at practice. I know him very well. Through going there to help him scrub sometimes, which your father said I might do if I wanted to in my spare time. Being a bachelor man, he've only a lad in the house. Oh, yes, I know him very well. Sometimes he've talked to me as if I were his own mother. Indeed. Yes, Grammar, he said one day, when I asked him why he came here, where there's hardly anybody living. I'll tell you why I came here. I took a map, and I marked on it where Dr. Jones's practice ends, to the north of the district, and where Mr.

Taylor's ends, on the south, and little Jimmy Green's on the east, and somebody else's to the west. Then I took a pair of compasses, and I found the exact middle of the country that was left between these bounds, and that middle was Little Hintock. So here I am, but Lord there, poor young man. Why? He said, Grammar Oliver, I've been here three months, and though there are many good people in the Hintocks and the villages around, and a scattered practice is often a very good one, I don't seem to get many patients, and there's no society at all, and I'm pretty near melancholy mad, he said with a great yawn. I should be quite if it were not for my books and my lab, laboratory and what not. Grammar, I was made for higher things, and then he'd yawn and yawn again.

Was he really made for higher things, do you think? I mean, is he clever? Well, no. How can you be clever? He may be able to join up a broken man or woman after a fashion, and put his finger on a naik, if you tell him nearly where it is. But these young men, they should live to my time of life, and then they'd see how clever they were at five-and-twenty. And yet he's a project, a real project, and says the oddest rosums. Ah, grammar, he said at another time. Let me tell you that everything is nothing. There's only me, and not me, in the whole world. And he told me that no man's hands could help what they did any more than the hands of a clock. Yes, he's a man of strange meditations, and his eyes seem to see as far as the North Star.

He will soon go away, no doubt. I don't think so. Grace did not say why, and Grammar hesitated. At last she went on. Don't tell your father or mother, miss, if I let you know a secret. Grace gave the required promise. Well, he talks of buying me, so we won't go away just yet. Buying you? How? Not my soul, my body, when I'm dead. One day when I was there cleaning, he said, Grammer, you've a large brain, a very large organ of a brain, he said. A woman's is usually four ounces less than a man's, but yours is man's size. Well, then, he, after he'd flattered me a bit like that, he said he'd give me ten pounds to have me as anatomy after my death. Well, knowing I'd no chick nor child left, and nobody with any interest in me, I thought, Faith, if I can be of any use to my fellow creatures after I'm gone, they are welcome to my services.

And so I said I'd think it over, and would most likely agree and take the ten pounds. Now, this is a secret, Miss, between us two. The money would be very useful to me, and I see no harm in it. Of course there's no harm, but—oh, Grammar, how can you think to do it? I wish you hadn't told me. I wish I hadn't, if you don't like to know it, miss, but you needn't mind. Lord, I shall keep him waiting many a year, let bless you. I hope you will, I am sure. The girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection. That conversation languished, and Grammar Oliver, taking her candle, wished Miss Melbury good-night. The latter's eyes rested on the distant glimmer, around which she allowed her reasoning fancy to play in vague eddies, that shaped the doings of the philosopher behind that light on the lines of intelligence just received.

It was strange to her to come back from the world, To little Hintock confined in one of its nooks, like a tropical plant in a hedgerow, a nucleus of advanced ideas and practices, which had nothing in common with the life around. Chemical experiments, anatomical projects, and metaphysical conceptions had found a strange home here. Thus she remained thinking, the imagined pursuits of the man behind the light intermingling with conjectural sketches of his personality, till her eyes fell together with their own heaviness. And she slept.

7 Chapter 07 15:09

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter Seven.

Kaleidoscopic dreams of a weird alchemist surgeon, Grammar Oliver's skeleton, and the face of Giles Winterbourne brought Grace Melbury to the morning of the next day. It was fine. A north wind was blowing, that not unacceptable compromise between the atmospheric cutlery of the eastern blast and the spongy gales of the west quarter. She looked from her window in the direction of the light of the previous evening, and could just discern through the trees the shape of the surgeon's house. Somehow, in the broad practical daylight, that unknown and lonely gentleman seemed to be shorn of much of the interest which had invested his personality and pursuits in the hours of darkness, and, as Grace's dressing proceeded, he faded from her mind.

Meanwhile, Winterbourne, though half assured of her father's favor, was rendered a little restless by Miss Melbury's behavior. Despite his dry self-control, he could not help looking continually from his own door towards the timber merchants, in the probability of somebody's emerging therefrom. His attention was at length justified by the appearance of two figures, that of Melbury himself and Grace beside him. They stepped out in a direction towards the densest quarter of the wood, and Winterbourne walked contemplatively behind them, till all three were soon under the trees. Although the time of bare boughs had now set in, there were sheltered hollows amid the Hintock plantations and copses, in which a more tardy leave-taking than on windy summits was the rule with the foliage.

This caused here and there an apparent mixture of the seasons, so that in some of the dells that they passed by, hollyberries in full red were found growing, beside oak and hazel, whose leaves were as yet not far removed from green, and brambles, whose verdure was rich and deep, as in the month of August. To grace, these well-known peculiarities were as an old painting restored. Now could be beheld that change from the handsome to the curious which the features of a wood undergo at the ingress of the winter months. Angles were taking the place of curves and reticulations of surfaces, a change constituting a sudden lapse from the ornate to the primitive on nature's canvas, and comparable to a retrogressive step From the art of an advanced school of painting to that of the Pacific Islander.

Winterbourne followed, and kept his eye upon the two figures as they threaded their way through these sylvan phenomena. Mr. Melbury's long legs and gaiters drawn up to the bone at the ankles, his slight stoop, his habit of getting lost in thought, and arousing himself with an exclamation of, Ha! Accompanied with an upward jerk of the head composed a personage recognizable by his neighbors as far as he could be seen. It seemed as if the squirrels and birds knew him. One of the former would occasionally run from the path to hide behind the arm of some tree, which the little animal carefully edged around, pari passu, with Melbury and his daughter's movement onward, assuming a mock manner, as though he were saying, Ho, ho, you are only a timber merchant and carry no gun.

They went noiselessly over mats of starry moss, rustled through interspersed tracts of leaves, skirted trunks with spreading roots, whose mossed rinds made them like hands wearing green gloves, elbowed old elms and ashes with great forks, in which stood pools of water that overflowed on rainy days, and ran down their stems in green cascades. On older trees still than these, huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here, as everywhere, the unfulfilled intention which makes life what it is was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled, the taper was uninterrupted, the lichen eat the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.

They dived amid beaches under which nothing grew, The younger boughs still retaining their hectic leaves that rustled in the breeze with a sound almost metallic, like the sheet-iron foliage of the fabled Jarnvid wood. Some flecks of white in Grace's drapery had enabled Giles to keep her and her father in view till this time. But now he lost sight of them, and was obliged to follow by ear. No difficult matter, for on the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches with well-nigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this noise he soon came to a stile. Was it worthwhile to go further? He examined the doughy soil at the foot of the stile, and saw among the large sole and heel tracks an impression of a slighter kind from a boot that was obviously not local, for Winterbourne knew all the cobbler's patterns in that district, because there were very few to know.

The mud-picture was enough to make him swing himself over and proceed. The character of the woodland now changed. The bases of the smaller trees were nibbled bare by rabbits, And at divers points, heaps of fresh-made chips and the newly-cut stool of a tree, stirred white through the undergrowth. There had been a large fall of timber this year, which explained the meaning of some sounds that soon reached him. A voice was shouting intermittently, in a sort of human bark, which reminded Giles that there was a sale of trees and faggots that very day. Melbury would naturally be present. Thereupon Winterbourne remembered that he himself wanted a few faggots, and entered upon the scene. A large group of buyers stood round the auctioneer, or followed him when, between his pauses, he wandered on from one lot of plantation produce to another, like some philosopher of the peripatetic school, delivering his lectures in the shady groves of the Lyceum.

His companions were timber dealers, yeomen, farmers, villagers, and others, mostly woodland men, who on that account could afford to be curious in their walking-sticks, which consequently exhibited various monstrosities of vegetation, the chief being corkscrew shapes in black-and-white thorn, brought to that pattern by the slow torture of an encircling woodbine during their growth, as the Chinese have been said to mold human beings into grotesque toys by continued compression in infancy. Two women wearing men's jackets and their gowns conducted in the rear of the halting procession a pony-cart containing a tapped barrel of beer, from which they drew and replenished horns that were handed round with bread and cheese from a basket.

The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances by using his walking-stick as a hammer, and knocked down the lot on any convenient object that took his fancy, such as the crown of a little boy's head, or the shoulders of a bystander who had no business there except to taste the brew. A proceeding which would have been deemed humorous, but for the air of stern rigidity which that auctioneer's face preserved, intending to show that the eccentricity was the result of that absence of mind which is engendered by the press of affairs, and no freak of fancy at all.

Mr. Melbury stood slightly apart from the rest of the peripatetics, and Grace, beside him, clinging closely to his arm, Her modern attire, looking almost odd where everything else was old-fashioned, and throwing over the familiar garniture of the trees, a homeliness that seemed to demand improvement by the addition of a few contemporary novelties also. Grace seemed to regard the selling with the interest which attaches to memories revived after an interval of obliviousness. Winterbourne went and stood close to them. The timber merchant spoke and continued his buying. Grace merely smiled. To justify his presence there, Winterbourne began bidding for timber and faggots that he did not want. Pursuing the occupation in an abstracted mood, in which the auctioneer's voice seemed to become one of the natural sounds of the woodland.

A few flakes of snow descended, at the sight of which a robin, alarmed at these signs of imminent winter, and seeing that no offense was meant by the human invasion, came and perched on the tip of the faggots that were being sold, and looked into the auctioneer's face while waiting for some chance crumb from the bread-basket. Standing a little behind Grace, Winterbourne observed how one flake would sail downward and settle on a curl of her hair, and how another would shoot her shoulder, and another the edge of her bonnet, Which took up so much of his attention that his biddings proceeded incoherently, and when the auctioneer said, every now and then with a nod towards him, "'Yours, Mr. Winterbourne?' He had no idea whether he had bought faggots, poles, or logwood.

He regretted with some causticity of humour that our father should show such inequalities of temperament as to keep Grace tightly on his arm to-day, when he had quite lately seemed anxious to recognise their betrothal as a fact. And thus musing, and joining in no conversation with other buyers except when directly addressed, he followed the assemblage hither and thither, till at the end of the auction, when Giles for the first time realized what his purchases had been. Hundreds of faggots and divers lots of timber had been set down to him, when all he had required had been a few bundles of spray for his odd man Robert Credle's use in baking and lighting fires. Business being over, he turned to speak to the timber-merchant, but Melbury's manner was short and distant, and Grace, too, looked vexed and reproachful.

Winterbourne then discovered that he had been unwittingly bidding against her father, and picking up his favoured lots in spite of him. With a very few words they left the spot and pursued their way homeward. Giles was extremely sorry at what he had done. and remained standing under the trees, all the other men having strayed silently away. He saw Melbury and his daughter pass down a glade without looking back. While they moved slowly through it, a lady appeared on horseback in the middle distance, the line of her progress converging upon that of Melbury's. They met. Melbury took off his hat, and she reined in her horse. A conversation was evidently in progress between Grace and her father and this equestrian.

In whom he was almost sure that he recognized Mrs. Charmond, less by her outline than by the livery of the groom, who had halted some yards off. The interlocutors did not part till after a prolonged pause, during which time much seemed to be said. When Melbury and Grace resumed their walk, it was with something of a lighter tread than before. Winterbourne then pursued his own course homeward. He was unwilling to let coldness grow up between himself and the Melburys for any trivial reason, and in the evening he went to their house. On drawing near the gate, his attention was attracted by the sight of one of the bedrooms blinking into a state of illumination. In it stood Grace, lighting several candles, her right hand elevating the taper, her left hand on her bosom, Her face thoughtfully fixed on each wick as it kindled, as if she saw, in every flame's growth, the rise of a life to maturity.

He wondered what such unusual brilliancy could mean to-night. On getting indoors, he found her father and stepmother in a state of suppressed excitement, which, at first, he could not comprehend. "'I am sorry about my biddings to-day,' said Giles. "'I don't know what I was doing.' I have come to say that any of the lots you may require are yours. Oh, never mind, never mind, replied the timber-merchant with a slight wave of his hand. I have so much else to think of that I nearly forgot it. Just now, too, there are matters of a different kind from trade to attend to, so don't let it concern you. As the timber-merchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a higher moral plane than his own, Giles turned to Mrs.

Melbury. Grace is going to the house tomorrow, she said quietly. She is looking out her things now. I dare say she is wanting me this minute to assist her. Thereupon Mrs. Melbury left the room. Nothing is more remarkable than the independent personality of the tongue now and then. Mr. Melbury knew that his words had been a sort of boast. He decried boasting, particularly to Giles, yet, whenever the subject was grace, his judgment resigned the ministry of speech in spite of him.

Winterbourne felt surprise, pleasure, and also a little apprehension at the news. He repeated Mrs. Melbury's words. "'Yes,' said parental pride. Not sorry to have dragged out of him what he could not in any circumstances have kept in. Coming home from the woods this afternoon, we met Mrs. Charmond, out for a ride. She spoke to me on a little matter of business, and then got acquainted with Grace. It was wonderful how she took to Grace in a few minutes. That Freemasonry of education made him close at once. Naturally enough, she was amazed that such an article could come out of my house. At last it led to Mrs. Grace being asked to the house, so she's busy hunting up her frills and furbelows to go in.

As Giles remained in thought without responding, Melbury continued, but I'll call her downstairs. No, no, don't do that, since she's busy, said Winterbourne. Melbury, feeling from the young man's manner that his own talk had been too much at Giles and too little to him, repented at once. His face changed, and he said in lower tones with an effort, "'She's yours, Giles, as far as I'm concerned. "'Thanks, my best thanks. "'But I think, since it's all right between us about the biddings, "'that I'll not interrupt her now. "'I'll step homeward and call another time.' On leaving the house, he looked up at the bedroom again. Grace, surrounded by a sufficient number of candles to answer all purposes of self-criticism, was standing before a cheval glass that her father had lately bought especially for her use.

She was bonneted, cloaked, and gloved, and glanced over her shoulder into the mirror, estimating her aspect. Her face was lit with the natural elation of a young girl hoping to inaugurate on the morrow an intimate acquaintance with a new, interesting, and powerful friend.

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The inspiriting appointment which had led Grace Melbury to indulge in a six-candle illumination for the arrangement of her attire carried her over the ground the next morning with a springy tread. Her sense of being properly appreciated on her own native soil seemed to brighten the atmosphere and herbage around her, as the glowworm's lamp irradiates the grass. Thus she moved along, a vessel of emotion going to empty itself, and she knew not what. Twenty minutes' walking through copses, over a stile, and along an upland lawn, brought her to the verge of a deep glen, at the bottom of which Hintock House appeared immediately beneath her eye. To describe it as standing in a hollow would not express the situation of the manor-house.

It stood in a hole, notwithstanding that the hole was full of beauty. From the spot which Grace had reached, a stone could easily have been thrown over or into the birds-nested chimneys of the mansion. Its walls were surmounted by a battlement parapet, but the grey-lead roofs were quite visible behind it, with their gutters, laps, rolls, and skylights, together with incised letterings and shoe patterns cut by idlers thereon. The front of the house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation of Elizabethan windows, mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-coloured free stone from local quarries. The ashter of the walls, where not overgrown with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of every shade, intensifying its luxuriance with its nearness to the ground.

Till below the plinth it merged in moss. Above the house to the back was a dense plantation, the roots of whose trees were above the level of the chimneys. The corresponding high ground on which Grace stood was richly grassed with only an old tree here and there. A few sheep lay about which, as they ruminated, looked quietly into the bedroom windows. The situation of the house, prejudicial to humanity, was a stimulus to vegetation, on which account an endless shearing of the heavy-armed ivy was necessary, and a continual lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice built in times when human constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter from the boisterous was all that men thought of in choosing a dwelling-place, the insidious being beneath their notice.

And its hollow sight was an ocular reminder, by its unfitness for modern lives, of the fragility to which these have declined. The highest architectural cunning could have done nothing to make Hintock House dry and salubrious, and ruthless ignorance could have done little to make it unpicturesque. It was vegetable nature's own home, a spot to inspire the painter and poet of still life, If they did not suffer too much from the relaxing atmosphere, and to draw groans from the gregariously disposed. Grace descended the green escarpment by a zigzag path into the drive, which swept round beneath the slope. The exterior of the house had been familiar to her from childhood, but she had never been inside, and the approach to knowing an old thing in a new way was a lively experience.

It was with a little flutter that she was shown in. But she recollected that Mrs. Charmond would probably be alone. Up to a few days before this time, that lady had been accompanied in her comings, stayings, and goings by a relative, believed to be her aunt. Latterly, however, these two ladies had separated, owing, it was supposed, to a quarrel, and Mrs. Charmond had been left desolate. Being presumably a woman who did not care for solitude, this deprivation might possibly account for her sudden interest in grace.

Mrs. Charmond was at the end of a gallery, opening from the hall when Miss Melbury was announced, and saw her through the glass doors between them. She came forward with a smile on her face, and told the young girl it was good of her to come. "'Ah, you have noticed those,' she said, seeing that Grace's eyes were attracted by some curious objects against the walls. "'They are man-traps.' My husband was a connoisseur in man-traps and spring-guns and such articles, collecting them from all his neighbors. He knew the histories of all these, which gin had broken a man's leg, which gun had killed a man, That one, I remember his saying, had been set by a gamekeeper in the track of a notorious poacher, but the keeper, forgetting what he had done, went that way himself, received a charge into the lower part of his body, and died of the wound.

I don't like them here, but I've never yet given directions for them to be taken away. She added playfully, Man-traps are of rather ominous significance where a person of our sex lives, are they not? Grace was bound to smile, but that side of woman in this was one which her inexperience had no great zest in contemplating. They are interesting, no doubt, as relics of a barbarous time happily past, she said, looking thoughtfully at the varied designs of these instruments of torture, some with semicircular jaws, some with rectangular, most of them with long, sharp teeth, but a few with none, so that their jaws looked like the blank gums of old age. Well, we must not take them too seriously," said Mrs.

Charmond, with an indolent turn of her head, and they moved on inward.

When she had shown her visitor different articles in cabinets that she had deemed likely to interest her—some tapestries, wood-carvings, ivories, miniatures, and so on—always with a mien of listlessness, which might either have been unconstitutional or partly owing to the situation of the place, they sat down to an early cup of tea. "'Will you pour it out, please?' "'Do,' she said, leaning back in her chair, and placing her hand above her forehead, while her almond eyes—those long eyes so common in the angelic legions of early Italian art—became longer, and her voice more languishing. She showed that oblique-mannered softness which is perhaps most frequent in women of darker complexion, and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs.

Charman's was, who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak them. who inveigle rather than prompt, and take advantage of currents rather than steer. "'I am the most inactive woman when I am here,' she said. "'I think sometimes I was born to live and do nothing—nothing but float about, as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams. But that cannot be really my destiny, and I must struggle against such fancies.' "'I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion. It is quite sad.' I wish I could tend you and make you very happy. There was something so sympathetic, so appreciative in the sound of Grace's voice, that it impelled people to play havoc with their customary reservations and talking to her.

"'It is tender and kind of you to feel that,' said Mrs. Charmond. "'Perhaps I have given you the notion that my languor is more than it really is. But this place oppresses me, and I have a plan for going abroad a good deal. I used to go with a relative.' But that arrangement has dropped through. Regarding Grace, with a final glance of criticism, she seemed to make up her mind to consider the young girl satisfactory, and continued, Now I am often impelled to record my impressions of times and places. I have often thought of writing a new sentimental journey, but I cannot find energy enough to do it alone. When I am in different places in the south of Europe, I feel a crowd of ideas and fancies thronging upon me continually.

But to unfold writing materials, take up a cold steel pen, and put these impressions down systematically on cold, smooth paper—that I cannot do. So I have thought that if I could always have somebody at my elbow with whom I am in sympathy, I might dictate any ideas that come into my head. And directly I had made your acquaintance the other day. It struck me that you would suit me so well. Would you like to undertake it? You might read to me, too, if desirable. Will you think it over, and ask your parents if they are willing? Oh, yes," said Grace. I am almost sure they would be very glad. You are so accomplished, I hear. I should be quite honored by such intellectual company. Grace, modestly blushing, deprecated any such idea.

Do you keep up your lucubrations at Little Hintock? Oh, no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock, but they are not carried on by me. What? Another student in that retreat. There is a surgeon come lately, and I have heard that he reads a great deal. I see his lights sometimes through the trees late at night. Oh, yes, the doctor. I believe I was told of him. It is a strange place for him to settle in. It is a convenient centre for practice, they say, but he does not confine his studies to medicine, it seems. He investigates theology and metaphysics and all sorts of subjects. What is his name? Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe. The Fitzpierses, of Buckbury Fitzpiers, not a great many miles from here.

I am not sufficiently local to know the history of the family. I was never in the county till my husband brought me here. Mrs. Sharman did not care to pursue this line of investigation. Whatever mysterious merit might attach to family antiquity, it was one which, though she herself could claim it, her adaptable, wandering, Veldberger-like nature, had grown tired of caring about—a peculiarity that made her a contrast to her neighbours. "'It is of rather more importance to know what the man is himself than what his family is,' she said, "'if he is going to practise upon us as a surgeon. Have you seen him?' Grace had not. "'I think he is not a very old man,' she added. "'Has he a wife?' "'I am not aware that he has.' "'Well, I hope he will be useful here.' I must get to know him when I come back.

It will be very convenient to have a medical man, if he is clever, in one's own parish. I get dreadfully nervous sometimes living in such an outlandish place, and Sherton is so far to send to. No doubt you feel Hintock to be a great change after Watering Place life. I do, but it is home. It has its advantages and its disadvantages. Grace was thinking less of the solitude than of the attendant circumstances. They chatted on for some time, Grace being quite set at her ease by her entertainer. Mrs. Charmond was far too well practised a woman not to know that to show a marked patronage to a sensitive young girl who would probably be very quick to discern it was to demolish her dignity, rather than to establish it in a young girl's eyes.

So, being violently possessed with her idea in making use of this gentle acquaintance, ready and waiting at her own door, She took great pains to win her confidence at starting. Just before Grace's departure, the two chanced to pause before a mirror which reflected their faces in immediate juxtaposition, so as to bring into prominence their resemblances and their contrasts. Both looked attractive, as glassed back by the fateful reflector, but Grace's countenance had the effect of making Mrs. Charmance appear more than her full age. There are complexions which set off each other to great advantage, and there are those which antagonize the one killing or damaging its neighbor unmercifully. This was unhappily the case here.

Mrs. Charmon fell into meditation, and replied abstractedly to her cursory remark of her companion's. However, she parted from her young friend in the kindliest tones, promising to send and let her know as soon as her mind was made up on the arrangement she had suggested. When Grace had ascended nearly to the top of the adjoining slope, she looked back and saw that Mrs. Sharman still stood at the door, meditatively regarding her. Often during the previous night, after his call on the Melburys, Winterbourne's thought ran upon Grace's announced visit to Hintock House. Why could he not have proposed to walk with her part of the way? Something told him that she might not, on such an occasion, care for his company.

He was still more of that opinion when, standing in his garden next day, he saw her go past on the journey with such a pretty pride in the event.

He wondered if her father's ambition, which had purchased for her the means of intellectual light and culture far beyond those of any other native in the village, would conduce to the flight of her future interests above and away from the local life which was once to her the movement of the world. Nevertheless, he had her father's permission to win her if he could, and to this end it became desirable to bring matters soon to a crisis, if he ever hoped to do so. If she should think herself too good for him, he could let her go and make the best of his loss, but until he had really tested her he could not say that she despised his suit. The question was how to quicken events towards an issue. He thought and thought, and at last decided that as good a way as Annie would be to give a Christmas party, and ask Grace and her parents to come as chief guests.

These ruminations were occupying him when there became audible a slight knocking at his front door. He descended the path, and looked out, and beheld Marty South dressed for outdoor work. "'Why didn't you come, Mr. Winterbourne?' she said. "'I've been waiting there hours and hours, and at last I thought I must try to find you.' And bless my soul, I quite forgot. said Giles. What he had forgotten was that there were a thousand young fir-trees to be planted in a neighbouring spot which had been cleared by the woodcutters, and that he had arranged to plant them with his own hands. He had a marvellous power of making trees grow. Although he would seem to shovel in the earth quite carelessly, there was a sort of sympathy between himself and the fir, oak, or beech that he was operating on, so that the roots took hold of the soil in a few days.

When, on the other hand, any of the journeymen planted, although they seemed to go through an identically similar process, one quarter of the trees would die away during the ensuing August. Hence, Winterbourne found a light in the work, even when, as at present, he contracted to do so on portions of the woodland in which he had no personal interest. Marty, who turned her hand to anything, was usually the one who performed the part of keeping the trees in a perpendicular position while he threw in the mould. He accompanied her towards the spot, being stimulated yet further to proceed with the work by the knowledge that the ground was close to the wayside along which Grace must pass on her return from Hintock House.

"'You've a cold in the head, Marty,' he said as they walked. "'That comes from cutting off your hair.' I suppose it do. Yes, I've three headaches going on in my head at the same time. Three headaches? Yes, a rheumatic headache in my poll, a sick headache over my eyes, and a misery headache in the middle of my brain. However, I came out, for I thought you might be waiting and grumbling like anything if I was not there. The holes were already dug, and they set to work. Winterbourne's fingers were endowed with a gentle, conjurer's touch in spreading the roots of each little tree, resulting in a sort of caress, under which the delicate fibers all lay themselves out in their proper directions for growth.

He put most of these roots towards the southwest, for, he said, in 40 years' time, when some great gale is blowing from that quarter, the trees will require the strongest holdfast on that side to stand against it and not fall. "'How they sigh directly we put them upright, though while they're lying down they don't sigh at all,' said Marty. "'Do they?' said Giles. "'I never noticed it.' She erected one of the young pines into its hole, and held up her finger. The soft, musical breathing instantly set in, which was not to cease night or day until the grown tree should be felled, probably long after the two planters should be felled themselves. "'It seems to me—' The girl continued, as if they sigh because they are very sorry to begin life in earnest, just as we be.

Just as we be? He critically looked at her. You ought not to feel like that, Marty. Her only reply was turning to take up the next tree, and they planted on through the great part of the day, almost without another word. Winterbourne's mind. Ran on his contemplated evening party, his abstraction being such that he hardly was conscious of Marty's presence beside him. From the nature of their employment, in which he handled the spade and she merely held the tree, it followed that he got good exercise and she got none. But she was an heroic girl, and though her outstretched hand was chill as a stone and her cheeks blue and her cold worse than ever, she would not complain while he was disposed to continue work.

But when he paused, she said, Mr. Winterbourne, can I run down the lane and back to warm my feet? Why, yes, of course, he said, awakening anew to her existence. Though I was just thinking what a mild day it is for the season. Now, I warrant that cold of yours is twice as bad as it was. You had no business to chop that hair off, Marty. It serves you almost right. Look here. Cut off home at once. A run down the lane'll be quite enough. No, it won't. You ought not to have come out to-day at all. But I should like to finish the—Marty, I tell you, go home, he said peremptorily. I can manage to keep the rest of them upright with a stick or something. She went away without saying any more. When she had gone down the orchard a little distance, she looked back.

Giles suddenly went after her. Marty, it was for your own good that I was rough, you know. But warm yourself in your own way. I don't care.

When she had run off, he fancied he discerned a woman's dress through the holly-bushes, which divided the coppice from the road. It was Grace, at last, on her way back from the interview with Mrs. Charmond. He threw down the tree he was planting, and was about to break through the belt of holly when he suddenly became aware of the presence of another man, who was looking over the hedge on the opposite side of the way upon the figure of the unconscious Grace. He appeared as a handsome and gentlemanly personage of six or eight-and-twenty, and was quizzing her through an eye-glass. Seeing that Winterbourne was noticing him, he let the glass drop with a click upon the rail which protected the hedge, and walked away in the opposite direction.

Giles knew in a moment that this must be Mr. Fitzpiers. When he was gone, Winterbourne pushed through the hollies and emerged close beside the interesting object of their contemplation.

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I heard the bushes move long before I saw you, she began. I said first, it is some terrible beast. Next, it is a poacher. Next, it is a friend. He regarded her with a slight smile. weighing, not her speech, but the question whether he should tell her that she had been watched. He decided in the negative. "'You have been to the house,' he said, "'but I need not ask.' The fact was that there shone upon Miss Melbury's face a species of exultation, which saw no environing details, nor his own occupation, nothing more than his bare presence. "'Why need you not ask?' Your face is like the face of Moses when he came down from the mount. She reddened a little and said, "'How can you be so profane, Giles Winterbourne?

"'How can you think so much of that class of people? "'Well, I beg pardon. "'I didn't mean to speak so freely. "'How do you like her house and her?' "'Exceedingly. "'I had not been inside the wall since I was a child, "'when it used to be let to strangers, "'before Mrs. Sharman's late husband bought the property. "'She's so nice. And Grace fell into such an abstracted gaze at the imaginary image of Mrs. Charmond and her niceness that it almost conjured up a vision of that lady in midair before them. She has only been here a month or two, it seems, and cannot stay much longer, because she finds it so lonely and damp in winter. She's going abroad. Only think she would like me to go with her. Giles's features stiffened a little at the news.

Indeed? What for? But I can't keep you standing here. "'Hoy, Robert!' he cried to a swaying collection of clothes in the distance, which was the figure of Creedle, his man. "'Go on filling in there till I come back. "'I'm a-coming, sir. I'm a-coming.' "'Well, the reason is this,' continued she as they went on together. Mrs. Charmant has a delightful side to her character. A desire to record her impressions of travel, like Alexander Dumas, and Marie, and Stern, and others. But she cannot find energy enough to do it herself, and Grace proceeded to explain Mrs. Charman's proposal at large. "'My notion is that Marie's style would suit her best, because he writes in that soft, emotional, luxurious way she has,' said Grace musingly.

"'Indeed,' said Winterbourne, with mock awe. Suppose you talk over my head a little longer, Miss Grace Melbury. "'Oh, I didn't mean it,' she said repentantly, looking into his eyes. "'And as for myself, I hate French books, and I love dear old Hintock and the people in it fifty times better than all the continent. But the scheme—I think it an enchanting notion, don't you, Giles?' "'It is well enough in one sense, but it will take you on away,' he said, mollified. Only for a short time. We should return in May. Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for your father. Winterbourne walked with her nearly to her house. He had awaited her coming, mainly with the view of mentioning to her his proposal to have a Christmas party.

But homely Christmas gatherings in the venerable and jovial Hintock style seemed so primitive and uncouth beside the lofty manners of her converse and thought that he refrained. As soon as she was gone, he turned back towards the scene of his planting, and could not help saying to himself as he walked that this engagement of his was a very unpromising business. Her outing to-day had not improved it. A woman who could go to Hintock House and be friendly with its mistress, enter into the views of its mistress, talk like her, and dress not much unlike her. Why, She would hardly be content with him, a yeoman, now immersed in tree-planting, even though he planted them well. And yet she is a true-hearted girl, he said, thinking of her words about Hintock.

I must bring matters to a point, and there's an end of it.

When he reached the plantation he found that Marty had come back, and, dismissing Credle, he went on planting silently with the girl as before. Suppose Marty— He said after a while, looking at her extended arm, upon which old scratches from briers show themselves purple in the cold wind. Suppose you know a person, and want to bring that person to a good understanding with you. Do you think a Christmas party of some sort is a warming-up thing, and likely to be useful in hastening on the matter? Is there to be dancing? There might be, certainly. Will he dance with she? Well, yes. Then it might bring things to a head, one way or the other. I won't be the one to say which. It shall be done, said Winterbourne, not to her, though he spoke the words quite loudly.

And as the day was nearly ended, he added, Here, Marty, I'll send the man up to plant the rest tomorrow. I've other things to think of just now. She did not inquire what other things, for she had seen him walking with Grace Melbury. She looked towards the western sky, which was now aglow like some vast foundry wherein new worlds were being cast. Across it the bare bough of a tree stretched horizontally, revealing every twig against the red, and showing in dark profile every beck and movement of three pheasants that were settling themselves down on it in a row to roost. "'It'll be fine tomorrow,' said Marty, observing them with the vermilion light of the sun in the pupils of her eyes. For they are accrooped down nearly at the end of the bow.

If it were going to be stormy, they'd squeeze close to the trunk. The weather is almost all they have to think of, isn't it, Mr. Winterbourne? And so they must be lighter-hearted than we. I dare say they are, said Winterbourne. Before taking a single step in the preparations, Winterbourne, with no great hopes, went across that evening to the timber merchants to ascertain if Grace and her parents would honor him with their presence. Having first to set his nightly gins in the garden to catch the rabbits that ate his winter greens, his call was delayed till just after the rising of the moon, whose rays reached the Hintock houses but fitfully as yet on account of the trees. Melbury was crossing his yard, on his way to call on someone at the larger village, but he readily turned and walked up and down the path with the young man.

Giles, in his self-deprecatory sense of living, on a much smaller scale than the Melburys did, would not for the world imply that his invitation was to a gathering of any importance. So he put it in the mild form of, Can you come in for an hour, when you have done business, the day after tomorrow, and Mrs. and Miss Melbury, if they have nothing more pressing to do? Melbury would give no answer at once. "'No, I can't tell you to-day,' he said. "'I must talk it over with the women. "'As far as I am concerned, my dear Giles, "'you know I'll come with pleasure. "'But how do I know what Grace's notions may be? "'You see, she has been away among cultivated folks a good while, "'and now this acquaintance with Mrs.

Charmond. "'Well, I'll ask her. "'I can say no more.' "'When Winterbourne was gone, the timber-merchant went on his way. He knew very well that Grace, whatever her own feelings, would either go or not go according as he suggested, and his instinct was, for the moment, to suggest the negative. His errand took him past the church, and the way to his destination was either across the churchyard or alongside it, the distances being the same. For some reason or other he chose the former way. The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones and the path and the front of the building. Suddenly Mr. Melbury paused, turned in upon the grass, and approached a particular headstone, where he read, in memory of John Winterbourne, with the subjoined date and age.

It was the grave of Giles's father. The timber merchant laid his hand upon the stone, and was humanized. "'Jack, my wronged friend,' he said. "'I'll be faithful to my plan of making amends to ee.' When he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. Melbury, who were working at a little table by the fire, "'Giles wants us to go and spend an hour with him the day after tomorrow, and I'm thinking, as tis Giles who asks us, we'll go.' They assented without demure, and accordingly the timber merchant sent Giles the next morning an answer in the affirmative.

Winterbourne, in his modesty or indifference, had mentioned no particular hour in his invitation, and accordingly Mr. Melbury and his family, expecting no other guests, chose their own time, which chanced to be rather early in the afternoon, by reason of the somewhat quicker dispatch than usual of the timber-merchant's business that day. To show their sense of the unimportance of the occasion, they walked quite slowly to the house, as if they were merely out for a ramble and going to nothing special at all. Or, at most, intending to pay a casual call and take a cup of tea. At this hour, stir and bustle pervaded the interior of Winterbourne's domicile from cellar to Apple-Loft. He had planned an elaborate high tea for six o'clock or thereabouts, and a good roaring supper to come on about eleven.

Being a bachelor of rather retiring habits, the whole of the preparations devolved upon himself and his trusty man and familiar Robert Creedle, who did everything that required doing, from making Giles's bed to catching moles in his field. He was a survival from the days when Giles's father held the homestead, and Giles was a playing boy. These two, with a certain dilatoriousness which appertained to both, were now in the heat of preparation in the bakehouse, expecting nobody before six o'clock. Winterburne was standing before the brick oven in his shirt sleeves, tossing in thorn sprays and stirring about the blazing mass with a long-handled, three-pronged Beelzebub kind of fork. The heat shining out upon his streaming face and making his eyes like furnaces, the thorns crackling and sputtering, while Credle, having ranged the pastry dishes in a row on the table till the oven should be ready, was pressing out the crust of a final apple pie with a rolling pin.

A great pot boiled on the fire, and through the open door of the back kitchen a boy was seen seated on the fender, emptying the snuffers and scouring the candlesticks, and a row of the latter standing upside down on the hob to melt out the grease. Looking up from the rolling-pin, Creedle saw passing the window, first the timber-merchant in his second-best suit, Mrs. Melbury in her best silk, and Grace, in the fashionable attire which, in part, brought home with her from the continent, she had worn on her visit to Mrs. Charmonds. The eyes of the three had been attracted to the proceedings within by the fierce illumination which the oven threw out upon the operators and their utensils. Lord, Lord, if they bain't come already, said Creedle.

No, hey, said Giles, looking around aghast. While the boy in the background waved a reeking candlestick in his delight. As there was no help for it, Winterbourne went to meet them in the doorway. "'My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake in the time,' said the timber-merchant's wife, her face lengthening with concern. "'Oh, it's not much difference. I hope you'll come in.' "'But this means a regular rendezvous,' said Mr. Melbury, accusingly, glancing around and pointing towards the bakehouse with a stick. Well, yes, said Giles. And not great Hintock Band, and dancing, surely? I told three of them they might drop in if they had nothing else to do, Giles mildly admitted. Now why the name didn't you tell us that there was going to be a serious kind of thing before?

How should I know what folk mean if they don't say? Now shall we come in, or shall we go home and come back along in a couple of hours? I hope you'll stay, if you'll be so good as not to mind, now you are here. I shall have it all right and tidy in a very little time. I ought not to have been so backward. Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of his undemonstrative temperament, for he feared that if the Melburys once were back in their own house, they would not be disposed to turn out again. "'Tis we ought not to have been so forward, that's what tis," said Mr. Melbury testily. Don't keep us here in the sitting-room. Lead us on to the bakehouse, man. Now we're all here, we'll help you get ready for the rest.

Here, missus, take off your things and help him out in his baking, or he won't get it done tonight. I'll finish heating the oven and set you free to go and skiver up them ducks. His eye had passed with pitiless directness of criticism into yet remote recesses of Winterbourne's awkwardly built premises, where the aforesaid birds were hanging. And I'll help finish the tarts. said Grace cheerfully. "'I don't know about that,' said her father. "'It isn't quite so much in your line as it is in your mother-in-law's and mine.' "'Of course I couldn't let you, Grace,' said Giles, with some distress. "'I'll do it, of course,' said Mrs. Melbury, taking off her silk train, hanging it up to a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves, pinning them to her shoulders, and stripping Giles of his apron for her own use.

So Grace pottered idly about. While her father and his wife helped in the preparations. A kindly pity of his household management, which Winterbourne saw in her eyes whenever he caught them, depressed him much more than her contempt would have done. Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while, when each of the others was absorbed in the difficulties of a cuisine based on utensils, cupboards, and provisions that were strange to them. He groaned to the young man in a whisper. This is a brookal het master, I'm much afeard, who'd a thought they'd come so soon. The bitter placidity of Winterbourne's look adumbrated the misgivings he did not care to express. Have you got the celery ready? He asked quickly.

Now, that's a thing I never could mind. No, not if you'd paid me in silver and gold. And I don't care who the man is. I say that a stick of celery that isn't scrubbed with a scrubbing brush is not clean. Very well, very well, I'll attend to it. You go and get them comfortable indoors. He hastened to the garden, and soon returned, tossing the stalks to Creedle, who was still in a tragic mood. If you'd a married, do you see, master? He said, this cattle wouldn't a happen to us. Everything being at last under way, the oven set and all done that could ensure the supper turning up ready at some time or other, Giles and his friends entered the parlour, where the Melburys again dropped into position as guests, though the room was not nearly so warm and cheerful as the blazing bakehouse.

Others now arrived, among them Farmer Bawtree and the Hollow Turner, and tea went off very well. Grace's disposition to make the best of everything, and to wink at deficiencies in Winterbourne's menage, was so uniform and persistent that he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies than he was aware of. That suppressed sympathy which had showed in her face ever since her arrival told him as much too plainly. "'This muddling style of housekeeping is what you've not lately been used to, I suppose,' he said when they were a little apart. "'No, but I like it. It reminds me so pleasantly that everything here in dear old Hintock is just as it used to be. The oil is not quite nice, but everything else is.' "'The oil?' On the chairs, I mean, because it gets on one's dress.

Still, mine is not a new one. Giles found that Creedle, in his zeal to make things look bright, had smeared the chairs with some greasy kind of furniture polish, and refrained from rubbing it dry in order not to diminish the mirror-like effect that the mixture produced as laid on. Giles apologized, and called Creedle, but he felt that the fates were against him.

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Supper-time came, and with it the hot-bake from the oven laid on a snowy cloth fresh from the press and reticulated with folds, as in Flemish last suppers. Creedle and the boy fetched and carried with amazing alacrity, the latter, to mollify his superior and make things pleasant, expressing his admiration of Creedle's cleverness when they were alone. I suppose the time when you learned all those known things, Mr. Creedle, was when you was in the militia. Well, yes, I see the world at that time somewhat, certainly, and many ways of strange, dash of life. Not but that Giles has worked hard in helping me to bring things to such perfection to-day. Giles, says I, though he's master. Not that I should call him master by rights, for his father growed up side by side with me, as if one mother had twinned us and been our nourishing.

I suppose your memory can reach a long way back into history, Mr. Creedle. Ah, yes, ancient days, when there was battles and famines and hangfares and other pomps. Seemed to me as yesterday. Ah, many's a patriarch of seeing come and go in this parish. There, he's calling for more plates. Lord, why can't un turn their plates bottom up with for pudding, as they used to do in former days? Meanwhile in the adjoining room, Giles was presiding in a half-unconscious state. He could not get over the initial failures in his scheme for advancing his suit, and hence he did not know that he was eating mouthfuls of bread and nothing else, and continually snuffing the two candles next to him till he had reduced them to mere glimmers drowned in their own grease.

Creedle now appeared with a specially prepared dish, which he served by elevating the little three-legged pot that contained it, and tilting the contents into a dish, exclaiming simultaneously, Draw back, gentlemen and ladies, please. A splash followed. Grace gave a quick involuntary nod and blink, and put her handkerchief to her face.

"'Good heavens! What did you do that for, Creedle?' said Giles sternly, and jumping up. "'Tis how we do it when they bain't here, master,' mildly expostulated Creedle, in an aside audible to all the company. "'Well, yes, but—' replied Giles. He went over to Grace, and hoped none of it had gone into her eye. "'Oh, no,' she said. "'Only a sprinkle on my face. It was nothing.' "'Kiss it, and make it well,' gallantly observed Mr. Bawtree. Miss Melbury blushed. The timber-merchant said quickly, "'Oh, tis nothing. She must bear these little mishaps.' But there could be discerned in his face something which said, "'I ought to have foreseen this.' Giles himself, since the untoward beginning of the feast, had not quite liked to see Grace present.

He wished he had not asked such people as Bawtree and the Hollow Turner. He had done it in dearth of other friends, that the room might not appear empty. In his mind's eye, before the event, they had been the mere background or padding of the scene, but somehow, in reality, they were the most prominent personages there.

After supper they played cards, Bawtree and the Hollow Turner monopolizing the new packs, for an interminable game in which a lump of chalk was incessantly used. A game those two always played, wherever they were, taking a solitary candle and going to a private table in a corner, with the mien of persons bent on weighty matters. The rest of the company on this account were obliged to put up with old packs for their round game, that had been lying by in a drawer ever since the time that Giles's grandmother was alive.

Each card had a great stain in the middle of its back, produced by the touch of generations of damp and excited thumbs, now fleshless in the grave, and the kings and queens wore a decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an impecuniously throned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than real regal characters. Every now and then, the comparatively few remarks of the players at the round game were harshly intruded on by the measured jingle of farmer Bawtry and the hollow-turner from the back of the room. And I will hold a wager with you that all these marks are thirty-two. Accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table, then an exclamation, an argument, a dealing of the cards, then the commencement of the rhymes anew.

The timber-merchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied sense of weight in his words, and by praising the party in a patronizing tone, when Winterbourne expressed his fear that he and his were not enjoying themselves. Oh, yes, yes, pretty much. What handsome glasses those are! I didn't know you had such glasses in the house. Now, Lucy, to his wife, you ought to get some like them for ourselves. And when they had abandoned cards and Winterbourne was talking to Melbury by the fire, it was the timber-merchant who stood with his back to the mantel in a proprietary attitude, from which post of vantage he critically regarded Giles as person, rather as a superficie than as a solid, with ideas and feelings inside it, saying, "'What a splendid coat that one is you have on, Giles.

I can't get such coats. You dress better than I!' After supper, There was a dance, the bandsmen from Great Hintock having arrived some time before. Grace had been away from home so long that she had forgotten the old figures, and hence did not join in the movement. Then Giles felt that it was all over. As for her, she was thinking, as she watched the gyrations, of a very different measure than she had been accustomed to tread with a bevy of sylph-like creatures and muslin in the music-room of a large house. Most of whom were now moving in scenes widely removed from this, both as regarded place and character. A woman she did not know came and offered to tell her fortune with the abandoned cards.

Grace assented to the proposal, and the woman told her tale unskilfully, for want of practice, as she declared. Mr. Melbury was standing by, and exclaimed contemptuously. Tell her fortune, indeed. Her fortune has been told by men of science—what do you call them—phrenologists. You can't teach her anything new. She's been too far among the wise ones to be astonished at anything she can hear among us folks in Hintock. At last the time came for breaking up. Melbury and his family being the earliest to leave, the two card players still pursuing their game doggedly in the corner, where they had completely covered Giles's mahogany table with chalk scratches. The three walked home, the distance being short and the night clear.

"'Well, Giles is a very good fellow,' said Mr. Melbury as they struck down the lane under boughs which formed a black filigree in which the stars seemed set. Certainly he is," said Grace quickly, and in such a tone as to show that he stood no lower, if no higher, in her regard than he had stood before. When there were opposite an opening through which, by day, the doctor's house could be seen, they observed a light in one of his rooms, although it was now about two o'clock. "'The doctor's not abed yet,' said Mrs. Melbury. "'Hard study, no doubt,' said her husband. One would think that, as he seems to have nothing to do about here by day, he could at least afford to go to bed early at night. It is astonishing how little we see of him.

Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after the scene of the evening. It is natural enough, he replied. What can a man of that sort find to interest him in Hintock? I don't expect he'll stay here long. His mind reverted to Giles's party, and when they were nearly home he spoke again, his daughter being a few steps in advance. It is hardly the line of life for a girl like Grace, after what she's been accustomed to. I didn't foresee that in sending her to boarding-school, and letting her travel and what not, to make her a good bargain for Giles, I should really be spoiling her for him. Ah, it is a thousand pities, but he ought to have her. He ought.

At this moment, the two exclusive chalk-mark men, having at last really finished their play, could be heard coming along in the rear, vociferously singing a song to march-time, and keeping vigorous step to the same in far-reaching strides. She may go, ho! She may go, ho! She may go to the devil for me. The timber-merchant turned indignantly to Mrs. Melbury. That's the sort of society we've been asked to meet. He said, "'For us old folk it didn't matter, but for Grace. Giles should have known better.' Meanwhile, in the empty house from which the guests had just cleared out, the subject of their discourse was walking from room to room, surveying the general displacement of furniture with no ecstatic feeling, rather the reverse indeed.

At last he entered the bakehouse, and found there Robert Creedle sitting over the embers, also lost in contemplation. Winterbourne sat down beside him. "'Well, Robert, you must be tired. You'd better get on to bed.' "'Aye, aye, Giles, what do I call you? Master, you would say. But tis well to think the day is done when tis done.' Winterbourne had abstractedly taken the poker, and with a wrinkled forehead was ploughing abroad the wood embers on the broad hearth, till it was like a vast scorching Sahara, with red-hot boulders lying about everywhere. "'Do you think it went off well, Creel?' he asked. "'The victuals did, that I know, and the drink did, that I steadfastly believe, from the holler sounds of the barrels.

Good honest drink twere, the headiest mead I ever brewed, and the best wine that berries could rise to, and the brinkest Horner and Cleves cider ever rung down, leaving out the spice and spirits I put into it.' While a egg-flip would have passed through muslin, so little curdled, twere. "'Twas good enough to make any king's heart merry. Aye, to make his whole carcass smile. Still, I don't deny that I'm afeard some things didn't go well with he and his." Creedle nodded in a direction which signified where the Melburys lived. "'I'm afraid, too, that it was a failure there. If so, twere doomed to be so.' Not but what that snail might as well have come upon anybody else's plate as hers. What snail?

Well, master, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when I brought it out, and so it must have been in her few leaves of wintergreen. How the deuce did a snail get there? That I don't know, no more than the dead. But there my gentleman was. But, Robert, of all places that was where he shouldn't have been, Well, does his native home come to that? And where else could we expect him to be? I don't care who the man is. Snails and caterpillars will always lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing way. He wasn't alive, I suppose, said Giles with a shudder on Grace's account. Oh, no, he was well-boiled. I warn't him well-boiled. God forbid that a live snail should be seed on any plate of victuals that's served by Robert Creedle.

But, Lord, there, I don't mind them myself, them small ones, for they was born on cabbage, and they've lived on cabbage, and so they must be made a cabbage. But she, the close-mouthed little lady, she didn't say a word about it, though to'd have made good small conversation as to the nature of such creatures, especially as wit ran short among us sometimes.

Oh, yes, it is all over, murmured Giles to himself, shaking his head over the glooming plain of embers, and liming his forehead more than ever. You know, Robert, he said, that she has been accustomed to servants and everything superfine these many years. How, then, could she stand our ways? Well, all I can say is, then, that she ought to hob and hob elsewhere. They shouldn't a schooler so monstrous high, or else Bacheramens shouldn't give Randleys, nor if they do give him, only to their own race. Perhaps that's true, said Winterbourne, rising and yawning a sigh.

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It is a pity, a thousand pities, her father kept saying next morning at breakfast, Grace being still in her bedroom. But how could he, with any self-respect, obstruct Winterbourne's suit at this stage, and nullify a scheme he had laboured to promote, and was indeed mechanically promoting at this moment? A crisis was approaching, mainly as a result of his contrivances, and it would have to be met.

But here was the fact which could not be disguised, since seeing what an immense change her last twelve months of absence had produced in his daughter, After the heavy sum per annum that he had been spending for several years upon her education, he was reluctant to let her marry Giles Winterbourne, indefinitely occupied as woodman, cider-merchant, apple-farmer, and what not, even were she willing to marry him herself. "'She will be his wife, if you don't upset her notion that she's bound to accept him as an understood thing,' said Mrs. Melbury. "'Bless she! She'll soon shake down here in Hintock, and be content with Giles's way of living.' Which he'll improve with what money she'll have from you.

"'Tis the strangeness after her genteel life that makes her feel uncomfortable at first. Why, when I saw Hintock the first time, I thought I never could like it. But things gradually get familiar, and stone floors seem not so very cold and hard, and the hooting of the owl is not so very dreadful, and loneliness is not so very lonely after a while. Yes, I believe you. That's just it. I know Grace will gradually sink down to our level again, and catch our manners and ways of speaking, and feel a drowsy content in being Giles's wife. But I can't bear the thought of dragging down to that old level as promising a piece of maidenhood as ever lived, if it to ornament a palace with, that I've taken so much trouble to lift up.

Fancy her white hands getting redder every day, and her tongue losing its pretty up-country curl and talking, and her bounden walk becoming the regular Hintock shale and Wamble. She may shale, but she'll never Wamble, replied his wife decisively. When Grace came downstairs, he complained of her lying in bed so late, not so much moved by a particular objection to that form of indulgence as discomposed by these other reflections. The corners of her pretty mouth dropped down a little. "'You used to complain with justice when I was a girl,' she said. "'But I am a woman now, and can judge for myself. But that is not it. It is something else.' Instead of sitting down, she went outside the door. He was sorry.

The petulance that relatives show towards each other is, in truth, directed against that intangible casualty which has shaped the situation, no less for the offenders than the offended. but is too elusive to be discerned and cornered by poor humanity in irritated mood.

Melbury followed her. She had rambled on to the paddock where the white frost lay, and where starlings and flocks of twenties and thirties were walking about, watched by a comfortable family of sparrows perched in a line along the string course of the chimney, preening themselves in the rays of the sun. Come in to breakfast, my girl. He said, and as to Giles, use your own mind. Whatever pleases you will please me. I am promised to him, father, and I cannot help thinking that in honor I ought to marry him, whenever I do marry. He had a strong suspicion that somewhere in the bottom of our heart there pulsed an old, simple, indigenous feeling favorable to Giles, though it had become overlaid with implanted tastes.

But he would not distinctly express his views on the promise. Very well, he said. But I hope I shan't lose you yet. Come in to breakfast. What did you think of the inside of Hintock House the other day? I liked it much. Different from friend Winterbourne's. She said nothing, but he who knew her was aware that she meant by her silence to reproach him, withdrawing cruel comparisons. Mrs. Charmonde asked you to come again. When did you say? She thought Tuesday, but would send the day before to let me know if it suited her. And with this subject upon their lips, they entered to breakfast.

Tuesday came, but no message from Mrs. Charmond, nor was there any on Wednesday. In brief, a fortnight slipped by without a sign, and it looked suspiciously as if Mrs. Charmond were not going further in the direction of taking up Grace at present. Her father reasoned thereon. Immediately after his daughter's two indubitable successes with Mrs. Charmond, the interview in the wood, and the visit to the house, she had attended Winterbourne's party. No doubt, the out-and-out joviality of that gathering had made it a topic in the neighbourhood, and that everyone at present as guests had been widely spoken of, Grace, with her exceptional qualities above all. What then, so natural that Mrs. Charmond should have heard the village news, and become quite disappointed in her expectations of grace at finding she kept such company?

Full of this post-hoc argument, Mr. Melbury overlooked the infinite throng of other possible reasons and unreasons for a woman changing her mind. For instance, while knowing that his grace was attractive, he quite forgot that Mrs. Charmond had also great pretensions to beauty. In his simple estimate, an attractive woman attracted all around. So it was settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the villagers at the unlucky Winterborn's was the cause of her most grievous loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of Hintock House. "'Tis a thousand pities," he would repeat to himself. "'I am ruining her for conscience' sake."

It was one morning later on, while these things were agitating his mind, that, curiously enough, something darkened the window just as they finished breakfast. Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted on horseback and straining his neck forward, as he had been doing for some time, to catch their attention through the window. Grace had been the first to see him, and involuntarily exclaimed, "'There he is! And a new horse!' On their faces, as they regarded Giles, were written their suspended thoughts and compound feelings concerning him. Could he have read them through those old panes? But he saw nothing. His features just now were, for a wonder, lit up with a red smile at some other idea. So they rose from breakfast and went to the door, Grace with an anxious, wistful manner, her father in a reverie, Mrs.

Melbury placid and inquiring. "'We have come out to look at your horse,' she said. It could be seen that he was pleased at their attention, and explained that he had ridden a mile or two to try the animal's paces. "'I bought her,' he added, with warmth so severely repressed as to seem indifference, because she has been used to carry a lady. "'Still, Mr. Melbury did not brighten,' Mrs. Melbury said. "'And is she quiet?' Winterbourne assured her that there was no doubt of it. "'I took care of that. She is five-and-twenty, and very clever for her age.' Well, get off and come in, said Melbury brusquely, and Giles dismounted accordingly. This event was the concrete result of Winterbourne's thoughts during the past week or two.

The want of success with his evening party he had accepted in as philosophic a mood as he was capable of, but there had been enthusiasm enough left in him one day at Sherton Abbas Market to purchase this old mare, which had belonged to a neighbouring person with several daughters, and was offered him to carry either a gentleman or a lady, and to do odd jobs of carting and agriculture at a pinch. This obliging quadruped seemed to furnish Giles with a means of reinstating himself in Melbury's good opinion as a man of considerateness, by throwing out future possibilities to grace. The latter looked at him with intensified interest this morning. In the mood which is altogether peculiar to woman's nature, and which, when reduced into plain words, seems as impossible as the penetrability of matter, that of entertaining a tender pity for the object of her own unnecessary coldness.

The imperturbable poise which marked Winterbourne in general was enlivened now by a freshness and animation that set a brightness in his eye and on his cheek. Mrs. Melbury asked him to have some breakfast, and he pleasurably replied that he would join them. With his usual lack of tactical observation, not perceiving that they had all finished the meal, that the hour was inconveniently late, and that the note piped by the kettle denoted it to be nearly empty, so that fresh water had to be brought in, trouble taken to make it boil, and a general renovation of the table carried out. Neither did he know, so full was he of his tender ulterior object in buying that horse, how many cups of tea he was gulping down, one after another, Nor how the morning was slipping, nor how he was keeping the family from dispersing about their duties.

Then he told throughout the humorous story of the horse's purchase, looking particularly grim at some fixed object in the room, a way he always looked when he narrated anything that amused him. While he was still thinking of the scene he had described, Grace rose and said, "'I have to go and help my mother now, Mr. Winterbourne.' "'Hm?' he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her. She repeated her words with a slight blush of awkwardness, whereupon Giles, becoming suddenly conscious, too conscious, jumped up, saying, to be sure, to be sure, wished him quickly good morning, and bolted out of the house. Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened his position, with her at least. Time, too, was on his side, for, as her father saw with some regret, Already the homeliness of Hintock life was fast becoming effaced from her observation as a singularity, just as the first strangeness of a face from whom we have for years been separated insensibly passes off with renewed intercourse, and tones itself down to simple identity with the lineaments of the past.

Thus Mr. Merbury went out of the house. Still unreconciled to the sacrifice of the gem he had been at such pains in mounting, He fain could hope, in the secret nethered chambers of his mind, that something would happen, before the balance of her feeling had quite turned in Winterbourne's favour, to relieve his conscience and preserve her on her elevated plane. He could not forget that Mrs. Charmond had apparently abandoned all interest in his daughter as suddenly as she had conceived it, and was as firmly convinced as ever that a comradeship which Grace had shown with Giles and his crew by attending his party had been the cause. Matters lingered on thus, and then, as a hoop by gentle knocks on this side and on that is made to travel in specific directions, the little touches of circumstance in the life of this young girl shaped the curves of her career.

12 Chapter 12 12:10

It was a day of rather bright weather for the season. Miss Melbury went out for a morning walk, and her ever-regardful father, having an hour's leisure, offered to walk with her. The breeze was fresh and quite steady, filtering itself through the denuded mass of twigs without swaying them, but making the point of each ivy-leaf on the trunks scratch its underlying neighbor restlessly. Grace's lips sucked in this native air of hers like milk. They soon reached a place where the wood ran down into a corner, and went outside it towards comparatively open ground. Having looked round about, they were intending to re-enter the copse when a fox quietly emerged with a dragging brush, trotted past them tamely as a domestic cat, and disappeared amid some dead fern.

They walked on, her father merely observing, after watching the animal, and they are hunting somewhere near. Farther up they saw in the mid-distance the hounds running hither and hither, as if there were little or no scent that day. Soon, divers members of the hunt appeared on the scene, and it was evident from their movements that the chase had been stultified by general puzzled-headedness as to the whereabouts of the intended victim. In a minute, a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians, panting with actioenic excitement, and Grace, being a few steps in advance, he addressed her, asking if she had seen the fox. "'Yes,' she said. "'We saw him some time ago, just out there.' "'Did you cry halloo?' We said nothing.

Then why the devil didn't you, or get the old buffer to do it for you, said the man as he cantered away. She looked rather disconcerted at this reply, and, observing her father's face, saw that it was quite red. He ought not to have spoken to you like that, said the old man, in the tone of one whose heart was bruised, though it was not by the epithet applied to himself. And he wouldn't if he had been a gentleman. "'Twas not the language to use to a woman of any niceness. You, so well-read and cultivated, how could he expect you to know what tomboy fieldfolk are in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come from trimming swedes or mangles, and joking with the rough-work folk and all that, I could have stood it.

But hasn't it cost me near a hundred a year to lift you out of all that, so as to show an example to the neighbourhood of what a woman can be? Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it? "'Twas because I was in your company. If a black-coated squire or parson had been walking with you instead of me, he wouldn't have spoken so.' "'No, no, father. There's nothing in you, rough or ill-mannered.' "'I tell you, that is it. I've noticed, and I've noticed it many times, that a woman takes her colour from the man she's walking with.' The woman who looks an unquestionable lady when she's with a polished-up fellow looks a mere tawdry imitation article when she's hobbing and knobbing with a homely blade. You shan't be treated like that for long, or at least your children shan't.

You shall have somebody to walk with who looks more of a dandy than I. Please God you shall. But my dear father, she said, much distressed, I don't mind at all. I don't wish for more honour than I already have. A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter, according to Menander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more so than to Melbury, by reason of her very dearness to him. As for Grace, she began to feel troubled. She did not perhaps wish, there and then, to unambitiously devote her life to Giles Winterbourne, but she was conscious of more and more uneasiness at the possibility of being the social hope of the family. "'You would like to have more honour, if it pleases me.' asked her father in continuation of the subject.

Despite her feeling, she assented to this. His reasoning had not been without its weight upon her. Grace, he said, just before they had reached the house. If it costs me my life, you shall marry well. Today has shown me that whatever a young woman's niceness, she stands for nothing alone. You shall marry well. He breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the breeze, which seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance. She looked calmly at him. "'And how about Mr. Winterbourne?' she asked. "'I mention it, Father, not as a matter of sentiment, but as a question of keeping faith.' The timber merchant's eyes fell for a moment. "'I don't know. I don't know,' he said. "'Tis a trying straight. Well, well, there's no hurry.

We'll wait and see how he gets on.' That evening he called her to his room, a snug little apartment behind the large parlour. It had at one time been part of the bakehouse with the ordinary oval-brick oven in the wall, but Mr. Melbury, in turning it into an office, had built into the cavity an iron safe, which he used for holding his private papers. The door of the safe was now open, and his keys were hanging from it. "'Sit down, Grace, and keep me company,' he said. "'You may amuse yourself by looking over these.' He threw out a heap of papers before her. "'What are they?' She asked. Securities of various sorts. He unfolded them one by one. Papers worth so much money each. Now here's a lot of turnpike bonds for one thing.

Would you think that each of these pieces of paper is worth two hundred pounds? No, indeed, if you didn't say so. Tissot, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are for different sums in the three per cents. Now these are Port Bredy Harbour bonds. We have a great stake in that harbour, you know, because I send off timber there. Open the rest at your pleasure. They'll interest you. Yes, I will, some day, she said, rising. Nonsense. Open them now. You ought to learn a little of such matters. A young lady of education should not be ignorant of money affairs altogether. Suppose you should be left a widow some day, with your husband's title deeds and investments thrown upon your hands. Don't say that, father.

Title deeds. It sounds so vain. It does not. Come to that, I have title deeds myself. There, that piece of parchment represents houses in Sheertnabas. Yes, but—she hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in a low voice. If what has been arranged about me should come to anything, my sphere will be quite a middling one. Your sphere ought not to be middling. He exclaimed, not in passion, but in earnest conviction. You said you never felt more at home, more in your element, anywhere, than you did that afternoon with Mrs. Charmond, when she showed you her house and all her knick-knacks, and made you stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room. Surely you did. Yes, I did say so, admitted Grace. Was it true?

Yes, I felt so at the time. The feeling is less strong now, perhaps. Ah, now, though you don't see it, your feeling at the time was the right one, because your mind and body were just in full and fresh cultivation. So the going there with horror was like meeting like. Since then you've been biding with us and have fallen back a little, and so you don't feel your place so strongly. Now, do as I tell you and look over these papers and see what you'll be worth some day, for they'll all be yours, you know. Who have I got to leave them to but you? Perhaps when your education is backed up by what these papers represent, and that backed up by another such a set and their owner, men such as that fellow was this morning may think you a little more than a buffer's girl.

So she did as commanded, and opened each of the folded representatives of hard cash that her father put before her. To sow in her heart cravings for social physician was obviously his strong desire, Though in direct antagonism to a better feeling which had hitherto prevailed with him, and had, indeed, only succumbed that morning during the ramble. She wished that she was not his worldly hope. The responsibility of such a position was too great. She had made it for herself mainly by her appearance and attractive behavior to him since her return. If I had only come home in a shabby dress and tried to speak roughly, this might not have happened, she thought. She deplored less the fact than the sad possibilities that might lie hidden therein.

Her father then insisted upon her looking over his check-book and reading the counter files. This also she obediently did, and at last came to two or three which had been drawn to defray some of the late expenses of her clothes, board, and education. "'I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn,' she said, looking up sorrowfully. I didn't want you to look at those. I merely meant to give you an idea of my investment transactions. But if you do cost as much as they, never mind. You'll yield a better return. Don't think of me like that, she begged. A mere chattel. What? Oh, a dictionary word. Well, as that's in your line, I don't forbid it, even if it tells against me, he said good-humouredly, and he looked her proudly up and down.

A few minutes later, Grandma Oliver came to tell them that supper was ready, and in giving the information she added incidentally, "'So we shall soon lose the mistress of Hintock House for some time, I hear, Master Melbury? Yes, she's going off to foreign parts tomorrow, for the rest of the winter months. And be chocked if I don't wish I could do the same, for my windpipe has forred like a flue.' When the old woman had left the room, Melbury turned to his daughter and said, So, Grace, you've lost your new friend, and your chance of keeping her company and writing her travels is quite gone from you. Grace said nothing. Now, he went on emphatically, "'Tis Winterbourne's affair has done this. Oh, yes, "'Tis.

So let me say one word. Promise me that you will not meet him again without my knowledge." I never do meet him, father, either without your knowledge or with it. So much the better. I don't like the look of this at all. And I say it not out of harshness to him, poor fellow, but out of tenderness to you. For how could a woman, brought up delicately as you have been, bear the roughness of a life with him? She sighed. It was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by a sense of intractability of circumstances. At that same hour, and almost at the same minute, there was a conversation about Winterbourne and Progress in the village street, opposite Mr. Melbury's gates. where Timothy Tangs the Elder and Robert Creedle had accidentally met.

The czar was asking Creedle if he had heard what was all over the parish, the skin of his face being drawn two ways on the matter, towards brightness in respect of it as news, and towards concern in respect of it as circumstance. Why, that poor little lonesome thing, Marty South, is likely to lose her father. He was almost well, but is much worse again. A man all skin and grief he ever were, and if he leave little Hintock for a better land, won't it make some difference to your master Winterbourne, neighbor Creedle? Can I be a prophet in Israel? said Creedle. Or won't it? I was only shaping of such a thing yesterday in my poor long-seeing way, and all the work of the house upon my one shoulders.

You know what it means. It is upon John South's life that all Mr. Winterbourne's houses hang. If so be, South die. and so make his decease. Thereupon the lie is that the houses fall, without the least chance of absolution, into her hands at the house. I told him so, but the words of the faithful be only his wind.

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The life, the one fragile life that had been used as a measuring tape of time by law, was in danger of being frayed away. It was the last of a group of lives which had served this purpose, at the end of whose breathings the small homestead occupied by South himself, the larger one of Giles Winterbourne, and half a dozen others that had been in the possession of various Hintock village families for the previous hundred years, and were now Winterborns, would fall in and become part of the encompassing estate. Yet a short two months earlier, Marty's father, aged fifty-five years, though something of a fidgety, anxious being, would have been looked on as a man whose existence was so far removed from hazardous as any in the parish, and as bidding fair to be prolonged for another quarter of a century.

Winterbourne walked up and down his garden next day, thinking of the contingency. The sense that the paths he was pacing, the cabbage-plots, the apple-trees, His dwelling, cider-cellar, ring-house, stables, and weathercock, were all slipping away over his head and beneath his feet, as if they were painted on a magic-lantern slide, was curious. In spite of John South's late indisposition, he had not anticipated danger. To inquire concerning his health had been to show less sympathy than to remain silent, considering the material interest he possessed in the woodman's life, and he had accordingly made a point of avoiding Marty's house. While he was here in the garden, somebody came to fetch him.

It was Marty herself, and she showed her distress by her unconsciousness of a cropped pall.

Father is still much troubled in his mind about that tree, she said. You know the tree, I mean, Mr. Winterborne, the tall one in front of the house, that he thinks he'll blow down and kill us. Can you come and see if you can persuade him out of his notion? I can do nothing. He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him upstairs. John South was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and the window, exactly opposite the latter, towards which his face was turned. "'Ah, neighbour Winterborne,' he said, "'I wouldn't have minded if my life had only been my own to lose. I don't value it in much of itself, and I can let it go if it is required of me.' But to think what tis worth to you, a young man rising in life, that do trouble me.

It seems a trick of dishonesty toward you to go off at fifty-five. I could bear up. I know I could, if I went off of the tree. Yes, the tree tis that's killing me. There he stands, trettin' my life every minute that the wind do blow. He'll come down upon us and squat us dead. And what'll he do when the life on your property is taken away? Never you mind me. That's of no consequence, said Giles. Think of yourself alone. He looked out of the window in the direction of the woodman's gaze. The tree was a tall elm, familiar to him from childhood, which stood at a distance of two-thirds its own height from the front of South's dwelling. Whenever the wind blew, as it did now, the tree rocked naturally enough.

And the sight of its motion and the sound of its sighs had gradually bred the terrifying illusion in the woodman's mind that it would descend and kill him. Thus he would sit all day, in spite of persuasion, watching its every sway, and listening to the melancholy Gregorian melodies which the air wrung out of it. This fear it apparently was, rather than any organic disease which was eating away the health of John South. As the tree waved, South waved his head, making it his flugelman with abject obedience. "'Ah, when it was quite a small tree,' he said, "'and I was a little boy, I thought one day of chopping it off with my billhook to make a clothesline prop with. But I put off doing it, and then I again thought that I would, but I forgot it, and I didn't, and at last it got too big, and now it is my enemy, and will be the death of me.' Little did I think when I let that sapling stay that a time would come when it would torment me and dash me into my grave.

No, no, said Winterbourne and Marty soothingly, but they thought it possible that it might hasten him to his grave, though in another way than by falling.

I'll tell you what, added Winterbourne. I'll climb up this afternoon and shroud off the lower boughs, and then it won't be so heavy and the wind won't affect it so. She won't allow it. A strange woman come from nobody knows where. She won't have it done. You mean Mrs. Charmond? Oh, she doesn't know there's such a tree on her estate. Besides, Shroudon is not fellin, and I'll risk that much. He went out, and when afternoon came he returned, took a billhook from the woodman's shed, and with a ladder climbed into the lowest part of the tree, where he began lopping off, shrouding, as they called it at Hintock, the lowest boughs. Each of these quivered under his attack, bent, cracked, and fell into the hedge.

Having cut away the lowest tier, he stepped off the ladder, climbed a few steps higher, and attacked those at the next level. Thus he ascended with the progress of his work far above the top of the ladder, cutting away his perches as he went, and leaving nothing but a bare stem below him. The work was troublesome, for the tree was large. The afternoon wore on, turning dark and misty about four o'clock. From time to time Giles cast his eyes across towards the bedroom window of South, Where, by the flickering fire in the chamber, he could see the old man watching him, sitting motionless with a hand upon each arm of the chair. Beside him sat Marty, also straining her eyes towards the skied field of his operations.

A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterbourne, and he stopped his chopping. He was operating on another person's property to prolong the years of a lease by whose termination that person would considerably benefit. In that aspect of the case, he doubted if he ought to go on. On the other hand, he was working to save a man's life, and this seemed to empower him to adopt arbitrary measures. The wind had died down to a calm, and while he was weighing the circumstances he saw, coming along the road through the increasing mist, a figure which, indistinct as it was, he knew well. It was Grace Melbury, on her way out from the house probably for a short evening walk before dark. He arranged himself for a greeting from her, since she could hardly avoid passing immediately beneath the tree.

But Grace, though she looked up and saw him, was just at that time too full of the words of her father to give him any encouragement. The years-long regard that she had had for him was not kindled by her return into a flame of sufficient brilliancy to make her rebellious. Thinking that she might not see him, he cried, "'Miss Melbury, here I am.' She looked up again. She was near enough to see the expression of his face, and the nails in his soles, silver-bright with constant walking. But she did not reply, and, dropping her glance again, went on. Winterbourne's face grew strange. He mused, and proceeded automatically with his work. Grace, meanwhile, had not gone far. She had reached a gate, whereon she had leaned sadly, and whispered to herself, "'What shall I do?' A sudden fog came on, and she curtailed her walk, passing under the tree again on her return.

Again he addressed her. "'Grace,' he said when she was close to the trunk. "'Speak to me.' She shook her head without stopping, and went on to a little distance, where she stood observing him from behind the hedge. Her coldness had been kindly meant. If it was to be done, she had said to herself, it should be begun at once. While she stood out of observation, Giles seemed to recognize her meaning. With a sudden start, he worked on, climbing higher and cutting himself off more and more from all intercourse with the sublunary world. At last he had worked himself so high up the elm, and the mist had so thickened, that he could only just be discerned as a dark gray spot on the light gray sky. He would have been altogether out of notice but for the strokes of his billhook, and the flight of a bough downward and its crash upon the hedge at intervals.

It was not to be done thus, after all. Playness and candor were best. She went back a third time. He did not see her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his unconscious figure, loath to put an end to any kind of hope that might live on in him still. "'Giles, Mr. Winterbourne,' she said. He was so high amid the fog that he did not hear. "'Mr. Winterbourne,' she cried again, and this time he stopped, looked down, and replied, "'My silence just now was not an accident,' she said, in an unequal voice. "'My father says it is best not to think much of that engagement or understanding between us that you know of. I, too, think that upon the whole he is right. But we are friends, you know, Giles, and almost relations.' "'Very well.' He answered, as if without surprise, in a voice which barely reached down the tree, "'I have nothing to say in objection.

I cannot say anything until I've thought a while.' She added with emotion in her tone, "'For myself, I would have married you some day, I think. But I give way, for I see it would be unwise.' He made no reply, but sat back upon a bow. Place his elbow in a fork, and rested his head upon his hand. Thus he remained till the fog and the night had completely enclosed him from her view. Grace heaved a divided sigh, with a tense pause between, and moved onward, her heart feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her eyes wet. Had Giles, instead of remaining still, immediately come down from the tree to her, would she have continued in that filial acquiescent frame of mind which she had announced to him as final?

If it be true, as women themselves have declared, that one of their sex is never so much inclined to throw in her lot with a man for good and all as five minutes after she had told him that such a thing cannot be, the probabilities are that something might have been done by the appearance of Winterbourne on the ground beside Grace. But he continued motionless and silent in that gloomy Niflheim or Fogland which involved him, and she proceeded on her way. The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South's window made rays on the fog, but did not quite reach the tree. A quarter of an hour passed, and all was blackness overhead. Giles had not yet come down. Then the tree seemed to shiver, and then heave a sigh, and a movement was audible, and Winterbourne dropped almost noiselessly to the ground.

He had thought the matter out, and having returned, the ladder and billhook to their places pursued his way homeward. He would not allow this incident to affect his outer conduct any more than the danger to his leaseholds had done, and went to bed as usual. Two simultaneous troubles do not always make a double trouble, and thus it came to pass that Giles's practical anxiety about his houses, which would have been enough to keep him awake half the night at any other time, was displaced, and not reinforced by his sentimental trouble about Grace Melbury. This severance was, in truth, more like a burial of her than a rupture with her, but he did not realize so much at present. Even when he arose the next morning he felt quite moody and stern, as yet the second note in the gamut of such emotions, a tender regret for his loss, had not made itself heard.

A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builder whose works were in a town many miles off. The proud trunks were taken up from the silent spot which had known them through the buddings and sheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred years, chained down like slaves to a heavy timber carriage with enormous red wheels, and four of the most powerful of Melbury's horses were harnessed in front to draw them. The horses wore their bells that day. There were sixteen to the team, Carried on a frame above each animal's shoulders, and tuned to scale, so as to form two octaves, running from the highest note on the right or off-side of the leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of the shaft-horse.

Melbury was among the last to retain horse-bells in that neighbourhood, for living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yet remained as narrow as before the days of turnpike-roads, These sound signals were still as useful to him and his neighbors as they had ever been in former times. Much backing was saved in the course of a year by the warning notes they cast ahead. Moreover, the tones of all the teams in the district being known to the characters of each, they could tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about to encounter friends or strangers. The fog of the previous evening still lingered so heavily over the woods that the morning could not penetrate the trees till long after its time.

The load being a ponderous one, the lane crooked, and the air so thick, Winterbourne set out, as he often did, to accompany the team as far as the corner, where it would turn into a wider road. As they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages by the weight of their progress, The sixteen bells chimed harmoniously over all till they had risen out of the valley and were descending towards the more open route, the sparks rising from their creaking skid and nearly setting fire to the dead leaves alongside. Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were in endeavor to guard. Suddenly there beamed into their eyes quite close to them two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog.

Its approach had been quite unheard by reasons of their own noise. The carriage was a covered one, while behind it could be discerned another vehicle laden with luggage.

Winterbourne went to the head of the team and heard the coachman telling the carter that he must turn back. The carter declared that this was impossible. "'You can turn if you want hit your string horses,' said the coachman. "'It's much easier for you to turn than for us,' said Winterborne. "'We've five tons of timber on these wheels, if we've an ounce. But I've another carriage with luggage at my back.' Winterborne admitted the strength of the argument. "'But even with that,' he said, "'you can back better than we, and you ought to, for you could hear our bells half a mile off.' "'And you could see our lights.' "'We couldn't, because of the fog. Well, our time is precious.' said the coachman haughtily.

You are only going to some trumpery little village or other in the neighborhood while we are going straight to Italy. Driving all the way, I suppose, said Winterbourne sarcastically. The argument continued in these terms till a voice from the interior of the carriage inquired what was the matter. It was the ladies. She was briefly informed of the timber people's obstinacy. And then Giles could hear her telling the footman to direct the timber people to turn their horses' heads. The message was brought, and Winterbourne sent the bearer back to say that he begged the lady's pardon, but that he could not do as she requested, that though he would not assert it to be impossible, it was impossible by comparison with the slight difficulty to her party to back their light carriages.

As fate would have it, The incident with Grace Melbury on the previous day made Giles less gentle than he might otherwise have shown himself, his confidence in the sex being rudely shaken. In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages were compelled to back till they reached one of the sidings or turn-outs constructed in the bank for the purpose. Then the team came on ponderously, and the clanging of its sixteen bells as it passed the discomfited carriages tilted up against the bank. Leant a particularly triumphant tone to the team's progress, a tone which, in point of fact, did not at all attach to its conductor's feelings. Giles walked behind the timber, and just as he had got past the yet stationary carriages, he heard a soft voice say, "'Who's that rude man?' "'Not Melbury.' The sex of the speaker was so prominent in the voice that Winterbourne felt a pang of regret.

No, ma'am, a younger man, in a smaller way of business, in little Hintock. Winterbourne is his name. Thus they parted company. Why, Mr. Winterbourne, said the waggoner, when they were out of hearing, that was she, Mrs. Charmant. Who'd have thought it? What in the world can a woman that does nothing be cockwatching out here at this time of day for? Oh, Going to Italy, yes, to be sure. I heard she was going abroad. She can't endure the winter here. Winterbourne was vexed at the incident, the more so that he knew Mr. Melbury, in his adoration of Hintock House, would be the first to blame him if it became known. But saying no more, he accompanied the load to the end of the lane, and then turned back with an intention to call at South's to learn the result of the experiment of the preceding evening.

It chanced that a few minutes before this time, Grace Melbury, who now rose soon enough to breakfast with her father, in spite of the unwontedness of the hour, had been commissioned by him to make the same inquiry at South's. Marty had been standing at the door when Miss Melbury arrived. Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs. Sharman's carriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the two girls turned to regard the spectacle. Mrs. Sharman did not see them. But there was sufficient light for them to discern her outline between the carriage windows. A noticeable feature in her tournure was a magnificent mass of braided locks. "'How well she looks this morning,' said Grace, forgetting Mrs.

Charman's slight and her generous admiration. "'Her hair so becomes her worn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful.' "'Nor have I, miss?' said Marty, dryly, unconsciously stroking her crown. Grace watched the carriages with lingering regret till they were out of sight. She then learned of Marty that South was no better. Before she had come away, Winterbourne approached the house, but seeing that one of the two girls standing on the doorstep was Grace, he suddenly turned back again, and sought the shelter of his own home till she should have gone away.

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The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterbourne's mind the image of Mrs. Charmond, his thoughts by a natural channel went from her to the fact that several cottages and other houses in the two Hintocks, now his own, would fall into her possession in the event of South's death. He marvelled what people could have been thinking about in the past to invent such precarious tenures as these. Still more, What could have induced his ancestors at Hintock and other village people to exchange their old copy-holds for life leases? But having naturally succeeded to these properties through his father, he had done his best to keep them in order, though he was much struck with his father's negligence in not insuring South's life.

After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances, he went upstairs, turned over his bed, and drew out a flat canvas bag, which lay between the mattress and the sacking. In this he kept his leases, which had remained there unopened ever since his father's death. It was the usual hiding-place among rural lifeholders for such documents. Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them over. There were ordinary leases for three lives, which a member of the South family, some fifty years before this time, had accepted of the Lord of the Manor in lieu of certain copy-holes and other rights, in consideration of having the dilapidated houses rebuilt by the said Lord. They had come into his father's possession chiefly through his mother, who was a South.

Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures was a letter, which Winterbourne had never before seen. It bore a remote date, the handwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature the land-holder's. It was to the effect that at any time before the last of the stated lives should drop, Mr. Giles Winterbourne, Sr., or his representative, should have the privilege of adding his own and his son's life to the life remaining on payment of a merely nominal sum. The concession being in consequence of the elder Winterbourne's consent to demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at an awkward corner of the lane and impeded the way. The house had been pulled down years before.

Why Giles's father had not taken advantage of his privilege to insert his own and his son's lives it was impossible to say. The likelihood was that death alone had hindered him in the execution of this project, As it surely was, the elder Winterbourne having been a man who took much pleasure in dealing with house property in his small way. Since one of the South still survived, there was not much doubt that Giles could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life was concerned. This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses hung many things. Melbury's doubt of the young man's fitness to be the husband of Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of his holdings in Little and Great Hintock.

He resolved to attend to the business at once, the fine for renewal being a sum that he could easily muster. His scheme, however, could not be carried out in a day, and meanwhile he would run up to South's, as he had intended to do, and learn the result of the experiment with the tree.

Marty met him at the door. Well, Marty, he said. and was surprised to read in her face that the case was not so hopeful as he had imagined. "'I am sorry for your labor,' she said. "'It's all lost. He says the tree seems taller than ever.' Winterborne looked round at it. Taller the tree certainly did seem, the gauntness of its now naked stem being more marked than before. "'It quite terrified him when you first saw what you had done to it this morning.' She added, "'He declares it'll come down upon us and cleave us like the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.' "'Well, can I do anything else?' he asked. "'The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down.' "'Oh, you've had the doctor?' "'I didn't send for him.

Mrs. Sharman before she left heard the father was ill, and told him to attend at her expense. That was very good of her.' And he says it ought to be cut down. We mustn't cut it down without our knowledge, I suppose. He went upstairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now gaunt tree, as if his gaze were frozen on its trunk. Unluckily, the tree waved afresh by this time, the wind having sprung up and blown the fog away, and his eyes turned with its wavings. They heard footsteps, a man's, but of a lighter step than usual. There is Dr. Fitzpiers again, she said, and descended. Presently his tread was heard on the naked stairs. Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick chamber just as a doctor is more or less wont to do on such occasions, and, pre-eminently, when the room is that of a humble cottager, Looking round towards the patient with that preoccupied gaze, which so plainly reveals that he has wellnigh forgotten all about the case and the whole circumstances, since he dismissed him from his mind at his last exit from the same apartment.

He nodded to Winterborne, with whom he was already a little acquainted, recalled the case to his thoughts, and went leisurely on to where South sat. Fitzpiers was, on the whole, a finely-formed, handsome man. His eyes were dark and impressive, and beamed with the light either of energy or susceptivity. It was difficult to say which. It might have been a little of both. That quick, glittering, practical eye, sharp for the surface of things and for nothing beneath it, he had not. But whether his apparent depth of vision was real, or only an artistic accident of his corporeal moulding, nothing but his deeds could reveal. His face was rather soft than stern. Charming than grand, pale than flushed.

His nose, if a sketch of his feature be de rigueur for a person of his pretensions, was artistically beautiful enough to have been worth doing in marble by any sculptor not over-busy, and was hence devoid of those knotty irregularities which often mean power. While the double cima, or classical curve of his mouth, was not without a looseness in its close. Nevertheless, either from his readily appreciative mien, or his reflective manner, or the instinct towards profound things which was said to possess him, his presence bespoke the philosopher rather than the dandy or macaroni, an effect which was helped by the absence of trinkets or other trivialities from his attire, though this was more finished and up to date than is usually the case among rural practitioners.

Strict people of the highly respectable class, knowing a little about him by report, might have said that he seemed likely to err, rather in the possession of too many ideas than too few. To be a dreamy ist of some sort, or too deeply steeped in some false kind of ism. However this may be, it will be seen that he was undoubtedly a somewhat rare kind of gentleman and doctor, to have descended as from the clouds upon little Hintock.

This is an extraordinary case," he said at last to Winterbourne, after examining South by conversation, look and touch, and learning that the craze about the elm was stronger than ever. Come downstairs, and I'll tell you what I think. They accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, "'The tree must be cut down, or I won't answer for his life.' "'It is Mrs. Sharman's tree, and I suppose we must get permission.' said Giles. If so, as she's gone away, I must speak to her agent. Oh, never mind whose tree it is. What's a tree beside a life? Cut it down. I have not the honor of knowing Mrs. Charmond as yet, but I am disposed to risk that much with her. "'Tis timber," rejoined Giles, more scrupulous than he would have been, had not his own interest stood so closely involved.

"'They'll never fell a stick about here without it being marked first, either by her or the agent.' Then we'll inaugurate a new era forthwith. How long has he complained of the tree? Asked the doctor of Marty. Weeks and weeks, sir. The shape of it seems to haunt him like an evil spirit. He says that it is exactly his own age, that it has got human sense and sprouted up when he was born on purpose to rule him and keep him as its slave. Others have been like it afore in Hintock. They could hear South's voice upstairs. Oh, he's rockin' this way. He must come, and then my poor life that's wort houses upon houses will be squashed out of me. Oh, oh. That's how he goes on, she added, and he'll never look anywhere else but out of the window, and scarcely have the curtains drawn.

Down with it, then, and hang, Mrs. Charmond, said Mr. Fitzpiers. The best plan will be to wait till the evening, when it's dark. or early in the morning before he's awake, so that he doesn't see it fall, for that would terrify him worse than ever. Keep the blind down till I come, and then I'll assure him, and show him that his trouble is over. The doctor then departed, and they waited till the evening. When it was dusk and the curtains drawn, Winterbourne directed a couple of woodmen to bring a cross-cut saw, and the tall, threatening tree was soon nearly off at its base. He would not fell it completely then on account of the possible crash, but next morning, before South was awake, they went and lowered it cautiously, in a direction away from the cottage.

It was a business difficult to do quite silently, but it was done at last, and the elm of the same birth-year as the woodman's lay stretched upon the ground. The weakest idler that passed could now set foot on marks formerly made in the upper forks by the shoes of adventurous climbers only. Once inaccessible nests could be examined microscopically, and on swaying extremities where birds alone had perched, the bystanders sat down.

As soon as it was broad daylight, the doctor came, and Winterbourne entered the house with him. Marty said that her father was wrapped up and ready, as usual, to be put into his chair. They ascended the stairs, and soon seated him. He began at once to complain of the tree and the danger to his life and Winterbourne's house property in consequence. The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and drew back the printed cotton curtains. "'Tis gone. See," said Mr. Fitzpiers. As soon as the old man saw the vacant patch of sky in place of the branched column so familiar to his gaze, he sprang up speechless. His eyes rose from their hollows till the whites showed all round. He fell back, and a bluish whiteness overspread him.

Greatly alarmed, they put him on the bed. As soon as he came a little out of his fit, he gasped. Oh! It is gone! Where? Where? His whole system seemed paralyzed by amazement. They were thunderstruck at the result of the experiment, and did all they could. Nothing seemed to avail. Giles and Fitzpiers went and came, but uselessly. He lingered through the day, and died that evening as the sun went down. "'Damn if my remedy hasn't killed him,' murmured the doctor.

15 Chapter 15 17:47

When Melbury heard what had happened, he seemed much moved, and walked thoughtfully about the premises. On South's own account, he was genuinely sorry, and on Winterbourne's he was the more grieved, In that this catastrophe had so closely followed the somewhat harsh dismissal of Giles's as the betroth of his daughter. He was quite angry with circumstances for so heedlessly inflicting on Giles a second trouble, when the needful one, inflicted by himself, was all that the proper order of events demanded. I told Giles's father, when it came to those houses, not to spend too much money on life-hold property, "'Held neither for his own life nor his son's,' he exclaimed. "'But he wouldn't listen to me, and now Giles has to suffer for it.'" "'Poor Giles,' murmured Grace.

"'Now, Grace, between us two, it is very, very remarkable. It is almost as if I had foreseen this, and I am thankful for your escape, though I am sincerely sorry for Giles. Had we not dismissed him already, we could hardly have found it in our hearts to dismiss him now.' So I say be thankful. I'll do all I can for him as a friend, but as a pretender to the position of my son-in-law, that can never be thought of more. And yet, at that very moment, the impracticability to which poor Winterbourne's suit had been reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt for years concerning him. He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the old familiar house which had ceased to be his, taking a calm, if somewhat dismal, survey of affairs.

The pendulum of the clock bumped every now and then against one side of the case in which it swung, as the muffled drum to his worldly march. Looking out of the window, he could perceive that a paralysis had come over Creedle's occupation of manuring the garden, owing obviously to a conviction that they might not be living there long enough to profit by next season's crop.

He looked at the leases again, and the letter attached. There was no doubt that he had lost his houses by an accident which might easily have been circumvented if he had known the true conditions of his holding. The time for performance had now lapsed in strict law. But might not the intention be considered by the landholder when she became aware of the circumstances, and his moral right to retain the holdings for the term of his life be conceded? His heart sank within him when he perceived that despite all the legal reciprocities and safeguards prepared and written, the upshot of the matter amounted to this, that it depended upon the mere caprice Good or ill, of the woman he had met the day before in such an unfortunate way, whether he was to possess his houses for life or no.

While he was sitting and thinking, a step came to the door, and Melbury appeared, looking very sorry for his position. Winterborne welcomed him by a word and a look, and went on with his examination of the parchments. His visitor sat down. "'Giles,' he said, "'this is very awkward, and I am sorry for it.' What are you going to do? Giles informed him of the real state of affairs, and how barely he had missed availing himself of his chance of renewal. What a misfortune! Why was it neglected? Well, the best thing you can do is write and tell her all about it, and throw yourself upon her generosity. I would rather not, murmured Giles. But you must, said Melbury. In short, He argued so cogently that Giles allowed himself to be persuaded, and the letter to Mrs.

Charmond was written and sent to Hintock House, whence, as he knew, it would at once be forwarded to her. Melbury, feeling that he had done so good an action in coming as almost to extenuate his previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went home, and Giles was left alone to the suspense of waiting for a reply from the divinity who shaped the ends of the Hintock population. By this time all the villagers knew of the circumstances, and being well-nigh like one family, a keen interest was the result all round. Everybody thought of Giles. Nobody thought of Marty. Had any of them looked in upon her during these moonlight nights which preceded the burial of her father, they would have seen the girl absolutely alone in the house with the dead man.

Her own chamber being nearest the stairs, The coffin had been placed there for convenience, and at a certain hour of the night, when the moon arrived opposite the window, its beams streamed across the still profile of South, sublimed by the august presence of Death, and onward a few feet further upon the face of his daughter, lying in her little bed, in the stillness of a repose almost as dignified as that of her companion. The repose of a guileless soul, That had nothing more left on earth to lose except a life which she did not overvalue. South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterbourne watched for a reply from Mrs. Charmond. Melbury was very sanguine as to its tenor, but Winterbourne had not told him of the encounter with her carriage, when, if he had ever heard an affronted tone on a woman's lips, he had heard it on hers.

The postman's time for passing was just after Melbury's men had assembled in the spar-house, and Winterbourne, who, when not busy on his own account would lend assistance there, used to go out into the lane every morning and meet the postman at the end of one of the green rides through the Hazel Copse, in the straight stretch of which his laden figure could be seen a long way off. Grace also was very anxious, more anxious than her father, more, perhaps, than Winterbourne himself. This anxiety led her into the spar-house on some pretext or other, almost every morning while they were awaiting the reply. Fitzpiers, too, though he did not personally appear, was much interested, and not altogether easy in his mind, for he had been informed by an authority of what he had himself conjectured, that if the tree had been allowed to stand, the old man would have gone on complaining, but might have lived for twenty years.

Eleven times Winterbourne had gone to that corner of the ride, and looked up its long straight slope through the wet greys of winter dawn. But though the postman's bowed figure loomed in view pretty regularly, he brought nothing for Giles. On the twelfth day the man of missives, while yet in the extreme distance, held up his hand, and Winterbourne saw a letter in it. He took it to the spar-house before he broke the seal. And those who were there gathered around him while he read, Grace looking in at the door. The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at Sherton. Winterbourne glanced over it and looked up. "'It's all over,' he said. "'Ah,' said they, all together. Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs.

Charmond sees no reason for disturbing the natural course of things, particularly as she contemplates pulling the houses down. He said quietly. Only think of that, said several. Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently to himself, Then let her pull him down, and be damned to her. Creedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, Ah, twas that spirit that lost him for ye, master. Winterborne subdued his feelings, and from that hour, whatever they were, kept them entirely to himself. There could be no doubt that up to this last moment he had nourished a feeble hope of regaining grace in the event of this negotiation turning out a success. Not being aware of the fact that her father could have settled upon her a fortune sufficient to enable both to live in comfort, he deemed it now an absurdity to dream any longer of such a vanity as making her his wife, and sank into silence forthwith.

Yet whatever the value of taciturnity to a man among strangers, It is apt to express more than talkativeness when he dwells among friends. The countryman, who is obliged to judge the time of day from changes in external nature, sees a thousand successive tints and traits in the landscape which are never discerned by him who hears the regular chime of a clock, because they were never in request. In like manner do we use our eyes on our taciturn comrade. The infinitesimal movement of muscle, curve, hair, and wrinkle, which, when accompanied by a voice, goes unregarded, is watched and translated in the lack of it, till virtually the whole surrounding circle of familiars is charged with the reserved one's moods and meanings.

This was the condition of affairs between Winterbourne and his neighbors after his stroke of ill-luck. He held his tongue, and they observed him, and knew that he was discomposed. Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than anyone else except his daughter. Had Winterbourne been going on in the old fashion, Grace's father would have alluded to his disapproval of the alliance every day with the greatest frankness, but to speak any further on the subject he could not find it in his heart to do now. He hoped that Giles would of his own accord make some final announcement that he entirely withdrew his pretensions to Grace, and so get the thing passed and done with. For though Giles had, in a measure, acquiesced in the wish of her family, He could make matters unpleasant if he chose to work upon grace, and hence, when Melbury saw the young man approaching along the road one day, he kept friendliness and frigidity exactly balanced in his eye, till he could see whether Giles's manner was presumptive or not.

His manner was that of a man who abandoned all claims. "'I am glad to meet you, Mr. Melbury,' he said in a low voice, whose quality he endeavoured to make as practical as possible. I am afraid I shall not be able to keep that mare I bought, and as I don't care to sell her, I should like, if you don't object, to give her to Miss Melbury. The horse is very quiet, and will be quite safe for her. Mr. Melbury was rather affected at this. You shan't hurt your pocket like that on our account, Giles. Grace will have the horse, but I'll pay you what you gave her, and any expense you may have been put to for her keep. He would not hear of any other terms, and thus it was arranged. They were now opposite Melbury's house, and the timber-merchant pressed Winterbourne to enter, Grace being out of the way.

"'Put round the settles, Giles,' said the timber-merchant as soon as they were within. "'I should like to have a serious talk with you.' Thereupon he put the case to Winterbourne frankly, and in quite a friendly way. He declared that he did not like to be hard on a man when he was in difficulty, but he really did not see how Winterbourne could marry his daughter now, without even a house to take her to. Giles quite acquiesced in the awkwardness of his situation, but from a momentary feeling that he would like to know Grace's mind from her own lips, he did not speak out positively there and then. He accordingly departed somewhat abruptly, and went home to consider whether he would seek to bring about a meeting with her.

In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering, he fancied that he heard a scraping on the wall outside his house. The boughs of a monthly rose which grew there made such a noise sometimes, but as no wind was stirring, he knew that it could not be the rose-tree. He took up the candle and went out. Nobody was near. As he turned, the light flickered on the whitewashed rough case of the front, and he saw words written thereon in charcoal, which he read as follows. Oh, Giles, you've lost your dwelling-place, and therefore, Giles, you'll lose your Grace. Giles went indoors. He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of those lines, but he could not be sure. What suddenly filled his heart far more than curiosity about their authorship was a terrible belief that they were turning out to be true.

Try to see Grace as he might. They decided the question for him. He sat down and wrote a formal note to Melbury. In which he briefly stated that he was placed in such a position as to make him share, to the full, Melbury's view of his own and his daughter's promise, made some years before, to wish that it should be considered as cancelled, and they themselves quite released from any obligation on account of it. Having fastened up this, their plenary absolution, he determined to get it out of his hands and have done with it, to which end he went off to Melbury's at once. It was now so late that the family had all retired, and he crept up to the house, thrust a note under the door, and stole away as silently as he had come.

Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when he had read the letter his relief was great. Very Honourable of Giles, very Honourable, he kept saying to himself. I should not forget him. Now to keep her up to her own true level. It happened that Grace went out for an early ramble that morning, passing through the door and gate while her father was in the spar-house. To go in her customary direction she could not avoid passing Winterbourne's house. The morning sun was shining flat upon its white surface, and the words which still remained were immediately visible to her. She read them. Her face flushed to crimson. She could see Giles and Credle talking together at the back. The charred spargad with which the lines had been written lay on the ground beneath the wall.

Feeling pretty sure that Winterbourne would observe her action, she quickly went up to the wall, rubbed out loose, and asserted keep in its stead. Then she made the best of her way home without looking behind her. Giles could draw an inference now if he chose. There could not be the least doubt that gentle Grace was warming to more sympathy with, and interest in, Giles Winterbourne, than ever she had done whilst he was her promised lover, that since his misfortune, those social shortcomings of his, which contrasted so awkwardly with her later experiences of life, had become obscured by the generous revival of an old romantic attachment to him. Though mentally trained and tilled into foreignness of view as compared with her youthful time, Grace was not an ambitious girl, and might, if left to herself, have declined Winterbourne without much discontent or unhappiness.

Her feelings just now were so far from latent that the writing on the wall had thus quickened her to an unusual rashness. Having returned from a walk, she sat at breakfast silently. When her stepmother had left the room, she said to her father, I have made up my mind that I should like my engagement to Giles to continue, for the present at any rate, till I see further with what I ought to do. Melbury looked much surprised. Nonsense! He said sharply. "'You don't know what you are talking about. Look here.' He handed across to her the letter received from Giles. She read it and said no more. Could he have seen her write on the wall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed, would have its way, and there was nothing to do but to acquiesce.

It was a few hours after this that Winterbourne, who, curiously enough, had not perceived Grace writing, was clearing away the tree from the front of South's late dwelling. He saw Marty standing in her doorway, a slim figure in meagre black, almost without womanly contours as yet. He went up to her and said, Marty, why did you write that on my wall last night? It was you, you know. Because it was the truth. I didn't mean to let it stay, Mr. Winterborne. But when I was going to rub it out, you came, and I was obliged to run off. Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your predictions can't be worth much. I have not altered it. But you have? No. It is altered. Go and see.

She went and read that, in spite of losing his dwelling-place, he would keep his grace. Marty came back surprised. Well, I never, she said. Who can have made such a nonsense of it? Who, indeed? said he. I have rubbed it all out as the point of it is quite gone. You'd no business to rub it out. I didn't tell you to. I meant to let it stay a little longer. Some idle boy did it, no doubt, she murmured. As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected, Winterbourne said no more, and dismissed the matter from his mind. From this day of his life onward, for a considerable time, Winterbourne, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabout, a feat not particularly difficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige.

Grace, thinking that Winterbourne saw her right, made no further sign, and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was stranded,

16 Chapter 16 17:27

Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill, in a house of much less pretension both as to architecture and as to magnitude than the timber merchants. The latter had, no doubt, been once the manorial residence appertaining to the snug and modest domain of Little Hintock, of which the boundaries were now lost by its absorption, with others of its kind, into the adjoining estate of Mrs. Charmant. Though the Melburys themselves were unaware of the fact, there was every reason to believe, at least so the parson said, that the owners of the little manor had been Melbury's own ancestors, the family name occurring in numerous documents relating to transfers of land about the time of the Civil Wars.

Mr. Fitzpiers's dwelling, on the contrary, was small, cottage-like, and comparatively modern. It had been occupied, and was in part occupied still, By a retired farmer and his wife, who, on the surgeon's arrival in quest of a home, had accommodated him by receding from their front rooms into the kitchen quarter, whence they administered to his wants, and emerged at regular intervals to receive from him a not unwelcome addition to their income. The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangements that they might have been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time of William and Mary. In a low, dense hedge, cut into wedge shape, was a door over which the hedge formed an arch, and from the inside of the door, a straight path, bordered with clipped box, ran up the slope of the garden to the porch, which was exactly in the middle of the house front, with two windows on each side.

Right and left of the path were first a bed of gooseberry bushes, next of currants, next of raspberry, next of old-fashioned flowers, at the corners opposite the porch being spheres of box resembling a pair of school globes. Over the roof of the house could be seen the orchard, on yet higher ground, and behind the orchard the forest trees reaching up to the crest of the hill.

Opposite the garden door, and visible from the parlour window, was a swing-gate leading into a field, across which there ran a footpath. The swing-gate had just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon before the paint was dry, while the gnats were still drying thereon, the surgeon was standing in a sitting-room, abstractedly looking out at the different pedestrians who passed and repassed along that route. Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived that the character of each of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner by his or her method of handling the gate. As regarded the men, there was not much variety. They gave the gate a kick and passed through. The women were more contrasting.

To them, the sticky woodwork was a barricade, a disgust, a menace, a treachery, as the case might be. The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman, with her skirts tucked up and her hair uncombed. She grasped the gate without looking, giving it a supplementary push with her shoulder. When the white imprint drew from her, an exclamation in language not too refined. She went to the green bank, sat down and rubbed herself in the grass, cursing the while. Ha, ha, ha! laughed the doctor. The next was a girl, with her hair cropped short. in whom the surgeon recognized the daughter of his late patient, the Woodman South. Moreover, a black bonnet that she wore by way of mourning unpleasantly reminded him that he had ordered the felling of a tree, which had caused her parents' death and Winterbourne's losses.

She walked and thought, but not recklessly, but her preoccupation led her to grasp unsuspectingly the bar of the gate and touch it with her arm. Fitzpiers felt sorry that she should have soiled that new black frock, poor as it was, for it was probably her only one. She looked at her hand and arm, seemed but little surprised, wiped off the disfigurement with an almost unmoved face, and as if without abandoning her original thoughts. Thus she went on her way.

Then there came over the green quite a different sort of personage. She walked as delicately as if she had been bred in town, and as firmly as if she had been bred in the country. She seemed one who dimly knew her appearance to be attractive, but who retained some of the charm of being ignorant of that fact by forgetting it in a general pensiveness. She approached the gate. To let such a creature touch it, even with the tip of her glove, was to Fitzpiers almost like letting her proceed to tragic self-destruction. He jumped up, and looked for his hat, but was unable to find the right one. Glancing again out of the window, he saw that he was too late. Having come up, she stopped, looked at the gate, picked up a little stick, and, using it as a bayonet, pushed open the obstacle without touching it at all.

He steadily watched her as she passed out of sight, recognizing her as the very young lady whom he had seen once before, and been unable to identify. Whose could that emotional face be? All the others he had seen in Hintock as yet oppressed him with her crude rusticity. The contrast offered by this suggested that she hailed from elsewhere. Precisely these thoughts had occurred to him at the first time of seeing her, but he now went a little further with them, and considered that as there had been no carriage seen or heard lately in that spot, she could not have come a very long distance. She must be somebody staying at Hintock House. Possibly Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard so much, at any rate an inmate, and this probability was sufficient to set a mild radiance in the surgeon's somewhat dull sky.

Fitzpiers sat down to the book he had been perusing. It happened to be that of a German metaphysician, for the doctor was not a practical man, except by Fitz, and much preferred the ideal world to the real, and the discovery of principles to their application. The young lady remained in his thoughts. He might have followed her, but he was not constitutionally active, and preferred a conjectural pursuit. However, when he went out for a ramble just before dusk, he insensibly took the direction of Hintock House, which was the way that Grace had been walking, it having happened that her mind had run on Mrs. Sharman that day, and she had walked to the brow of the hill whence the house could be seen, returning by another route.

Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of the glen, overlooking the manor-house. The shutters were shut, and only one chimney smoked. The mere aspect of the place was enough to inform him that Mrs. Sharman had gone away, and that nobody else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt a vague disappointment that the young lady was not Mrs. Sharman, of whom he had heard so much, and without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass from which the spirit had flown, he bent his steps homeward.

Later in the evening Fitzpiers was summoned to visit a cottage patient about two miles distant. Like the majority of young practitioners in his position, he was far from having assumed the dignity of being driven his rounds by a servant in a brougham that flashed the sunlight like a mirror. His way of getting about was by means of a gig which he drove himself, hitching the rein of the horse to the gate-posts, shutterhook, or garden-paling of the domicile under visitation. Or giving pennies to little boys to hold the animal during his stay, pennies which were well earned, when the cases to be attended were of a certain cheerful kind that wore out the patience of the little boys. On this account of travelling alone, the night journeys which Fitzpiers had frequently to take were dismal enough.

A serious apparent perversity in nature ruling that whenever there was to be a berth in a particularly inaccessible and lonely place, That event should occur in the night. The surgeon, having been of late years a town man, hated the solitary midnight woodland. He was not altogether skilful with the rains, and it often occurred to his mind that if in some remote depths of the trees an accident were to happen, the fact of his being alone might be the death of him. Hence he made a practice of picking up any countryman or lad whom he chanced to pass by, and under the disguise of treating him to a nice drive, obtained his companionship on the journey, and his convenient assistance in opening gates.

The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in question, when the light of his lamps fell upon the musing form of Winterbourne, walking leisurely along, as if he had no object in life. Winterbourne was a better class of companion than the doctor usually could get, and he at once pulled up and asked him if he would like a drive through the wood that fine night. Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness, but said that he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers. They drove along under the black boughs which formed a network upon the stars, all the trees of a species alike in one respect, and no two of them alike in another. Looking up as they passed under a horizontal bow, they sometimes saw objects like large tadpoles lodged diametrically across it, which Giles explained to be pheasants there at roost, and they sometimes heard the report of a gun, which reminded him that others knew what those tadpole shapes represented as well as he.

Presently the doctor said what he had been going to say for some time. Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood? A very attractive girl, with a little white boa round her neck, and white fur round her gloves. Winterbourne, of course, knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had caught a doctor peering at, was represented by these accessories. With a rary grimness, partly in his character, partly induced by the circumstances, he evaded an answer by saying, "'I saw a young lady talking to Mrs. Charmant the other day. Perhaps it was she.' Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterbourne had not seen him looking over the hedge. "'It might have been,' he said. "'She is quite a gentlewoman, the one I mean.

She cannot be a permanent resident in Hintock, or I should have seen her before, nor does she look like one. "'She is not staying at Hintock House?' "'No, it is closed. Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages or farmhouses.' "'Oh, no, you mistake. She was a different sort of girl altogether.' As Giles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him accordingly, and apostrophized the night in continuation. She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, a power that from its object scarcely drew, one impulse of her being in her lightness, most like some radiant cloud of morning dew, which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue, to nourish some far desert she did seem. Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, Like the bright shade of some immortal dream, which walks, when tempests sleep, the wave of life's dark stream.

The consummate charm of the lion seemed to Winterbourne, though he divined that there were a quotation, to be somehow the result of his lost love's charms upon Fitzpiers. "'You seem to be mightily in love with her, sir,' he said with a sensation of heart-sickness, and more than ever resolved not to mention grace by name. Oh, no, I am not that, Winterbourne. People living insulated as I do by the solitude of this place get charged with a motive fluid like a Leyden jar with electric for want of some conductor at hand to disperse it. Human love is a subjective thing, the essence itself of man. As that great thinker Spinoza the philosopher says, ipse hominis essentia. It is joy accompanied by an idea which we project against any suitable object in the line of our vision, Just as the rainbow iris is projected against an oak, ash, or elm-tree indifferently.

So that if any other young lady had appeared, instead of the one who did appear, I should have felt just the same interest in her, and have quoted precisely the same lines from Shelley about her. As about this one I saw. Such miserable creatures of circumstance are we all. Well, it is what we call being in love down these parts, whether or no, said Winterbourne. You are right enough if you admit that I am in love with something in my own head, and no thing in itself outside it at all. Is it part of a country doctor's duties to learn that view of things, may I ask, sir? said Winterbourne, adopting the Socratic ironia with such well-assumed simplicity that Fitzpiers answered readily. Oh, no! The real truth is, Winterbourne, that medical practice in places like this is a very rule-of-thumb matter.

A bottle of bitter stuff for this and that old woman, the bitterer the better, compounded from a few simple stereotyped prescriptions, occasional attendance at births, where mere presents is almost sufficient, so healthy and strong are the people, and a lance for an apsis now and then. Investigation and experiment cannot be carried on without more appliances than one has here, though I have attempted it a little. Giles did not enter into this view of the case. What he had been struck with was the curious parallelism between Mr. Fitzpiers's manner and Grace's, as shown by the fact of both of them straying into a subject of discourse so engrossing to themselves that it made them forget it was foreign to him.

Nothing further passed between himself and the doctor in relation to Grace till they were on their way back. They had stopped at a wayside inn for a glass of brandy and cider hot, and when they were again in motion, Fitzpiers, possibly a little warmed by the liquor, resumed the subject by saying, "'I should like very much to know who that young lady was.' "'What difference can it make, if she's only the tree your rainbow falls on?' "'Ha! True!' You have no wife, sir? I have no wife, and no idea of one. I hope to do better things than marry and settle in Hintock. Not but that it is well for a medical man to be married, and sometimes, regard, it would be pleasant enough in this place, with the wind roaring round the house, and the rain and the boughs beating against it.

I hear that you lost your life-holds by the death of South. I did. I lost in more ways than one. They had reached the top of Hintock Lane, or Street, if it could be called such, where three-quarters of the roadside consisted of copse and orchard. One of the first houses to be passed was Melbury's. A light was shining from a bedroom window facing lengthwise of the lane. Winterbourne glanced at it, and saw what was coming. He had withheld an answer to the doctor's inquiry to hinder his knowledge of grace, But, as he thought to himself, who hath gathered the wind in his fists, who hath bound the waters in a garment? He could not hinder what was doomed to arrive, and he might just as well have been outspoken.

As they came up to the house, Grace's figure was distinctly visible, drawing the two white curtains together, which were used here instead of blinds. Why, there she is, said Fitzpiers. How does she come there? In the most natural way in the world, "'Tis our home. Mr. Melbury is our father." "'Oh! Indeed, indeed, indeed! How comes he to have a daughter at that stamp?' Winterborne laughed coldly. "'Won't money do anything,' he said, "'if you've promised a material to work upon? Why shouldn't a hint that girl, taken early from home and put under proper instruction, become as finished as any other young lady, if she's got brains and good looks to begin with?' No reason at all why she shouldn't, murmured the surgeon with reflective disappointment, only I didn't anticipate quite that kind of origin for her.

And you think an inch or two less of her now? There was a little tremor in Winterbourne's voice as he spoke. Well, said the doctor with recovered warmth, I'm not sure that I think less of her. At first it was a sort of blow, but dammy, I'll stick up for her. She's charming, every inch of her. So she is, said Winterbourne, but not to me. From this ambiguous expression of the reticent woodlanders, Dr. Fitzpiers inferred that Giles disliked Miss Melbury because of some haughtiness in her bearing towards him, and had on that account withheld her name. The supposition did not tend to diminish his admiration for her.

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The Woodlanders, chapter 17. Grace's exhibition of herself in the act of pulling to the window-curtains had been the result of an unfortunate incident in the house that day, nothing less than the illness of Grammer Oliver. A woman who had never till now lain down for such a reason in her life. Like others to whom unbroken years of health has made the idea of keeping their bed almost as repugnant as death itself, she had continued on foot till she had literally fell on the floor, and though she had, as yet, been scarcely a day off duty, she had sickened into quite a different personage from the independent grammar of the yard and spar-house. Ill as she was, on one point she was firm. On no account would she see a doctor, in other words, Fitzpiers.

The room in which Grace had been discerned was not her own, but the old woman's. On the girl's way to bed she had received a message from Grammer to the effect that she would much like to speak to her that night. Grace entered, and set the candle on a low chair beside the bed, so that the profile of Grammer as she lay cast itself in a keen shadow upon the whitened wall. Her large head being still further magnified by an enormous turban, which was, really, her petticoat, wound in a wreath round her temples. Grace put the room a little in order, and approaching the sick woman said, "'I'm come, Grammar, as you wish. Do let us send for the doctor before it gets later.' "'I will not have him,' said Grammar Oliver decisively.

"'Then somebody to sit up with you.' "'Can't a bear it.' No, I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, cause she have something on my mind. Dear Miss Grace, I took that money from the doctor after all." What money? The ten pounds. Grace did not quite understand. The ten pounds he offered me for my head, because of a large brain. I signed a paper when I took the money, not feeling concerned about it at all. I have not liked to tell you that it was really settled with him, because you showed such horror at the notion. Well, having thought it over more at length, I wish I hadn't done it, and it weighs upon my mind. John South's death of fear about the tree makes me think that I shall die of this. You have been going to ask him again to let me off, but I hadn't a face.

Why? I've spent some of the money, more than two pounds of it. It do worth me terribly. And I shall die of the thought of that paper I signed with my holy cross, as South died of his trouble. If you ask him to burn the paper he will, I'm sure, and think no more of it. You have done it once already, Miss. But he laughed, crew alike. Yours is such a fine brain, Grammar, who said, that science couldn't afford to lose you. Besides, you've taken my money. Don't let your father know of this, please. I'll know it can't whatever. No, no, I will let you have the money to return to him. Grammer rolled her head negatively on the pillow. Even if I should be well enough to take it to him, he won't like it.

Though why he should so particular want to look into the works of a poor old woman's headpiece like mine when there's so many other folks about, I don't know. I know how he'll answer me. A lonely person like you, Grammer, will say, what difference is it here what becomes of you when the breath is out of your body? Oh, it do trouble me. If you only knew how he'd do Chevy me around the Chimner in my dreams, you'd pity me. How I could do it, I can't think, but you has always been reckless. If I only had anybody to plead for me— Mrs. Melbury would, I'm sure. Ah, but you wouldn't hearken to she. It wants a younger face than hers to work upon such as he. Grace started with comprehension. You don't think he would do it for me?

she said. Oh, wouldn't he? I couldn't go to him, Grammer, on any account. I don't know him at all. Ah, if I were a young lady, said the artful Grammer, and could save a poor old woman's skellington from a heathen doctor instead of a Christian grave, I would do it and be glad to. But nobody will do anything for a poor old familiar friend but push her out of the way. You are very ungrateful, Grammer, to say that, but you are ill, I know, and that's why you speak so. Now, believe me, you are not going to die yet. Remember, you told me yourself that you meant to keep him waiting many a year. Ah, one can joke when one is well, even in old age, but in sickness one's gaiety falters to grief, and that which seems small looks large, and the grim far off seems near.

Grace's eyes had tears in them. "'I don't like to go to him on such an errand, Grammer,' she said brokenly. "'But I will, to ease your mind.' It was with extreme reluctance that Grace cloaked herself next morning for the undertaking. She was all the more indisposed to the journey by reason of Grammer's allusion to the effect of a pretty face upon Dr. Fitzpiers, And hence she most illogically did that which, had the doctor never seen her, would have operated to stultify the sole motive of her journey, that is to say, she put on a woollen veil which hid all her face except an occasional spark of her eyes. Her own wish that nothing should be known of this strange and gruesome proceeding, no less than Grandma Oliver's own desire, led Grace to take every precaution against being discovered.

She went out by the garden door as the safest way, all the household having occupations at the other side. The morning looked forbidding enough when she stealthily opened it. The battle between frost and thaw was continuing in midair. The trees dripped on the garden plots, where no vegetables would grow for the dripping, though they were planted year after year with that curious mechanical regularity of country people, in the face of hopelessness. The moss which covered the once broad gravel terrace was swamped, and Grace stood irresolute. Then she thought of poor Grammar, and her dreams of the doctor running after her, scalpel in hand, and the possibility of a case so curiously similar to South's ending in the same way.

Thereupon she stepped out into the drizzle. The nature of her errand and Grammer Oliver's account of the compact she had made lent a fascinating horror to Grace's conception of Fitzpiers. She knew that he was a young man, but her single object in seeking an interview with him put all considerations of his age and social aspect from her mind.

Standing as she stood, in Grammer Oliver's shoes, he was simply a remorseless jove of the sciences, who would not have mercy, and would have sacrifice, a man whom, save for this, she would have preferred to avoid knowing. But since, in such a small village, it was improbable that any long time could pass without her meeting, there was not much to deplore in her having to meet him now. But, as need hardly be said, Miss Melbury's view of the doctor as a merciless, unwavering, irresistible scientist was not quite in accordance with fact. The real Dr. Fitzpiers was a man of too many hobbies to show likelihood of rising to any great eminence in the profession he had chosen, or even to acquire any wild practice in the rural district he had marked out as his field of survey for the present.

In the course of a year his mind was accustomed to pass in a grand solar sweep through all the zodiacal signs of the intellectual heaven. Sometimes it was in the ram, sometimes in the bull, One month he would be immersed in alchemy, another in poesy, one month in the twins of astrology and astronomy, then in the crab of German literature and metaphysics. In justice to him it must be stated that he took such studies as were immediately related to his own profession in turn with the rest, and it had been in a month of anatomical ardour without the possibility of a subject that he had proposed to Grandma Oliver the term she had mentioned to her mistress.

As may be inferred with the tone of his conversation with Winterborne, he had lately plunged into abstract philosophy with much zest. Perhaps his keenly appreciative, modern, unpractical mind found this a realm more to his taste than any other. Though his aims were desultory, Fitzpiers's mental constitution was not without its admirable side. A keen enquirer he honestly was, even if the midnight rays of his lamp, visible so far through the trees of Hintock, lighted rank literatures of emotion and passion, as often as, or oftener than, the books and materiel of science. But whether he meditated the muses or the philosophers, the loneliness of Hintock's life was beginning to tell upon his impressionable nature.

Winter, in a solitary house in the country, without society, is tolerable, nay, even enjoyable and delightful, given certain conditions. But these are not the conditions which attach to the life of a professional man who drops down into such a place by mere accident. They were present to the lives of Winterbourne, Melbury, and Grace, but not to the doctors. They are old association. An almost exhaustive biographical and historical acquaintance with every object, animate and inanimate, within the observer's horizon. He must know all about those invisible ones of the days gone by, whose feet have traversed the fields which look so grey from his windows. Recall whose creaking plough has turned those sods from time to time, whose hands planted the trees that form a crest to the opposite hill.

Whose horses and hounds have torn through that underwood? What birds affect that particular break? What domestic dramas of love, jealousy, revenge, or disappointment have been enacted in the cottages, the mansion, the street, or on the green? The spot may have beauty, grandeur, salubrity, convenience, but if it lacks memories it will ultimately pall upon him who settles there without opportunity of intercourse with his kind. In such circumstances, maybe an old man dreams of an ideal friend till he throws himself into the arms of any impostor who chooses to wear that title on his face. A young man may dream of an ideal friend likewise, but some humor of the blood will probably lead him to think rather of an ideal mistress, and at length the rustle of a woman's dress, the sound of her voice, or the transit of her form across the field of his vision, will enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds his eyes.

The discovery of the attractive grace's name and family would have been enough in other circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to put her personality out of his head, to change the character of his interest in her. Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity, he would at most have played with it as a toy. He was that kind of a man. But situated here, he could not go so far as amative cruelty. He dismissed all reverential thought about her, But he could not help taking her seriously. He went on to imagine the impossible. So far, indeed, did he go in this futile direction that, as others are wont to do, he constructed dialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor House, the mysterious Mrs.

Charmond, particularly ready and willing to be wooed by himself and nobody else. "'Well, she isn't that,' he said finally. But she is a very sweet, nice, exceptional girl. The next morning he breakfasted alone, as usual. It was snowing, with a fine-flaked desultoriness just sufficient to make the woodlands grey, without ever achieving whiteness. There was not a single letter for Fitzpiers, only a medical circular and a weekly newspaper. To sit before a large fire on such mornings, and read, and gradually acquire energy till the evening came, and then, with lamp alight and feeling full of vigour, to peruse some engrossing subject or other till the small hours had hitherto been his practice. But to-day he could not settle into his chair.

That self-contained position he had lately occupied, in which the only attention demanded was the concentration of the inner eye, All outer regard being quite gratuitous, seemed to have been taken by insidious stratagem, and for the first time he had an interest outside the house. He walked from one window to another, and became aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the solitude of remoteness, but that which is just outside desirable company. The breakfast hour went by heavily enough, and the next followed, in the same half-snowy, half-rainy style, The weather now being the inevitable relapse which sooner or later succeeds a time too radiant for the season, such as they had enjoyed in the late midwinter at Hintock.

To people at home there, these changeful tricks had their interests. The strange mistakes that some of the more sanguine trees had made in budding before their month, to be incontinently glued up by frozen thawings now. The similar sanguine errors of impulsive birds in framing nests that were now swamped by snow-water and other such incidents prevented any sense of wearisomeness in the minds of the natives. But these were features of a world not familiar to Fitzpiers, and the inner visions to which he had almost exclusively attended having suddenly failed in their power to absorb him, he felt unutterably dreary. He wondered how long Miss Melbury was going to stay in Hintock. The season was unpropitious for accidental encounters with her out of doors, and except by accident he saw not how they were to become acquainted.

One thing was clear. Any acquaintance with her could only, with due regard to his future, be casual, at most of the nature of a flirtation, for he had high aims, and they would some day lead him into other spheres than this. Thus, desultorily thinking, he flung himself down upon the couch, which, as in many draughty old country houses, was constructed with a hood, being in fact a legitimate development from the settle. He tried to read as he reclined, but having sat up till three o'clock that morning, the book slipped from his hand, and he fell asleep.

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It was at this time that Grace approached the house. Her knock, always soft in virtue of her nature, was softer to-day by reason of her strange errand. However, it was heard by the farmer's wife who kept the house, and Grace was admitted. Opening the door of the doctor's room, the housewife glanced in, and, imagining Fitzpiers absent, asked Miss Melbury to enter and wait a few minutes, while she should go and find him, believing him to be somewhere on the premises. Grace acquiesced, went in, and sat down close to the door. As soon as the door was shut upon her, she looked round the room, and started at perceiving a handsome man snugly ensconced on the couch. like the recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the fifteenth century, except that his hands were by no means clasped in prayer.

She had no doubt that this was the doctor. Awaken him herself she could not, and her immediate impulse was to go and pull the broad ribbon with a brass rosette which hung at one side of the fireplace. But expecting the landlady to re-enter in a moment, she abandoned this intention, and stood gazing in great embarrassment at the reclining philosopher. The windows of Fitzpiers's soul being at present shuttered, he probably appeared less impressive than in his hours of animation, but the light abstracted from his material presence by sleep was more than counterbalanced by the mysterious influence of that state in a stranger upon the consciousness of a beholder so sensitive. So far as she could criticize it all, she became aware that she had encountered a specimen of creation altogether unusual in that locality.

The occasions on which Grace had observed men of this stamp were when she had been far removed away from Hintock, and even then such examples as had met her eye were at a distance, and mainly of coarser fibre than the one who now confronted her. She nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and returned, and went again towards the bell-pull. Approaching the chimney, her back was to Fitzpiers, but she could see him in the glass. An indescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected image were open, gazing wonderingly at her, and under the curious unexpectedness of the sight she became as if spellbound, almost powerless to turn her head and regard the original.

However, by an effort she did turn, and there he lay asleep, the same as before. Her startled perplexity as to what he could be meaning was sufficient to lead her to precipitately abandon her errand. She crossed quickly to the door, opened and closed it noiselessly, and went out of the house unobserved. By the time she had gone down the path and through the garden door into the lane, she had recovered her equanimity. Here, screened by the hedge, she stood and considered a while. Drip, drip, drip fell the rain upon her umbrella and around. She had come out on such a morning because of the seriousness of the matter in hand. Yet she had allowed her mission to be stultified by a momentary tremulousness concerning an incident which perhaps had meant nothing after all.

In the meantime, her departure from the room, stealthy as it had been, had aroused Fitzpiers, and he sat up. In the reflection from the mirror which Grace had beheld, there was no mystery. He had opened his eyes for a few moments, but had immediately relapsed into unconsciousness, if indeed he had ever been positively awake. That somebody had just left the room he was certain, and that the lovely form which seemed to have visited him in a dream was no less than the real presentation of the person departed he could hardly doubt. Looking out of the window a few minutes later, down the box-edged gravel path which led to the bottom, he saw the garden door gently open, and through it entered the young girl of his thoughts, Grace having just at this juncture determined to return and attempt the interview a second time.

That he saw her coming instead of going made him ask himself if his first impression of her were not a dream indeed. She came hesitatingly along, carrying her umbrella so low over her head that he could hardly see her face. When she reached the point where the raspberry bushes ended and the strawberry bed began, she made a little pause. Fitzpiers feared that she might not be coming to him even now, and hastily quitting the room, he ran down the path to meet her. The nature of her errand he could not divine, but he was prepared to give her any amount of encouragement. "'I beg pardon, Miss Melbury,' he said. "'I saw you from the window, and fancied you might imagine I was not at home, if it is I you were coming for.' "'I was coming to speak one word with you—nothing more,' she replied.

"'And I can say it here. No, no, please do come in. Well, then, if you will not come into the house, come as far as the porch.' Thus pressed she went on to the porch, and they stood together inside it, Fitzpiers closing her umbrella for her. "'I have merely a request or petition to make,' she said. "'My father's servant is ill—a woman, you know—and her illness is serious.' "'I'm sorry to hear it. You wish me to come and see her at once.' "'No, I particularly wish you not to come.' "'Oh, indeed?' "'Yes, and she wishes the same.' It would make her seriously worse if you were to come. It would almost kill her. My errand is of a peculiar and awkward nature. It is concerning a subject which weighs on her mind, that unfortunate arrangement she made with you, that you might have her body after death.

Oh, Grandma Oliver, the old woman with the fine head, seriously ill, is she? And so disturbed by her rash compact. I have brought the money back. Will you please return to her the agreement she signed? Grace held out to him a couple of five-pound notes, which he had kept ready tucked in her glove.

Without replying or considering the notes, Fitzpiers allowed his thoughts to follow his eyes and dwell upon Grace's personality, and the sudden close relation in which he stood to her. The porch was narrow, and the rain increased. It ran off the porch, and dripped on the creepers, and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace's cloak and skirts. "'The rain is wetting your dress. Please, do come in,' he said. "'It really makes my heart ache to let you stay here.' Immediately inside the front door was the door of his sitting-room. He flung it open, and stood in a coaxing attitude. Try how she would, Grace could not resist the supplicatory mandate written in the face and manner of this man, and a stressful resignation sat on her as she glided past him into the room, brushing his coat with her elbow by reason of the narrowness.

He followed her, shut the door, which she somehow had hoped he would leave open, and, placing a chair for her, sat down. The concern which Grace felt at the development of these commonplace incidents was, of course, mainly owing to the strange effect upon her nerves of that view of him in the mirror gazing at her with open eyes when she had thought him sleeping, which made her fancy that his slumber might have been a feint based on inexplicable reasons. She again proffered the notes. He awoke from looking at her as at a piece of live statuary, and listened deferentially as she said, Will you then reconsider, and cancel the bond which poor Grammer Oliver so foolishly gave? I'll cancel it without reconsideration, though you will allow me to have my own opinion about her foolishness.

Grammer is a very wise woman, and she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there was something very fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury? But remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times have entered into such agreements. Not fiendish. Strange. Yes, that may be, since strangeness is not in the nature of a thing, but in its relation to something extrinsic, in this case, an unessential observer. He went to his desk, and searching a while found a paper, which he unfolded and brought to her. A thick cross appeared in ink at the bottom, evidently from the hand of Grammer. Grace put the paper in her pocket with a look of much relief. As Fitzpiers did not take the money, half of which had come from Grace's own purse, she pushed it a little nearer to him.

"'No, no, I shall not take it from the old woman,' he said. "'It is more strange than the fact of a surgeon arranging to obtain a subject for dissection that our acquaintance should be formed out of it. I am afraid you think me uncivil in showing my dislike to the notion, but I did not mean to be.' "'Oh, no, no,' he looked at her. as he had done before, with puzzled interest. "'I cannot think—I cannot think,' he murmured. "'Something bewilders me greatly.' He still reflected and hesitated. "'Last night I sat up very late.' He at last went on. "'And on that account I fell into a little nap on that couch about half an hour ago, and during my few minutes of unconsciousness I dreamed—what do you think?

That you stood in the room.' Should she tell? She merely blushed. "'You may imagine,' Fitzpears continued, now persuaded, that it had indeed been a dream, "'that I should not have dreamed of you without considerable thinking about you first.' He could not be acting. Of that she felt assured. "'I fancied in my vision that you stood there,' he said, pointing to where she had paused. "'I did not see you directly, but reflected in the glass. I thought, what a lovely creature!' The design is for once carried out. Nature has at last recovered her lost union with the idea. My thoughts ran in that direction because I had been reading the work of a transcendental philosopher last night, and I dare say it was the dose of idealism that I received from it that made me scarcely able to distinguish between reality and fancy.

I almost wept when I awoke, and found that you had appeared to me in time, but not in space. Alas! At moments there was something theatrical in the delivery of Fitzpiers's effusion, yet it would have been inexact to say that it was intrinsically theatrical. It often happens that in situations of unrestraint, where there is no thought of the eye of criticism, real feeling glides into a mode of manifestation, not easily distinguishable from Rodimontade. A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth, With the evil consequence, if perceived, that a substance is estimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected. Grace, however, was no specialist in man's manners, and she admired the sentiment without thinking of the form.

And she was embarrassed. Lovely creature, made explanation awkward to her gentle modesty. "'But can it be,' he said suddenly, "'that you really were here?' "'I have to confess that I have been in the room once before,' faltered she. "'The woman showed me in, and went away to fetch you, but as she did not return I left. "'And you saw me asleep?' he murmured with the faintest show of humiliation. "'Yes, if you were asleep, and did not deceive me.' "'Why do you say if?' "'I saw your eyes open in the glass, but as they were closed when I looked round upon you I thought you were perhaps deceiving me.' "'Never!' said Fitzpiers fervently. Never could I deceive you. Foreknowledge, to the distance of a year or so in either of them, might have spoiled the effect of that pretty speech, Never deceive her.

But they knew nothing, and the phrase had its day. Grace began now to be anxious to terminate the interview, but the compelling power of Fitzpiers's atmosphere still held her there. She was like an inexperienced actress, who, having at last taken up her position on the boards and spoken her speeches, does not know how to move off. The thought of Grammer occurred to her. "'I'll go at once and tell poor Grammer of your generosity,' she said. "'It will relieve her at once.' Grammer's is a nervous disease, too. How singular,' he answered, accompanying her to the door. "'One moment. Look at this. It's something which may interest you.' He had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage, and she saw a microscope on the table of the confronting room.

"'Look into it, please. You'll be interested,' he repeated. She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle of light patterned all over with a cellular tissue of some indescribable sort. "'What do you think it is?' said Fitzpiers. "'She did not know.' That's a fragment of old John South's brain which I am investigating. She started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it should have got there. Fitzpiers laughed. Here am I, he said, endeavouring to carry on simultaneously the study of physiology and transcendental philosophy, the material world and the ideal, so as to discover, if possible, a point of contact between them, and your finer sense is quite offended. Oh, no, Mr. Fitzpiers, said Grace earnestly.

It is not so at all. I know from seeing your light at night how deeply you meditate and work. Instead of condemning you for your studies, I admire you very much.

Her face, upturned from the microscope, was so sweet, sincere, and self-forgetful in its aspect that the susceptible Fitzpiers more than wished to annihilate the lineal yard which separated it from his own. Whether anything of the kind showed in his eyes or not, Grace remained no longer at the microscope, but quickly went her way into the rain.

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Instead of resuming his investigation of South's brain, which perhaps was not so interesting under the microscope as might have been expected from the importance of that organ in life, Fitzpiers reclined and ruminated on the interview. Grace's curious susceptibility to his presence, though it was as if the currents of her life were disturbed rather than attracted by him, added a special interest to her general charm. Fitzpiers was in a distinct degree scientific, being ready and zealous to interrogate all physical manifestations, but primarily he was an idealist. He believed that behind the imperfect lay the perfect, that rare things were to be discovered amid a bulk of commonplace, that results in a new and untried case might be different from those in other cases where the conditions had been precisely similar.

Regarding his own personality as one of unbounded possibilities, because it was his own, notwithstanding that the factors of his life had worked out a sorry product for thousands, He saw nothing but what was regular in his discovery at Hintock of an altogether exceptional being of the other sex, who, for nobody else, would have had any existence. One habit of Fitzpiers's, commoner in dreamers of more advanced age than in men of his years, was that of talking to himself. He paced round his room, with a selective tread upon the more prominent blooms of the carpet, and murmured, This phenomenal girl would be the light of my life while I'm at Hintock, and the special beauty of the situation is that her attitude and relations to each other would be purely spiritual.

Socially, we can never be intimate. Anything like matrimonial intentions towards her, charming as she is, would be absurd. They would spoil the ethereal character of my regard, and, indeed, I have other aims on the practical side of my life. Fitzpiers bestowed a regulation thought on the advantageous marriage he was bound to make with a woman of family as good as his own, and of purse much longer. But as an object of contemplation for the present, as object of spirit rather than corporeal presence, Grace Melbury would serve to keep his soul alive, and to relieve the monotony of his days.

His first notion, acquired from the mere sight of her without converse, was that of an ideal and vulgar flirtation with a timber-merchant's pretty daughter, grated painfully upon him now that he had found what Grace intrinsically was. Personal intercourse with such as she could take no lower form than intellectual communion, and mutual explorations of the world of thought. Since he could not call at her father's, having no practical views, cursory encounters in the lane, the wood, coming and going to and from church, or in passing her dwelling, were what the acquaintance would have to feed on. Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realize themselves in the event. Rencounters of not more than a minute's duration, frequently repeated, will build up mutual interest, even an intimacy, in a lonely place.

Theirs grew as imperceptibly as the tree-twigs budded. There never was a particular moment at which it could be said they became friends, yet a delicate understanding now existed between two who in the winter had been strangers. Spring weather came on rather suddenly, the unsealing of buds that had long been swollen accomplishing itself in the space of one warm night. The rush of sap in the veins of the trees could almost be heard. The flowers of late April took up a position unseen, and looked as if they had been blooming a long while, though there had been no trace of them the day before yesterday. Birds began not to mind getting wet. Indoor people said they had heard the nightingale, to which outdoor people replied contemptuously that they had heard it a fortnight before.

The young doctor's practice being scarcely so large as a London surgeon's, he frequently walked in the wood. Indeed, such practice as he had, he did not follow up with the assiduity that would have been necessary for developing it to exceptional proportions. One day, book in hand, he walked in a part of the wood where the trees were mainly oaks. It was a calm afternoon. And there was everywhere that sign of great undertakings on the part of vegetable nature, which is apt to fill reflective human beings who are not undertaking much themselves with a sudden uneasiness at the contrast. He heard in the distance a curious sound, something like the quack of a duck, which, though it was common enough here about this time, was not common to him.

Looking through the trees, Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of the noise. The barking season had just commenced, and what he had heard was the tear of the ripping-tool, as it ploughed its way along the sticky parting between the trunk and the rind. Melbury did a large business in bark, and as he was Grace's father and might possibly be found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted to the scene even more than he might have been by its intrinsic interest. When he got nearer, he recognized among the workmen The two timideys, and Robert Creedle, who probably had been lent by Winterbourne. Marty South also assisted. Each tree doomed to this flaying process was first attacked by Creedle. With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from twigs and patches of moss which encrusted it to a height of a foot or two above the ground, an operation comparable to the little toilet of the executioner's victim.

After this, it was barked in its erect position to a point as high as a man could reach. If a fine product of vegetable nature could ever be said to look ridiculous, it was the case now, when the oak stood, naked-legged, and as if ashamed, till the axe-man came and cut a ring around it, and the two timidees finished the work with the cross-cut saw. As soon as it had fallen, the barkers attacked it like locusts. and in a short time not a particle of rind was left on the trunk, and larger limbs. Marty South was an adept in peeling the upper parts, and there she stood, encaged amid a mass of twigs and buds like a great bird, running her tool into the smallest branches beyond the farthest points to which the skill and patience of the men enabled them to proceed.

Branches which, in their lifetime, had swayed high above the bulk of the wood and caught the latest and earliest rays of the sun and moon, while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness. "'You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty,' said Fitzpiers. "'No, sir,' she said, holding up the tool. A horse's leg-bone fitted into a handle and filed to an edge. "'It is only that they have less patience with the twigs, because their time is worth more than mine."

A little shed had been constructed on the spot of thatched hurdles and boughs, and in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle sung. Fitzpierce sat down inside the shelter, and went on with his reading, except when he looked up to observe the scene and the actors. The thought that he might settle here and become welded in with this sylvan life by marrying Grace Melbury crossed his mind for a moment. Why should he go further into the world than where he was? The secret of quiet happiness lay in limiting the ideas and aspirations. These men's thoughts were counterminers with the margin of the Hintock woodlands, and why should not his be likewise limited? A small practice among the people around him being the bound of his desires.

Presently Marty South discontinued her operations upon the quivering boughs, came out from the reclining oak, and prepared tea. When it was ready, the men were called, and Fitzpiers, being in a mood to join, sat down with them.

The latent reason of his lingering here so long revealed itself when the faint creaking of the joints of a vehicle became audible, and one of the men said, "'Here's he!' Turning their heads, they saw Melbury's gig approaching, the wheels muffled by the yielding moss. The timber merchant was on foot, leading the horse, looking back at every few steps to caution his daughter, who kept her seat, where and how to duck her head so as to avoid the overhanging branches. They stopped at the spot where the bar-gripping had been temporarily suspended. Melbury cursorily examined the heaps of bark, and, drawing near to where the workmen were sitting down, accepted their shouted invitation to have a dish of tea, for which purpose he hitched the horse to a bough.

Grace declined to take any of their beverage, and remained in her place in the vehicle, looking dreamily at the sunlight that came in thin threads through the hollies with which the oaks were interspersed. When Melbury stepped up close to the shelter, he for the first time perceived that the doctor was present, and warmly appreciated Fitzpiers's invitation to sit down on the log beside him. "'Bless my heart! Who would have thought of finding you here?' he said, obviously much pleased at the circumstance. "'I wonder now if my daughter knows you're so nigh at hand. I don't expect she do.' He looked out towards the gig, wherein Grace sat, her face still turned in the opposite direction. "'She doesn't see us.' Well, never mind.

Let her be. Grace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers's propinquity. She was thinking of something which had little connection with the scene before her, thinking of her friend, lost as soon as found, Mrs. Charmond, of her capricious conduct, and of the contrasting scenes she was probably enjoying at that very moment in other climes, to which Grace herself had hoped to be introduced by her friend's means. She wondered if this patronizing lady would return to Hintock during the summer, and whether the acquaintance which had been nipped on the last occasion of her residence there would develop on the next. Melbury told ancient timber stories as he sat, relating them directly to Fitzpiers, and obliquely to the men who had heard them often before.

Marty, who poured out the tea, was just saying, "'I think I'll take a cup out to Miss Grace.' When they heard a clashing of the gig harness, and turning round, Melbury saw that the horse had become restless. He was jerking about the vehicle in a way which alarmed its occupant, though she refrained from screaming. Melbury jumped up immediately, but not more quickly than Fitzpiers, and while her father ran to the horse's head and speedily began to control him, Fitzpiers was alongside the gig, assisting Grace to descend. Her surprise at his appearance was so great that, far from making a calm and independent descent, she was very nearly lifted down in his arms. He relinquished her when she touched the ground, and hoped she was not frightened.

Oh, no, not much, she managed to say. There was no danger, unless he had run under the trees, where the boughs are low enough to hit my head. Which was by no means an impossibility, and justifies any amount of alarm. He referred to what he thought he saw written in her face, and she could not tell him that this had little to do with the horse, but much with himself. His contiguity had, in fact, the same effect upon her as on those former occasions when he had come closer to her than usual, that of producing in her an unaccountable tendency to tearfulness. Melbury soon put the horse to rights, and seeing that Grace was safe, turned again to the workpeople. His daughter's nervous distress had passed off in a few moments, and she said quite gaily to Fitzpiers as she walked with him towards the group.

"'There's destiny in it, you see. I was doomed to join your picnic, although I did not intend to do so.' Marty prepared her a comfortable place, and she sat down in the circle and listened to Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and the bark rippers sundry narratives of their fathers, their grandfathers, and their own adventures in these woods. Of the mysterious sights they had seen, only to be accounted for by supernatural agency, of white witches and black witches, and the standard story of the spirits of the two brothers who had fought and fallen, and had haunted Hintock House till they were exercised by the priest, and compelled to retreat to a swamp in this very wood, whence they were returning to their old quarters at the rate of a cock's stride every New Year's Day, old style, hence the local saying, On New Year's tide, a cock's stride.

It was a pleasant time. The smoke from the little fire of peeled sticks rose between the sitters and the sunlight, and behind its blue veil stretched the naked arms of the prostrate trees. The smell of the uncovered sap mingled with the smell of the burning wood, and the sticky inner surface of the scattered bark glistened as it revealed its pale madder hues to the eye. Melbury was so highly satisfied at having Fitzpiers as a sort of guest that he would have sat on for any length of time, but Grace, on whom Fitzpiers's eyes only too frequently alighted, seemed to think it incumbent upon her to make a show of going, and her father thereupon accompanied her to the vehicle. As the doctor had helped her out of it, he appeared to think that he had excellent reasons for helping her in, and performed the attention lingeringly enough.

What were you almost in tears about just now? He asked softly. I don't know, she said, and the words were strictly true. Melbury mounted on the other side, and they drove on out of the grove, their wheels silently crushing delicate-patterned mosses, hyacinths, primroses, lords and ladies, and other strange and ordinary plants, and cracking up little sticks that lay across the track. Their way homeward ran along the crest of a lofty hill, whence on the right they beheld a wide valley, differing both in feature and atmosphere from that of the Hintock precincts. It was a cider country, which met the woodland district on the axis of this hill. Over the vale the air was blue as sapphire, such a blue as outside that apple valley was never seen.

Under the blue the orchards were in a blaze of bloom. Some of the richly-flowered trees running almost up to where they drove along. Over a gate which opened down the incline, a man leaned on his arms, regarding this fair promise so intently that he did not observe their passing. "'That was Giles,' said Melbury, when they had gone by. "'Was it? Poor Giles,' said she. "'All that Bluth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands.' If no blight happens before the settee, the apple yield will be such as we have not had for years. Meanwhile in the wood they had come from, the men had sat on so long that they were indisposed to begin work again that evening. They were paid by the ton, and their time for labour was as they chose.

They placed the last gatherings of bark in rows for the curers, which led them farther and farther away from the shed, and thus they gradually withdrew as the sun went down. Fitzpiers lingered yet. He had opened his book again, though he could hardly see a word in it, and sat before the dying fire, scarcely knowing of the men's departure. He dreamed and mused till his consciousness seemed to occupy the whole space of the woodland around. So little was there of jarring sight or sound to hinder perfect unity with the sentiment of the place. The idea returned upon him of sacrificing all practical aims to live in calm contentment here. and instead of going on elaborating new conceptions with infinite pains, to accept quiet domesticity according to oldest and homeliest notions.

These reflections detained him till the wood was embrowned with the coming night, and the shy little bird of this dusky time had begun to pour out all the intensity of his eloquence from a bush not very far off.

Fitzpiers's eyes commanded as much of the ground in front as was open, Entering upon this he saw a figure whose direction of movement was towards the spot where he sat. The surgeon was quite shrouded from observation by the recessed shadow of the hut, and there was no reason why he should move till the stranger had passed by. The shape resolved itself into a woman's. She was looking on the ground and walking slowly as if searching for something that had been lost, her course being precisely that of Mr. Melbury's gig. Fitzpiers, by a sort of divination, jumped to the idea that the figure was Grace's. Her nearer approach made that guess a certainty. Yes, she was looking for something, and she came round by the prostrate trees that would have been invisible but for the white nakedness which enabled her to avoid them easily.

Thus she approached the heap of ashes, and acting upon what was suggested by a still shining ember or two, she took a stick and stirred the heap. which thereupon burst into a flame. On looking around by the lights thus obtained, she for the first time saw the illuminated face of Fitzpiers, precisely in the spot where she had left him. Grace gave a start and a scream. The place had been associated with him in her thoughts, but she had not expected to find him there still. Fitzpiers lost not a moment in rising and going to her side. "'I frightened you dreadfully, I know.' He said, "'I ought to have spoken, but I did not at first expect it to be you. I have been sitting here ever since.' He was actually supporting her with his arm, as though under the impression that she was quite overcome and in danger of falling.

As soon as she could collect her ideas, she gently withdrew from his grasp, and explained what she had returned for. In getting up or down from the gig, or when sitting by the hut fire, she had dropped her purse. "'Now we will find it.' said Fitzpiers. He threw an armful of last year's leaves on to the fire, which made the flame leap higher, and the encompassing shades to weave themselves into a denser contrast, turning Eve into night in a moment. By this radiance they groped about on their hands and knees, till Fitzpiers rested on his elbow and looked at Grace. "'We must always meet in odd circumstances,' he said. "'And this is one of the oddest. I wonder if it means anything.' Oh, no, I'm sure it doesn't, said Grace in haste, quickly assuming an erect posture.

Pray don't say it any more. I hope there was not much money in the purse, said Fitzpiers, rising to his feet more slowly and brushing the leaves from his trousers. Scarcely, Annie. I cared more about the purse itself because it was given me. Indeed, money is of little more use at Hintock than on Creuso's Island. There's hardly any way of spending it. They had given up the search when Fitzpiers discerned something by his foot. "'Here it is,' he said, "'so that your father, mother, friend, or admirer will not have his or her feelings hurt by a sense of your negligence after all.' "'Oh, he knows nothing of what I do now.' "'The admirer,' said Fitzpiers slyly. "'I don't know if you would call him that,' said Grace with simplicity.

The admirer is a superficial, conditional creature, and this person is quite different. He has all the cardinal virtues? Perhaps, though I don't know them precisely. You unconsciously practice them, Miss Melbury, which is better? According to Schleiermacher, they are self-control, perseverance, wisdom, and love, and his is the best list that I know. I'm afraid poor— She was going to say that she feared Winterbourne, the giver of the purse years before, had not much perseverance, though he had all the other three, but she determined to go no further in this direction, and was silent.

These half-revelations made a perceptible difference in Fitzpiers. His sense of personal superiority wasted away, and Grace assumed in his eyes the true aspect of a mistress in a lover's regard. Miss Melbury, He said suddenly, "'I divine that this virtuous man you mention has been refused by you.' She could do no otherwise than admit it. "'I do not inquire without good reason. God forbid I should kneel in another man's place at any shrine unfairly, but, my dear Miss Melbury, now that he is gone may I draw near.' "'I can't say anything about that,' she cried quickly, "'because when a man has been refused you feel pity for him and like him more than you did before.' This increasing complication added still more value to Grace in the surgeon's eyes.

It rendered her adorable. But cannot you say? He pleaded distractedly. I'd rather not. I think I must go home at once. Oh, yes, said Fitzpiers, but as he did not move she felt it awkward to walk straight away from him, and so they stood silently together. A diversion was created by the accident of two birds that had either been roosting above their heads or nesting there, tumbling one over the other into the hot ashes at their feet, apparently engrossed in a desperate quarrel that prevented the use of their wings. They speedily parted, however, and flew up and were seen no more. "'That's the end of what is called love,' said someone. The speaker was neither Grace nor Fitzpiers, but Marty South, who approached with her face turned up to the sky in her endeavor to trace the birds.

Suddenly perceiving Grace, she exclaimed, "'Oh, Miss Melbury, I've been following they pigeons and didn't see you.' "'And here's Mr. Winterbourne,' she continued shyly as she looked toward Fitzpiers, who stood in the background. "'Marty,' Grace interrupted, "'I want you to walk home with me, will you? Come along.' And without lingering longer, she took hold of Marty's arm and led her away. They went between the spectral arms of the peeled trees as they lay, and onward among the growing trees by a path where there were no oaks and no barking and no fitz-piers, nothing but copsewood, between which the primroses could be discerned in pale bunches. "'I didn't know Mr. Winterbourne was there,' said Marty, breaking the silence when they had nearly reached Grace's door.

Nor was he, said Grace. But, Miss Melbury, I saw him. No, said Grace. It was somebody else. Giles Winterbourne is nothing to me.

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opaque body of infinitely larger shape and importance. The boughs cast green shades, which hurt the complexion of the girls who walked there, and a fringe of them, which overhung Mr. Melbury's garden, dripped on his seed-plots when it rained, pitting their surface all over as with pock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in such a place were no good at all. The two trees that had creaked all the winter left off creaking, the whir of the night-jar, however, forming a very satisfactory continuation of uncanny music from that quarter. Except at midday, the sun was not seen complete by the Hintock people, but rather in the form of numerous little stars staring through the leaves. Such an appearance it had on Midsummer's Eve of this year And as the hour grew later, and nine o'clock drew on, the irradiation of the daytime became broken up by weird shadows and ghostly nooks of indistinctness.

Imagination could trace upon the trunks and boughs strange faces and figures shaped by the dying lights. The surfaces of the holly-leaves would here and there shine like peeping eyes. While such fragments of the sky as were visible between the trunks assumed the aspect of sheeted forms and cloven tongues. This was before the moonrise. Later on, when that planet was getting command of the upper heaven, and consequently shining with an unbroken face into such open glades as there were in the neighborhood of the Hamnet, it became apparent that the margin of the wood which approached the timber-merchant's premises was not to be left to the customary stillness of that reposeful time. Fitzpiers, having heard her voice or voices, was looking over his garden gate, where he now looked more frequently than into his books, fancying that Grace might be abroad with some friends.

He was now irretrievably committed in heart to Grace Melbury, though he was by no means sure that she was so far committed to him. That the idea had for once completely fulfilled itself in the objective substance, which he had hitherto deemed an impossibility, he was enchanted enough to fancy must be the case at last. It was not Grace who had passed, however, but several of the ordinary village girls in a group, some steadily walking, some in a mood of wild gaiety. He quietly asked his landlady, who was also in the garden, what these girls were intending, And she informed him that it being Old Midsummer's Eve, they were about to attempt some spell or enchantment which would afford them a glimpse of their future partners for life.

She declared it to be an ungodly performance, and one which she, for her part, would never countenance, saying which she entered her house and retired to bed. The young man lit a cigar and followed the bevy of maidens slowly up the road. They had turned into the wood at an opening between Melbury's and Marty South's, but Fitzpiers could easily track them by their voices, low as they endeavored to keep their tones. In the meantime, other inhabitants of Little Hintock had become aware of the nocturnal experiment about to be tried, and were also sauntering stealthily after the frisky maidens. Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South during the day of the proposed peep into futurity, and being only a girl like the rest, she was sufficiently interested to wish to see the issue.

The moon was so bright, and the night so calm, that she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs. Melbury to accompany her, and thus, joined by Marty, these went onward in the same direction. Passing Winterbourne's house, they heard a noise of hammering. Marty explained it. It was the last night on which his paternal roof would shelter him, the days of grace since it fell into hand having expired, and Giles was taking down his cupboards and bedsteads with a view to an early exit next morning. His encounter with Mrs. Charmant had cost him dearly. When they had proceeded a little further, Marty was joined by Grammer Oliver, who was as young as the youngest in such matters, And Grace and Mrs. Melbury went on by themselves till they had arrived at the spot chosen by the village daughters, whose primary intention of keeping their expedition a secret had been quite defeated.

Grace and her stepmother paused by a holly-tree, and at a little distance stood Fitzpiers, under the shade of a young oak, intently observing Grace, who was in the full rays of the moon. He watched her without speaking, and unperceived by any but Marty and Grammer, who had drawn up on the dark side of the same holly which sheltered Mrs. and Miss Melbury on its bright side. The two former conversed in low tones. "'If they two come up in wood next Midsummer Night, they'll come as one,' said Grammer, signifying Fitzpiers and Grace. Instead of my skellington, he'll carry home her living carcass before long. But though she's a lady in herself, and worthy of any such as he, it do seem to me that he ought to marry somebody more of the sort of Mrs.

Charmond, and that Miss Grace should make the best of Winterbourne. Marty returned no comment, and at that minute the girls, some of whom were from Great Hintock, were seen advancing to work the incantation, it being now about midnight. Directly we see anything, we'll run home as fast as we can, said one whose courage had begun to fail her. To this the rest assented, not knowing that a dozen neighbors lurked in the bushes around. I wish we had not thought of trying this, said another, but had contented ourselves with the hole digging tomorrow at twelve, and hearing our husbands' trades. It's too much like having dealings with the evil one to try to raise their forms. However, they had gone too far to recede, and slowly began to march forward in a skirmishing line through the trees towards the deeper recesses of the wood.

As far as the listeners could gather, the particular form of black art to be practised on this occasion was one connected with the sowing of hemp seed, a handful of which was carried by each girl. At the moment of their advance they looked back, and discern the figure of Miss Melbury, who, alone of all the observers, stood in the full face of the moonlight, deeply engrossed in the proceedings. By contrast with her life of late years, they made her feel as if she had receded a couple of centuries in the world's history. She was rendered doubly conspicuous by her light dress, and after a few whispered words, one of the girls, a bouncing maiden, plighted to young Timothy Tangs, asked her if she would join them.

Grace, with some excitement, said that she would, and moved on a little in the rear of the rest.

Soon the listeners could hear nothing of their proceedings beyond the faintest occasional rustle of leaves. Grammar whispered again to Marty. Why don't you go and try a look with the rest of the maids? I don't believe in it, said Marty shortly. Why, half the parish is here. The silly hussies should have kept it quiet. I see Mr. Winterbourne through the leaves, just come up with Robert Creedle. Marty, we ought to act the part of Providence sometimes. Do go and tell him that if he stands just behind the bush at the bottom of the slope, Miss Grace must pass down it when she comes back, and she will most likely rush into his arms, for as soon as the clock strikes, they'll bundle back home along the cares.

I've seen such larries before. "'Do you think I'd better?' said Marty reluctantly. "'Oh, yes. He'll bless you for it.' "'I don't want that kind of blessing.' But after a moment's thought she went and delivered the information, and Grammer had the satisfaction of seeing Giles walk slowly to the bend of the leafy defile, along which Grace would have to return. Meanwhile Mrs. Melbury, deserted by Grace, had perceived Fitzpiers and Winterborne, and also the move of the latter. An improvement on Grammer's idea entered the mind of Mrs. Melbury, for she had lately discerned what her husband had not—that Grace was rapidly fascinating the surgeon. She therefore drew near to Fitzpiers. "'You should be where Mr.

Winterborne is standing,' she said to him significantly. She will run down through that opening much faster than she went up it, if she's like the rest of the girls. Fitzpiers did not require to be told twice. He went across to Winterbourne, and stood beside him. Each knew the probable purpose of the other in standing there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers scorning to look upon Winterbourne as a rival, and Winterbourne adhering to the off-hand manner of indifference which had grown upon him since his dismissal. Neither Grammer nor Marty South had seen the surgeon's maneuver, and still to help Winterbourne, as she supposed, the old woman suggested to the wood girl that she should walk forward at the heels of Grace, and tole her down the required way if she showed a tendency to run in another direction.

Poor Marty! Always doomed to sacrifice desire to obligation, walked forward accordingly, and waited as a beacon, still and silent, for the retreat of Grace and her giddy companions, now quite out of hearing.

The first sound to break the silence was the distant note of Great Hintock Clock striking the significant hour. About a minute later, that quarter of the wood to which the girls had wandered resounded with a flapping of disturbed birds. Then two or three hares and rabbits bounded down the glade from the same direction, and after these the rustling and crackling of leaves and dead twigs denoted the hurried approach of the adventurers, whose fluttering gowns soon became visible. Miss Melbury, having gone forward quite in the rear of the rest, was one of the first to return, and the excitement being contagious she ran laughing towards Marty, who still stood as a hand-post to guide her. Then, passing on, she flew round the fatal bush where the undergrowth narrowed into a gorge.

Marty arrived at her heels just in time to see the result. Fitzpiers had quickly stepped forward in front of Winterbourne, who, disdaining to shift his position, had turned on his heel. And then the surgeon did what he would not have thought of doing but for Mrs. Melbury's encouragement and the sentiment of an eve which effaced conventionality. Stretching out his arms as the white figure burst upon him, he captured her in a moment as if she had been a bird. "'Oh!' cried Grace in her fright. You are in my arms, dearest, said Fitzpiers, and I am going to claim you and keep you there all our two lives. She rested on him like one utterly mastered, and it was several seconds before she recovered from this helplessness.

Subdued screams and struggles, audible from neighboring breaks, revealed that there had been other lurkers thereabout for a similar purpose. Grace, unlike most of these companions of hers, instead of gasping and writhing, said in a trembling voice, Mr. Fitzpiers, will you let me go? Certainly, he said, laughing. As soon as you have recovered. She waited another few moments, then quietly and firmly pushed him aside and glided on her path, the moon whitening her hot blush away. But it had been enough. New relations between them had begun.

The case of the other girls was different, as had been said. They wrestled and tittered, only escaping after a desperate struggle. Fitzpiers could hear these enactments still going on after Grace had left him, and he remained on the spot where he had caught her, Winterbourne having gone away. On a sudden, another girl came bounding down the same descent that had been followed by Grace. a fine-framed young woman with naked arms. Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she said with playful effrontery, "'Mayst kiss me if canst catch me, Tim?' Fitzpiers recognized her as Suki Damsen, a Huydeness Damsen of the Hamlet, who was plainly mistaking him for her lover. He was impulsively disposed to profit by her hour, and as soon as she began racing away he started in pursuit.

On she went under the boughs, now in light, now in shade, looking over her shoulder at him every few moments, and kissing her hand, but so cunningly dodging about among the trees and moonshades that she never allowed him to get dangerously near her. Thus they ran and doubled, Fitzpiers warming with the chase, till the sound of their companions had quite died away. He began to lose hope of ever overtaking her, when all at once, by way of encouragement, she turned to a fence in which there was a stile, and leaped over it. Outside the scene was a changed one, a meadow, where the half-made hay lay about in heaps, in the uninterrupted shine of the now high moon. Fitzpiers saw in a moment that, having taken to open ground, she had placed herself at his mercy.

and he promptly vaulted over after her. She flitted a little way down the mead, then all at once her light form disappeared as if it had sunk into the earth. She had buried herself in one of the haycocks. Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited, was not going to let her escape him thus. He approached and set about turning over the heaps one by one. As soon as he paused, Tantalized and puzzled, he was directed anew by an imitative kiss which came from a hiding-place, and by snatches of a local ballad in the smallest voice she could assume. "'Oh, come in from the foggy, foggy dew!" In a minute or two he uncovered her. "'Oh, tis not Tim,' she said, burying her face. Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its mildness.

Stooped, and imprinted the proposed kiss, then sunk down upon the next haycock, panting with his race. "'Whom do you mean by Tim?' he asked presently. "'My young man, Tim Tangs,' said she. "'Now, honour bright, did you really think it was he?' "'I did, at first.' "'But you didn't at last.' "'I didn't, at last.' Do you mind much that it was not? No, she answered slyly. Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suki looked very beautiful, the scratches and blemishes incidental to her outdoor occupation being invisible under these pale rays. While they remained silent, the coarse whirr of the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically from the top of a tree at the nearest corner of the wood.

Besides this, not a sound of any kind reached their ears, the time of nightingales being now past, and Hintock lying at a distance of two miles at least. In the opposite direction, the hay-field stretched away into remoteness, till it was lost to the eye in a soft mist.

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When the general stampede occurred, Winterbourne had also been looking on, and, encountering one of the girls, had asked her what caused them all to fly. She said with solemn breathlessness that they had seen something very different from what they had hoped to see, and that she, for one, would never attempt such unholy ceremonies again. We saw Satan pursuing us with his hourglass. It was terrible. This account being a little incoherent, Giles went forward towards the spot from which the girls had retreated. After listening there a few minutes, he heard slow footsteps rustling over the leaves. And looking through a tangled screen of honeysuckle which hung from a bough, he saw in the open space beyond a short, stout man in evening dress, carrying on one arm a light overcoat and also his hat, so awkwardly arranged as possibly to have suggested the hour-glass to his timid observers.

If this were the person whom the girls had seen— With the other hand, he silently gesticulated, and the moonlight falling upon his bare brow showed him to have dark hair and a high forehead, of the same shape seen oftener in old prints and paintings than in real life. His curious and altogether alien aspect, his strange gestures, like those of one who is rehearsing a scene to himself, and the unusual place and hour were sufficient to account for any trepidation among the Hintock daughters at encountering him. He paused and looked round, as if he had forgotten where he was, not observing Giles, who was the colour of his environment. The latter advanced into the light. The gentleman held up his hand and came towards Giles, the two meeting halfway.

"'I've lost my way,' said the stranger. "'Perhaps you can put me in the path again?' He wiped his forehead with the air of one suffering under an agitation more than that of simple fatigue. The Turnpike Road is over there," said Giles. "'I don't want the Turnpike Road,' said the gentleman impatiently. "'I came from that. I want Hintock House. Is there not a path to it across here?' "'Yes, a sort of path, but it's hard to find from this point. I'll show you the way, sir, with great pleasure.' "'Thanks, my good friend. The truth is that I decided to walk across the country after dinner from the Hotel at Cherton.' Where I'm staying for a day or two. But I did not know it was so far. It's about a mile to the house from here.

They walked on together. As there was no path, Giles occasionally stepped in front and bent aside the under boughs of the trees to give his companion a passage, saying every now and then, when the twigs, on being released, flew back like whips, Mind your eyes, sir. To which the stranger replied, Yes, yes, in a preoccupied tone. So they went on, the leaf shadows running in their usual quick succession over the forms of the pedestrians, till the stranger said, Is it far? Not much farther, said Winterbourne. The plantation runs up to a corner here, close behind the house. He added with hesitation, You know, I suppose, sir, that Mrs. Charmond is not at home. Are you a mistake? said the other quickly.

Mrs. Charmant has been away for some time, but she's at home now. Giles did not contradict him, though he felt sure that the gentleman was wrong. "'You are a native of this place?' the stranger said. "'Yes.' "'Well, you are happy in having a home. It is what I don't possess.' "'You come from far, seemingly.' "'I now come from the south of Europe.' Oh, indeed, sir. You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French gentleman, perhaps? I am not either. Giles did not fill the pause which ensued, and the gentleman, who seemed of an emotional nature, unable to resist friendship, at length answered the question. I am an Italianized American, a South Carolinian by birth, he said. I left my native country in the failure of the Southern cause, and have never returned to it since.

He spoke no more about himself, and they came to the verge of the wood. Here, striding over the fence out upon the upland sward, they could at once see the chimneys of the house in the gorge immediately beneath their position, silent, still, and pale. "'Can you tell me the time?' the gentleman asked. "'My watch has stopped.' "'It is between twelve and one,' said Giles. His companion expressed his astonishment. I thought it between nine and ten at latest. Dear me, dear me. He now begged Giles to return, and offered him a gold coin which looked like a sovereign for the assistance rendered. Giles declined to accept anything, to the surprise of the stranger, who, on putting the money back in his pocket, said awkwardly, "'I offered it because I want you to utter not a word about this meeting with me.

Will you promise?' Winterbourne promised readily. He thereupon stood still while the other ascended the slope. At the bottom he looked back dubiously. Giles would no longer remain when he was so evidently desired to leave, and returned through the bows to Hintock. He suspected that this man— who seemed so distressed and melancholy, might be that lover and persistent wooer of Mrs. Charmond, whom he had heard so frequently spoken of, and whom it was said she had treated cavalierly. But he received no confirmation of a suspicion beyond a report which reached him a few days later that a gentleman had called up the servants who were taking care of Hintock House at an hour past midnight, and on learning that Mrs.

Charmond, though returned from abroad, was as yet in London. He had sworn bitterly, and gone away without leaving a card or any trace of himself. The girls who related the story added that he sighed three times before he swore, but this part of the narrative was not corroborated. Anyhow, such a gentleman had driven away from the hotel at Sherton next day in a carriage hired at that inn.

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A voice that he knew sounded in the passage. Mr. Melbury had called. At first he had a particular objection to enter the parlour because his boots were dusty, but as the surgeon insisted he waived the point and came in. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, hardly at Fitzpiers himself, he put his hat under his chair, and with a preoccupied gaze at the floor he said, "'I've called to ask you, doctor, quite privately, a question that troubles me. I've a daughter, Grace, an only daughter, as you may have heard. Well, she's been out in the dew. On Midsummer's Eve in particular, she went out in thin slippers to watch some vagary of the Hintock Maids, and she's got a cough, a distinct hemming and hacking that makes me uneasy.

Now I have decided to send her away, to some seaside place, for a change. Send her away? Fitzpiers's countenance had fallen. Yes, and the question is, where would you advise me to send her? The timber-merchant had happened to call at a moment when Fitzpiers was at the spring-tide of a sentiment that Grace was a necessity of his existence. The sudden pressure of her form upon his breast as she came headlong round the bush had never ceased to linger with him. Ever since he adopted a manoeuvre for which the hour and the moonlight and the occasion had been the only excuse. Now she was to be sent away. Ambition? Could it be postponed? Family, culture and reciprocity of tastes had taken the place of family nowadays.

He allowed himself to be carried forward on the wave of his desire. How strange, how very strange it is, he said, that you should have come to me about her just now. I have been thinking every day of coming to you on the very same errand. Ah, you have noticed too that her health—I have noticed nothing the matter with her health, because there is nothing. But Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter several times by accident. I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming to ask you if I may become better acquainted with her. Pay my addresses to her. Melbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air of half-misgiving at his own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers's face as he made this declaration.

You have got to know her? said Melbury, a spell of dead silence having preceded his utterance, during which his emotion rose with almost visible effect. Yes, said Fitzpiers. And you wish to become better acquainted with her—you mean with a view to marriage? Of course, that is what you mean. Yes, said the young man. I mean, get acquainted with her, with a view to being her accepted lover, and if we suit each other, what would naturally follow? The timber-merchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated. His hand trembled as he laid by his walking-stick.

"'This takes me unawares,' he said, his voice well-nigh breaking down. "'I don't mean that there is anything unexpected in a gentleman being attracted by her, but it did not occur to me it would be you. I always said,' continued he, with a lump in his throat, That my grace would make a mark at her own level some day. That's why I educated her. I said to myself, I'll do it, cost what it may. Though her mother-law was pretty frightened at my paying out so much money year after year. I knew it would tell in the end. Where you've not got good material to work on, such doings would be a waste and vanity, I said. But where you have that material, it is sure to be worthwhile. "'I am glad you don't object,' said Fitzpiers, almost wishing that Grace had not been quite so cheap for him.

"'If she's willing, I don't object, certainly. Indeed,' added the honest man, "'it would be a deceit if I were to pretend to feel anything else than highly honoured personally, and it is a great credit to her to have drawn to her a man of such good professional station and venerable old family. That huntsman fellow, little thought how wrong he was about her. Take her—' And welcome, sir. I'll endeavour to ascertain her mind. Yes, yes, but she will be agreeable, I should think. She ought to be. I hope she may. Well, now you'll expect to see me frequently. Oh, yes. But name it all, about her cough and her going away. I had quite forgotten that that was what I came about. I assure you," said the surgeon, that her cough can only be the result of a slight cold, and it is not necessary to banish her to any seaside place at all.

Melbury looked unconvinced, doubting whether he ought to take Fitzpiers's professional opinion in circumstances which naturally led him to wish to keep her there. The doctor saw this, and honestly dreading to lose sight of her, he said eagerly, "'Between ourselves, If I am successful with her, I will take her away myself for a month or two, as soon as we are married, which I hope will be before the chilly weather comes on. This will be so very much better than letting her go now. The proposal pleased Melbury much. There could hardly be any danger in postponing any desirable change of air as long as the warm weather lasted, and for such a reason. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said, Your time must be precious, doctor.

I'll get home along. I am much obliged to ye. As you will see her often, you'll discover for yourself if anything serious is the matter. I can assure you it is nothing, said Fitzpiers, who had seen Grace much oftener already than her father knew of. When he was gone, Fitzpiers paused, silent, registering his sensations, like a man who has made a plunge for a pearl into a medium of which he knows not the density or temperature. But he had done it, and Grace was the sweetest girl alive. As for the departed visitor, his own last words lingered in Melbury's ears as he walked homeward. He felt that what he had said in the emotion of the moment was very stupid, ungenteel, and unsuited to a dialogue with an educated gentleman, the smallness of whose practice was more than compensated by the former greatness of his family.

He had uttered thoughts before they were weighed, and almost before they were shaped. They had expressed a certain sense of his feeling at Fitzpiers's news, but yet they were not right. Looking on the ground and planting his stick at each tread as if it were a flagstaff, he reached his own precincts, where, as he passed through the court, he automatically stopped to look at the men working in the shed and around. One of them asked him a question about wagonspokes. Eh? said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated his words. Melbury stood, then turning suddenly away without answering, he went up the court and entered the house. As time was no object with the journeymen, except as a thing to get past, they leisurely surveyed the door through which he had disappeared.

"'What maga has a gaffer got in his head now?' said Tangs the elder. "'Somewhat to do with that child of his?' When you got a maid o'er own, John Upjohn, that cost you what she cost him, that'll take the squeak out o'er Sunday shoes, John. But you'll never be tall enough to accomplish such as she. And tis a lucky thing for you, John, as things be. Well, he ought to have a dozen. That'd bring him to reason. I see him walking together last Sunday, and when they came to a puddle he lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He ought to have a dozen. He'd let him walk through puddles for himself then.

Meanwhile, Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who sees a vision before him. His wife was in the room. Without taking off his hat, he sat down at random. "'Loose, we've done it,' he said. "'Yes, the thing is as I expected. The spell that I foresaw might be worked has worked. She's done it and done it well.' Where is she? Grace, I mean. Up in her room. What has happened? Mr. Melbury explained the circumstances as coherently as he could. I told you so, he said. A maid like her couldn't stay hid long, even in a place like this. But where is Grace? Let's have her down. Here, Grace? She appeared after a reasonable interval, for she was sufficiently spoiled by this father of hers not to put herself in a hurry, however impatient his tones.

"'What is it, father?' she said with a smile. "'Why, you scamp, what's this you've been doing? Not home here more than six months, yet instead of confining yourself to your father's rank, making havoc in the educated classes.' Though accustomed to show herself instantly appreciative of her father's meanings, Grace was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a loss now. No, no, of course you don't know what I mean, or pretend you don't, though for my part I believe women can see these things through a double hedge. But I suppose I must tell you. Why, you've flung your grapnel over the doctor, and he's come in court and forthwith. Only think of that, my dear. Don't you feel it a triumph? said Mrs. Melbury.

"'Come in courting? I've done nothing to make him,' Grace exclaimed. "'It wasn't necessary that you should. "'Tis voluntary that rule these things. "'Well, he has behaved very honourably, and asked my consent. "'You'll know what to do when he gets here, I dare say. "'I needn't tell you to make it all smooth for him.' "'You mean to lead him on to marry me?' "'I do. Haven't I educated you for it?' Grace looked out of the window and at the fireplace with no animation in her face. "'Why is it settled offhand this way?' she said coquettishly. "'You'll wait to hear what I think of him, I suppose?' "'Oh, yes, of course. But you see what a good thing it will be.' She weighed the statement without speaking.

"'You will be restored to the society you've been taken away from,' continued her father, "'for I don't suppose he'll stay here long.' She admitted the advantage, But it was plain that though Fitzpiers exercised a certain fascination over her when he was present, or even more, an almost psychic influence, and though his impulsive act in the wood had stirred her feelings indescribably, she had never regarded him in the light of a destined husband. "'I don't know what to answer,' she said. "'I have learned that he is very clever.' "'He's all right, and he's coming here to see you.' A premonition that she could not resist him if he came strangely moved her. Of course, father, you remember that it is only lately that Giles—you know that you can't think of him.

He has given up all claim to you. She could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as he could state his opinion, though she had skill in speech and her father had none. That Fitzpiers acted upon her like a dram, exciting her, throwing her into a novel atmosphere which biased her doings until the influence was over, when she felt something of the nature of regret for the mood she had experienced. Still more, if she reflected on the silent, almost sarcastic criticism apparent in Winterbourne's air towards her, could not be told to this worthy couple in words. It so happened that on this very day, Fitzpiers was called away from Hintock by an engagement to attend some medical meetings, and his visits, therefore, did not begin at once.

A note, however, arrived from him addressed to Grace, deploring his enforced absence.

As a material object, this note was pretty and superfine. A note of a sort that she had been unaccustomed to see since her return to Hintock, except when a school friend wrote to her, a rare instance, for the girls were respecters of persons, and many cooled down towards the timber-dealer's daughter when she was out of sight. Thus the receipt of it pleased her, and she afterwards walked about with a reflective air. In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, "'Why be you not sitting down to answer your letter?' That's what young folks did in my time. She replied that it did not require an answer. No, you know best, he said. Nevertheless, he went on about his business, doubting if she were right and not replying.

Possibly she might be so mismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which would bring her much happiness. Melbury's respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professional position, which was not much. than the standing of his family in the county in bygone days. That implicit faith in members of long-established families, as such irrespective of their personal condition or character, which is still found among old-fashioned people in the rural districts, reached its full intensity in Melbury. His daughter Souter was descended from a family he had heard of in his grandfather's time as being once great, a family which had conferred its name upon a neighboring village. How then Could anything be amiss in this betrothal?

I must keep her up to this, he said to his wife. She sees it is for her happiness, but she is young and may want a little prompting from an older tongue.

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With this in view, he took her out for a walk, a custom of his when he wished to say anything specially impressive. Their way was over the top of that lofty ridge dividing their woodland from the cider district, whence they had in the spring beheld the miles of apple-trees in bloom. All was now deep green. The spot recalled to Grace's mind the last occasion of her presence there, and she said, "'The promise of an enormous apple-crop is fulfilling itself, is it not? I suppose Giles is getting his mills and presses ready.' This was just what her father had not come here to talk about. Without replying, he raised his arm, and moved his finger till he fixed it at a point. "'There,' he said, "'you see that plantation reaching over the hill like a great slug, and just behind the hill a particularly green sheltered bottom?

That's where Mr. Fitzpiers's family were lords of the manor for I don't know how many hundred years, and there stands the village of Buckbury Fitzpiers, a wonderful property, was—wonderful.' But they are not lords of the manor there now. Why, no, but good and great things die as well as little and foolish. The only ones representing the family now, I believe, are our doctor and a maiden lady living I don't know where. You can't help being happy, Grace, in allying yourself with such a romantical family. You'll feel as if you've stepped into history. We've been at Hintock as long as they've been at Buckbury. Is it not so? You say our name occurs in old deeds continually? Oh, yes, says Yeoman, copyholders, and suchlike, but think how much better this will be free.

You'll be living a high intellectual life, such as has now become natural to you, and though the doctor's practice is small here, he'll no doubt go to a dash in town when he's got his hand in, and keep a stylish carriage, and you'll be brought to know a good many ladies of excellent society. If you should ever meet me then, Grace, you can drive past me, looking the other way. I shouldn't expect you to speak to me, or wish such a thing, unless it happened to be in some lonely private place where it wouldn't lower you at all. Don't think such men as neighbor Giles are equal. He and I should be good friends enough, but he's not for the like of you. He's lived a rough and homely life here, and his wife's life must be rough and homely likewise.

Such pressure could not but produce some displacement. As Grace was left very much to herself, she took advantage of one fine day before Fitzpiers's return, to drive to the aforesaid Vale, where stood the village of Buckbury Fitzpiers. Leaving her father's man at the inn with a horse and gig, she rambled onward to the ruins of a castle, which stood in a field hard by. She had no doubt that it represented the ancient stronghold of the Fitzpiers family. The remains were few, and consisted mostly of remnants of the lower vaulting, supported on low stout columns, surmounted by the crochet capital of the period. The two or three arches of these vaults that were still in position were utilized by the adjoining farmer as shelter for his calves, the floor being spread with straw, amid which the young creatures rustled, cooling their thirsty tongues by licking the quaint Norman carving, which glistened with the moisture.

It was a degradation of even such a rude form of art as this to be treated so grossly, she thought, And for the first time the family of Fitzpiers assumed in her imagination the hues of a melancholy romanticism.

It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed the distance with a preoccupied mind. The idea of so modern a man in science and aesthetics as the young surgeon, springing out of relics so ancient, was a kind of novelty she had never before experienced. The combination lent him a social and intellectual interest which she dreaded, so much weight did it add to the strange influence he exercised upon her whenever he came near her. In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his return. Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also. In his house there was an old work on medicine, published towards the end of the last century, and to put himself in harmony with events, Melbury spread this work on his knees when he had done his day's business, and read about Galen, Hippocrates, and Herophilus, of the dogmatic, the empiric, the hermetical, and other sects of practitioners that have arisen in history, and thence proceeded to the classification of maladies and the rules for their treatment.

as laid down in this valuable book with absolute precision. Melbury regretted that the treatise was so old, fearing that he might in consequence be unable to hold a complete conversation as he could with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed, no doubt, with more recent discoveries.

The day of Fitzpiers's return arrived, and he sent to say that he would call immediately. In the little time that was afforded for putting the house in order, the sweeping of Melbury's Parlour was as the sweeping of the Parlour at the Interpreter's, which well-nigh choked the pilgrim. At the end of it, Mrs. Melbury sat down, folded her hands and lips, and waited. Her husband, restlessly walked in and out from the timber-yard, stared at the interior of the room, jerked out, aye, aye, and retreated again. Between four and five, Fitzpiers arrived, hitching his horse to the hook outside the door. As soon as he had walked in and perceived that Grace was not in the room, he seemed to have a misgiving.

Nothing less than her actual presence could long keep him to the level of this impassioned enterprise, and that lacking, he appeared as one who wished to retrace his steps. He mechanically talked at what he considered a woodland matron's level of thought, Till a rustling was heard on the stairs, and Grace came in. Fitzpiers was for once as agitated as she. Over and above the genuine emotion which he raised in his heart, there hung the sense that he was casting a die by impulse, which he might not have thrown by judgment. Mr. Melbury was not in the room. Having to attend to matters in the yard, he had delayed putting on his afternoon coat and waistcoat till the doctor's appearance, when, not wishing to be backward in receiving him, he entered the parlour hastily buttoning up those garments.

Grace's fastidiousness was a little distressed that Fitzpiers should see by this action the strain his visit was putting upon her father. And to make matters worse for her just then, old Grammar seemed to have a passion for incessantly pumping in the back kitchen, leaving the doors open so that the banging and splashing were distinct above the parlour conversation.

Whenever the chat over tea sank into pleasant desultoriness, Mr. Melbury broke in with speeches of laboured precision on very remote topics, as if he feared to let Fitzpiers's mind dwell critically on the subject nearest to the hearts of all. In truth, a constrained manner was natural enough in Melbury just now, for the greatest interest of his life was reaching its crisis. Could the real have been beheld instead of the corporeal merely, the corner of the room in which he sat would have been filled with a form typical of anxious suspense, large-eyed, tight-lipped, awaiting the issue. That paternal hopes and fears so intense should be bound up in the person of one child so peculiarly circumstanced, and not have dispersed themselves over the larger field of a whole family involved dangerous risks to future happiness.

Fitzpiers did not stay more than an hour, but that time had apparently advanced his sentiments towards grace once and for all, from a vaguely liquescent to an organic shape. She would not have accompanied him to the door in response to his whispered, "'Come,' if her mother had not said in a matter-of-fact way. "'Of course, Grace. Go to the door with Mr. Fitzpiers.' Grace accordingly went, both her parents remaining in the room. When the young pair were in the great brick-floored hall, the lover took the girl's hand in his, drew it under his arm, and thus led her on to the door, where he stealthily kissed her. She broke from him, trembling, blushed, and turned aside, hardly knowing how things had advanced to this.

Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand to her, and waving it to Melbury, who was visible through the window. Her father returned the surgeon's actions with a great flourish of his own hand and a satisfied smile. The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual, produced in Grace's brain during the visit, passed off somewhat with his withdrawal. She felt like a woman who did not know what she had been doing for the previous hour, but supposed with trepidation that the afternoon's proceedings, though vague, had amounted to an engagement between herself and the handsome, coercive, irresistible Fitzpiers. This visit was a type of many which followed it during the long summer days of that year. Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings, arguments, and persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by inclinations of her own at times.

No woman is without aspirations, which may be innocent enough within certain limits, and Grace had been so trained socially and educated intellectually as to see clearly enough a pleasure in the position of a wife to such a man as Fitzpiers. His material standing of itself, either present or future, had little in it to give her ambition, but the possibilities of a refined and cultivated inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse, had their charm. It was this rather than any vulgar idea of marrying well which caused her to float with a current, and to yield to the immense influence which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever she shared his society. Annie observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she loved him as yet, in the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to do so in time.

One evening just before dusk they had taken a rather long walk together, and for a short cut homeward passed through the shrubberies of Hintock House, still deserted and still blankly confronting with sightless shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes. Grace was tired, and they approached the wall and sat together on one of the stone sills, still warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon them all the afternoon. "'This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest?' said her betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade. Oh, yes," said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever crossed her mind. She is away from home still, Grace added in a minute rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow lost the valuable friendship of the lady of this bower.

Who is—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmant. Do you know, dear, that at one time I thought you lived here? Indeed, said Grace. How was that? He explained as far as he could do so without mentioning his disappointment at finding it was otherwise, and then went on. Well, never mind that. Now, I want to ask you something. There is one detail of our wedding which I am sure you will leave to me. My inclination is not to be married at that horrid little church here, with all the yokels staring round at us and the droning parson reading. Where, then, can it be? At a church in town? No, not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter, snugger, and more convenient place in every way. Oh, she said with real distress, how can I be married except at church, and with all my dear friends round me?

Yeoman Winterbourne among them. Yes, why not? You know there was nothing serious between him and me. You see, dear, A noisy bell-ringing marriage at church has this objection in our case. It would be a thing of report a long way around. Now I would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how inadvisable such publicity would be if we leave Hintock and I purchase a practice that I contemplate purchasing at Budmouth, hardly more than twenty miles off. Forgive my saying that it will be far better if nobody knows where you come from, nor anything about your parents. Your beauty and knowledge and manners will carry you anywhere if you are not hampered by such retrospective criticism. But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even at church?

she pleaded. I don't see the necessity of going there, he said a trifle impatiently. Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter and simpler it is made, the better. People don't go to church when they take a house, or even when they make a will. Oh, Edgar, I don't like to hear you speak like that. Well, well, I didn't mean to, but I have mentioned as much to your father, who has made no objection. And why should you? She gave way, deeming the point one on which he ought to allow sentiment to give way to policy, if there were indeed policy in his plan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward.

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He left her at the door of her father's house. As he receded and was clasped out of sight by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as a man who hardly appertained to her existence at all. cleverer, greater than herself, one outside her mental orbit, as she considered him, he seemed to be her ruler rather than her equal, protector and dear familiar friend. The disappointment she had experienced at his wish, the shock given to her girlish sensibilities by his irreverent views of marriage, together with the sure and near reproach of the day, fixed for committing her future to his keeping, made her so restless that she could scarcely sleep at all that night. She rose when the sparrows began to walk out of the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and by-and-by peeped out behind the window-curtains.

It was even now day out of doors, though the tones of morning were feeble and wan, and it was long before the sun would be perceptible in this overshadowed vale. Not a sound came from the outhouses as yet. The tree-trunks, the road, the outbuildings, the garden, every object wore an aspect of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude of daybreak lends to such scenes. Outside her window, helpless immobility seemed to be combined with intense consciousness, a meditative inertness possessed all things, oppressively contrasting with her own active emotions. Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and orchards. Over these roofs, and over the apple trees behind, high up the slope and backed by the plantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future husband, the rough-cast front showing whitely through its creepers.

The window-shutters were closed, the bedroom curtains closely drawn, and not the thinnest coil of smoke rose from the rugged chimneys. Something broke the stillness. The front door of the house she was gazing at opened softly, and there came out into the porch a female figure wrapped in a large shawl, beneath which was visible the white skirts of a long, loose garment. A gray arm, stretching from within the porch, adjusted the shawl over the woman's shoulders. It was withdrawn and disappeared, the door closing behind her.

The woman went quickly down the boxed-edged path between the raspberries and currants, and as she walked her well-developed form and gait betrayed her individuality. It was Suki Damsen, the affianced one of simple young Tim Tangs. At the bottom of the garden she entered the shelter of a tall hedge, and only the top of her head could be seen hastening in the direction of her own dwelling. Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized, in the gray arms stretching from the porch, the sleeve of a dressing-gown which Mr. Fitzpiers had been wearing on her own memorable visit to him. Her face fired red. She had just before thought of dressing herself and taking a lonely walk under the trees so coolly green this early morning, but she now sat down on her bed and fell into reverie.

It seemed as if hardly any time had passed when she heard the household moving briskly about, and breakfast preparing downstairs. Though on rousing herself to robe and descend, she found that the son was throwing his rays completely over the tree-tops, a progress of natural phenomena denoting that at least three hours had elapsed since she last looked out of her window. When it tired, she searched about the house for her father. She found him at last in the garden. Stooping to examine the potatoes for signs of disease. Hearing her rustle, he stood up and stretched his back and arms, saying, "'Bornin to you, Gracie. I congratulate you. "'Tis only a month to-day to the time.' She did not answer, but without lifting her dress waded between the dewy rows of tall potato green into the middle of the plot where he was.

"'I've been thinking very much about my position this morning, ever since it was light.' She began excitedly and trembling so that she could hardly stand. And I feel it is a false one. I wish not to marry Mr. Fitzpiers. I wish not to marry anybody, but I'll marry Giles Winterbourne, if you say I must, as an alternative. Her father's face settled into rigidity. He turned pale and came deliberately out of the plot before he answered her. She had never seen him look so incensed before. "'Now, hearken to me,' he said. There's a time for a woman to alter her mind, and there's a time when she can no longer alter it, if she has any right eye to her parents' honour and the seemliness of things. That time has come.

I won't say to ye, ye shall marry him, but I will say that if ye refuse, I shall forever be ashamed and aweary of ye as a daughter, and shall look upon you as the hope of my life no more. What do you know about life, and what it can bring forth, and how you ought to act to lead up to best ends? Oh, you are an ungrateful maid, Grace. You've seen that fellow, Giles, and he has got over you. That's where the secret lies, I'll warrant me. No, father, no. It is not Giles. It is something I cannot tell you of. Well, make fools of us all. Make us all laugh and stocks. Break it off. Have your own way. But who knows of the engagement as yet? How can breaking it disgrace you? Melbury then by degrees admitted that he had mentioned the engagement to this acquaintance and to that till she perceived that in his restlessness and pride he had published it everywhere.

She went dismally away to a bower of laurel at the top of the garden. Her father followed her. "'It is that Giles Winterbourne,' he said with an upbraiding gaze at her. "'No, it is not, though for that matter you encouraged him once.' She said, troubled to the verge of despair. It is not Giles. It is Mr. Fitzpiers. You have had a tiff—a lover's tiff—that's all, I suppose. It is some woman. Aye, aye, you are jealous—the old story. Don't tell me. Now do you buy it here? I'll send Fitzpiers to you. I saw him smoking in front of his house, but a minute bygone. He went off hastily out of the garden gate and down the lane. But she would not stay where she was, and edging through a slit in the garden fence, walked away into the wood.

Just about here the trees were large and wide apart, and there was no undergrowth, so that she could be seen to some distance, a sylph-like, greenish-white creature, as toned by the sunlight and leafage. She heard a footfall crushing dead leaves behind her, and found herself reconnoitred by Fitzpiers himself, approaching, gay and fresh as the morning around them. His remote gaze at her had been one of mild interest rather than of rapture, but she looked so lovely in the green world about her. Her pink cheeks, her simple light dress, and the delicate flexibility of her movement acquired such rarity from their wildwood setting that his eyes kindled as he drew near.

My darling, what is it? Your father says you are in the pouts and jealous, and I don't know what. Ah, as if there were any rival to you except vegetable nature in this home of recluses. We know better. Jealous? Oh, no, it is not so, she said gravely. That's a mistake of his and yours, sir. I spoke to him so closely about the question of marriage with you that he did not apprehend my state of mind. But there's something wrong, eh? He asked, eyeing her narrowly and bending to kiss her. She shrank away, and his proposed kiss miscarried. What is it? He said more seriously for this little defeat. She made no answer beyond, Mr. Fitzpiers, I have had no breakfast. I must go in. Come, he insisted, fixing his eyes upon her.

Tell me at once, I say. It was the greater strength against the smaller. But she was mastered less by his manner than by her own sense of the unfairness of silence. "'I looked out of the window,' she said with hesitation. "'I'll tell you by and by. I must go indoors. I have had no breakfast.' By a sort of divination his conjecture went straight to the fact. "'Nor I,' he said lightly. "'Indeed, I rose late to-day. I have had a broken night, or rather morning.' A girl of the village, I don't know her name, came and rang at my bell as soon as it was light, between four and five, I should think it was, perfectly maddened with an aching tooth. As nobody heard her ring, she threw some gravel at my window, till at last I heard her and slipped on my dressing-gown and went down.

The poor thing begged me with tears in her eyes to take out or torment her, if I dragged her head off. Down she sat, and out it came, a lovely molar. Not a speck upon it, and off she went with it, in her handkerchief, much contented, though it would have done good work for her for fifty years to come.

It was all so plausible, so completely explained. Knowing nothing of the incident in the wood on old Midsummer's Eve, Grace felt that her suspicions were unworthy and absurd, and with the readiness of an honest heart she jumped at the opportunity of honoring his word. At the moment of her mental liberation, the bushes about the garden had moved, and her father emerged into the shady glade. "'Well, I hope it's made up,' he said cheerily. "'Oh, yes,' said Fitzpiers, with his eyes fixed on Grace, whose eyes were shyly bent downward. "'Now,' said her father, "'tell me the pair of ye that ye still mean to take one another for good and all.' And on the strength of it, you should have another couple of hundred paid down.

I swear it by the name. Fitzpiers took her hand. We declare it, do we not, my dear Grace? He said. Relieved of her doubt, somewhat overawed and ever anxious to please, she was disposed to settle the matter. Yet, womanlike, she would not relinquish her opportunity of asking a concession of some sort. If our wedding can be at church, I say yes, she answered in a measured voice. If not, I say no. Fitzpiers was generous in his turn. It shall be so, he rejoined gracefully. To Holy Church we go, and much good may it do us. They returned through the bushes indoors, Grace walking full of thought between the other two, somewhat comforted, both by Fitzpiers's ingenious explanation and by the sense that she was not to be deprived of a religious ceremony.

So let it be, she said to herself. Pray God it is for the best. From this hour there was no serious attempt at recalcitration on her part. Fitzpiers kept himself continually near her, dominating any rebellious impulse, and shaping her will into passive concurrence with all his desires. Apart from his lover-like anxiety to possess her, the few golden hundreds of the timber dealers, ready to hand, formed a warm background to Grace's lovely face, and went some way to remove his uneasiness at the prospect of endangering his professional and social chances by an alliance with the family of a simple countryman.

The interim closed up its perspective surely and silently. Whenever Grace had any doubts of her position, the sense of contracting time was like a shortening chamber. At other moments she was comparatively blithe. Day after day waxed and waned. The one or two woodmen, who sawed, shaped, spokeshaved on her father's premises at this inactive season of the year, regularly came and unlocked the doors in the morning, locked them in the evening, supped, leaned over their garden gates, for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any last and farthest throb of news from the outer world which entered and expired at Little Hintock, like the exhausted swell of a wave in some innermost cavern, of some innermost creak of an unbayed sea.

Yet no news interfered with the nuptial purpose at their neighbor's house. The sappy green twig tips of the season's growth would not, she thought, Be appreciably woodier on the day she became a wife, so near was the time. The tints of the foliage would hardly have changed. Everything was so much as usual that no itinerant stranger would have supposed a woman's fate to be hanging in the balance at that summer's decline. But there were preparations, imaginable readily enough by those who had special knowledge. In the remote and fashionable town of Sanborn, something was growing up under the hands of several persons who had never seen Grace Melbury, never would see her, or care anything about her at all, though their creation had such interesting relation to her life that it would enclose her very heart at a moment when that heart would beat, if not with more emotional ardour, at least with more emotional turbulence than at any previous time.

Why did Mrs. Dollery's van Instead of passing along at the end of the smaller village to Great Hintock Direct, turn one Saturday night into Little Hintock Lane, and never pull up till it reached Mr. Melbury's gates. The gilding shine of evening fell upon a large flat box not less than a yard square, and safely tied with cord, as it was handed out from under the tilt with a great deal of care. But it was not heavy for its size. Mrs. Dollery herself carried it into the house. Tim Tangs, the Hollow-turner, Baw-tree, Suki Damsin, and others, looked knowing, and made remarks to each other as they watched its entrance. Melbury stood at the door of the timber-shed in the attitude of a man to whom such an arrival was a trifling domestic detail, With which he did not condescend to be concerned.

Yet he well divined the contents of that box, and was in truth all the while in a pleasant exultation at the proof that thus far, at any rate, no disappointment had supervened. While Mrs. Dollery remained, which was rather long, from her sense of the importance of her errand, he went into the outhouse, But as soon as she had had her say, been paid, and had rumbled away, he entered the dwelling, to find there what he knew he should find, his wife and daughter in a flutter of excitement over the wedding gown, just arrived from the leading dressmaker of Sanborn watering-place aforesaid. During these weeks, Giles Winterbourne was nowhere to be seen or heard of. At the close of his tenure in Hintock, he had sold some of his furniture, packed up the rest, a few pieces endeared by associations or necessary to his occupation, in the house of a friendly neighbour, and gone away.

People said that a certain laxity had crept into his life, that he had never gone near a church latterly, and had been sometimes seen on Sundays with unblacked boots, lying on his elbow under a tree with a cynical gaze at surrounding objects. He was likely to return to Hintock when the cider-making season came round, his apparatus being stored there, and travel with his mill and press from village to village. The narrow interval that stood before the day diminished yet. There was in Grace's mind sometimes a certain anticipative satisfaction, the satisfaction of feeling that she would be the heroine of an hour. Moreover, she was proud, as a cultivated woman, to be the wife of a cultivated man.

It was an opportunity denied very frequently to young women in her position, nowadays not a few, those in whom parental discovery of the value of education has implanted tastes which parental circles fail to gratify. But what an attenuation was this cold pride of the dream of her youth, in which she had pictured herself walking in state towards the altar, flushed by the purple light and bloom of her own passion, without a single misgiving as to the sealing of the bond, and fervently receiving as her due, the homage of a thousand hearts, the fond deep love of one.

Everything had been clear then in imagination. Now something was undefined. She had little carking anxieties. A curious faithfulness seemed to rule her, and she experienced the mournful want of someone to confide in. The day loomed so big and nigh that her prophetic ear could, in fancy, catch the noise of it, hear the murmur of the villagers as they came out of church, Imagine the jangle of the three thin-toned Hintock bells. The dialogue seemed to grow louder, and the ding-ding-dong of those three crazed bells more persistent. She awoke. The morning had come. Five hours later, she was the wife of Fitzpiers.

25 Chapter 25 24:21

The chief hotel at Sherton Abbas was an old stone-fronted inn with a yawning arch, under which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen to back-premises of wonderful commodiousness. The windows to the street were mullioned into narrow lights, and only commanded a view of the opposite houses. Hence, perhaps, it arose that the best and most luxurious private sitting-room that the inn could afford overlooked the nether parts of the establishment, where beyond the yard were to be seen gardens and orchards, now bossed, nay, incrusted with scarlet and gold fruit, stretching to infinite distance under a luminous lavender mist. The time was early autumn, when the fair apples, red as evening sky, do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground, when juicy pears and berries of black dye do dance in air and call the eyes around.

The landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part of the identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton had in his mind. In this room sat she who had been the maiden. Grace Melbury, till the finger of fate touched her and turned her into a wife. It was two months after the wedding, and she was alone. Fitzpiers had walked out to see the Abbey by the light of sunset, but she had been too fatigued to accompany him. They had reached the last stage of a long eight weeks tour, and were going on to Hintock that night. In the yard between Grace and the orchards, there progressed a scene natural to the locality at this time of year. An apple mill and press had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing fruit from diverse points in mawn baskets, while others were grinding them, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushed forth into tubs and pails.

The superintendent of these proceedings, to whom the others spoke as master, was a young yeoman of prepossessing manner and aspect, whose form she recognized in a moment. He had hung his coat to a nail of the outhouse wall, and wore his shirt-sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows to keep them unstained while he rammed the pomace into the bags of horsehair. Fragments of apple rind had alighted upon the brim of his hat, probably from the bursting of a bag, while brown pips of the same fruit were sticking among the down upon his fine round arms. She realized in a moment how he had come there. Down in the heart of the apple country, nearly every farmer kept up a cider-making apparatus and ring-house for his own use, building up the pomace in great straw cheeses, as they were called.

But here, on the margin of Pomona's Plain, was a debatable land neither orchard nor sylvan exclusively, where the apple produce was hardly sufficient to warrant each proprietor in keeping a mill of his own. This was the field of the travelling cider-maker. His press and mill were fixed to wheels instead of being set up in a cider-house, and with a couple of horses, buckets, tubs, strainers, and an assistant or two, he wandered from place to place, deriving very satisfactory returns for his trouble in such a prolific season as the present. The back parts of the town were just now abounding with apple-gatherings. They stood in the yards in carts, baskets, and loose heaps, and the blue stagnant air of autumn, which hung over everything, was heavy with a sweet cidery smell.

Cakes of pomace lay against the walls in the yellow sun, where they were drying to be used as fuel. Yet it was not the great make of the year as yet. Before the standard crop came in, There accumulated, in abundant times like this, a large superfluity of early apples, and windfalls from the trees of later harvest which would not keep long. Thus, in the baskets and quivering in the hopper of the mill, she saw specimens of mixed dates, including the mellow countenances of streaked jacks, codlins, costards, stubbards, rather ripes, and other well-known friends of a ravenous youth. Grace watched the headman with interest. The slightest sigh escaped her. Perhaps she thought of the day, not so far distant, when that friend of her childhood had met her by her father's arrangement in this same town, warm with hope, though diffident, and trusting in a promise rather implied than given.

Or she might have thought of days earlier yet, days of childhood, when her mouth was somewhat more ready to receive a kiss from his than was his to bestow one. However, all that was over. She had felt superior to him then, and she felt superior to him now. She wondered why he never looked towards her open window. She did not know that in the slight commotion caused by their arrival at the inn that afternoon, Winterbourne had caught sight of her through the archway, had turned red, and was continuing his work with more concentrated attention on the very account of his discovery. Robert Credle, too, who travelled with Giles, had been incidentally informed by the hostler. that Dr. Fitzpiers and his young wife were in the hotel, after which news, Creedle kept shaking his head and saying to himself, Ah!

very audibly, between his thrusts at the screw of the cider-press. Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert? asked Winterbourne at last. Ah, master, tis my thoughts, tis my thoughts. Yes, you've lost a hundred load of timber well seasoned. You've lost five hundred pounds in good money. You've lost a stone-wintered house that's big enough to hold a dozen families. You've lost your share of half a dozen good wagons and their horses—all lost through your letting slip she that was once your own. Good God, Creedle, you drive me mad, said Giles sternly. Don't speak of that any more. Thus the subject had ended in the yard. Meanwhile, the passive cause of all this loss still regarded the scene. She was beautifully dressed.

She was seated in the most comfortable room that the inn afforded. Her long journey had been full of variety and almost luxuriously performed, for Fitzpiers did not study economy where pleasure was in question. Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and all his belongings seemed sorry and common to her for the moment. Moving in a plane so far removed from her own of late, that she could scarcely believe she had ever found congruity therein. No, I could never have married him, she said, gently shaking her head. Dear Father was right. It would have been too coarse a life for me. And she looked at the rings of sapphire and opal upon her white and slender fingers that had been gifts from Fitzpiers. Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned, and with a little of the above-described pride of life, Easily to be understood and possibly excused in a young inexperienced woman who thought she had married well, she said at last, with a smile on her lips, Mr.

Winterbourne. He appeared to take no heed, and she said a second time, Mr. Winterbourne. Even now he seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to see the expression of his face might have doubted it, and she said a third time with a timid loudness, Mr. Winterbourne. What, have you forgotten my voice? She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming smile. He turned without surprise and came deliberately towards the window. Why do you call me? He said with a sternness that took her completely unawares, his face being now pale. Is it not enough that you see me here moiling and muddling for my daily bread, while you are sitting there in your success, that you can't refrain from opening old wounds by calling out my name?

She flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments, but she forgave his unreasoning anger, knowing so well in what had its root. "'I am sorry I offended you by speaking,' she replied meekly. "'Believe me, I did not intend to do that. I could hardly sit here so near you without a word of recognition.' Winterborne's heart had swollen big, and his eyes grown moist by this time, so much had the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved him. He assured her hurriedly and without looking at her that he was not angry. He then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained way, if she had had a pleasant journey and seen many interesting sights. She spoke of a few places that she had visited, and so the time passed till he withdrew to take his place at one of the levers which pulled round the screw.

Forgotten her voice. Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as his bitterness showed. But though In the heat of the moment he had reproached her keenly. His second mood was a far more tender one, that which could regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and her privilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He could have declared with a contemporary poet, If I forget, the salt creek may forget the ocean. If I forget, the heart whence flows my heart's bright motion. May I sink meanlier than the worst, abandoned, outcast, crushed, accursed, if I forget. Though you forget, no word of mine shall mar your pleasure. Though you forget, you filled my barren life with treasure. You may withdraw the gift you gave.

You still are queen. I still am slave. Though you forget. She had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him of what he ought to have remembered. that not herself but the pressure of events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was thus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. She had opened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turned it into sadness. She did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truth, it was because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have to use the knife, use it, say the great surgeons. And for her own peace, Grace should have condemned Winterbourne thoroughly, or not at all. As it was, on closing the window, an indescribable, some might have said dangerous, pity quivered in her bosom for him.

Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful sunset there was to be seen. "'I have not noticed it, but I have seen somebody out there we know,' she replied, looking into the court. Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not recognize anybody. Why, Mr. Winterbourne, there he is, cider-making. He combines that with his other business, you know. Oh, that fellow, said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct. She, reproachfully. What? Call Mr. Winterbourne a fellow, Edgar. It is true that I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him, but I have much regard for him, and always shall. Well, Do, by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman and supercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family.

But I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belong to a different species from the people who are working in that yard. And for me too, then, for my blood is no better than theirs. He looked at her with a droll sort of awakening. It was indeed a startling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be standing there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had said. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his level in ideas, tastes, and habits that he had almost forgotten how his heart had played havoc with his principles in taking her to him. "'Ah, you! You are refined and educated into something quite different,' he said self-assuringly. "'I don't quite think like that,' she murmured with soft regret.

"'And I think you underestimate Giles Winterbourne. Remember, I was brought up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically different. At any rate, I don't feel so. It is no doubt my fault, and a great blemish in me, but I hope you will put up with it, Edgar.' Fitzpeirce said he would endeavour to do so, and as it was now getting on for dusk, they prepared to perform the last stage of their journey, so as to arrive at Hintock before it grew very late. In less than half an hour they started, the cider-makers in the yard having ceased their labours and gone away, so that the only sounds audible there now were the trickling of the juice from the tightly screwed press, and the buzz of a single wasp which had drunk itself so tipsy that it was unconscious of nightfall.

Grace was very cheerful at the thought of being soon in her sylvan home. But Fitzpiers sat beside her almost silent. An indescribable oppressiveness had overtaken him with the near approach of the journey's end and the realities of life that lay there. "'You don't say a word, Edgar,' she observed. "'Aren't you glad to get back? I am.' "'You have friends here. I have none.' "'But my friends are yours.' "'Oh, yes, in that sense.' The conversation languished, and they drew near the end of Hintock Lane. It had been decided that they should, at least for a time, take up their abode in her father's roomy house, one ring of which was quite at their service, being almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen had been painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in the wedded pair's absence, and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer that there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival, that not the smallest detail remained undone.

To make it all complete, a ground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent outer door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate was screwed, for mere ornament, such a sign being quite superfluous, where everybody knew the latitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles around. Melbury and his wife welcomed a twain with affection, and all the house with deference. They went up to explore their rooms that opened from a passage on the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to which could be shut off on the landing by a door that Melbury had hung for the purpose. A friendly fire was burning in the grate, although it was not cold. Fitzpiers said that it was too soon for any sort of meal, they only having dined shortly before leaving Sherton Abbas.

He would walk across to his old lodging to learn how his locum tenens had got on in his absence. In leaving Melbury's door, he looked back at the house. There was economy in living under that roof, and economy was desirable, but in some way he was dissatisfied with the arrangement. It immersed him so deeply in son-in-lawship to Melbury. He went on to his former residence. His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers fell into conversation with his former landlady. "'Well, Mrs. Cox, what's the best news?' he asked of her with cheery weariness. She was a little sour at losing, by his marriage, so profitable a tenant as the surgeon had proved to be during his residence under her roof, and the more so in there being hardly the remotest chance of her getting such another settler in the Hintock solitudes.

"'Tis what I don't wish to repeat, sir, least of all to you," she mumbled. "'Never mind me, Mrs. Cox. Go ahead." It is what people say about your hasty marrying, Dr. Fitzpiers, whereas they won't believe you know such clever doctrines in physics as once they supposed of you, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury's family, which is only Hintock born, such as me. They are kindly welcome to their opinion, said Fitzpiers, not allowing himself to recognize that he winced. Anything else? Yes, she's come home at last. Who's she? "'Mrs. Charmond.' "'Oh, indeed,' said Fitzpiers, but with slight interest. "'I've never seen her.' "'She has seen you, sir, whether or no?' "'Never.' "'Yes. She saw you in some hotel or street for a minute or two while you were away travelling, and accidentally heard your name, and when she made some remark about you—Miss Ellis, that's her maid—told her you was on your wedding tour with Mr.

Melbury's daughter.' And she said, "'He ought to have done better than that. I fear he has spoiled his chances.' She says." Fitzpiers did not talk much longer to this cheering housewife, and walked home with no very brisk step. He entered the door quietly, and went straight upstairs to the drawing-room, extemporized for their use by Melbury in his and his bride's absence, expecting to find her there as he had left her. The fire was burning still, but there were no lights. He looked into the next apartment, fitted up as a little dining-room, but no supper was laid. He went to the top of the stairs, and heard a chorus of voices in the timber-merchant's parlour below, graces being occasionally intermingled.

Descending, and looking into the room from the doorway, he found quite a large gathering of neighbours and other acquaintances, praising and congratulating Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return, Among them being the dairyman, Farmer Bawtree, and the master blacksmith from Great Hintock. Also the cooper, the hollow-turner, the exciseman, and some others with their wives who lived hard by. Grace, girl that she was, had quite forgotten her new dignity and her husband's. She was in the midst of them, blushing and receiving their compliments with all the pleasure of old comradeship. Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste for the situation. Melbury was nowhere in the room, but Melbury's wife, perceiving the doctor, came to him.

"'We thought, Grace and I,' she said, that, as they have called, hearing you are come, we could do no less than ask them to supper, and then Grace proposed that we should all sup together, as it is the first night of your return. By this time Grace had come round to him. "'Is it not good of them to welcome me so warmly?' she exclaimed with tears of friendship in her eyes. After so much good feeling, I could not think of our shutting ourselves up away from them in our own dining-room. "'Certainly not, certainly not,' said Fitzpiers, and he entered the room with the heroic smile of a martyr. As soon as they sat down to table, Melbury came in and seemed to see at once that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such demonstrative reception.

He thereupon privately chid his wife for her forwardness in the matter. Mrs. Melbury declared that it was as much Grace's doing as hers, after which there was no more to be said by that young woman's tender father. By this time, Fitzpiers was making the best of his position among the wide-elbowed and genial company who sat eating and drinking and laughing and joking around him, and getting warmed himself by the good cheer was obliged to admit, after all, the supper was not the least enjoyable he had ever known. At times, however, the words about his having spoiled his opportunities, repeated to him as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted him like a handwriting on the wall. Then his manner would become suddenly abstracted.

At one moment he would mentally put an indignant query why Mrs. Charmond or any other woman should make it her business to have opinions about his opportunities. At another he thought that he could hardly be angry with her for taking an interest in the doctor of her own parish. Then he would drink a glass of grog, and so get rid of the misgiving. The hitches and quaffings were soon perceived by Grace as well as by her father, and hence both of them were much relieved when the first of the guests to discover that the hour was growing late rose and declared that they must think of moving homeward. At the words, Melbury rose as alertly as if lifted by a spring, and in ten minutes they were gone.

Now, Grace, said her husband as soon as he found himself alone with her in their private apartments, we've had a very pleasant evening, and everybody has been very kind. But we must come to an understanding about our way of living here. If we continue in these rooms, there must be no mixing in with your people below. I can't stand it, and that's the truth. She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste for those old-fashioned woodland forms of life which, in his courtship, he had professed to regard with so much interest. But she assented in a moment. "'We must be simply your father's tenants,' he continued, "'and our goings and comings must be as independent as if we lived elsewhere.' "'Certainly, Edgar, I quite see that it must be so.' But you joined in with all those people in my absence, without knowing whether I should approve or disapprove.

When I came I couldn't help myself at all. She, sighing, yes, I see I ought to have waited, though they came unexpectedly, and I thought I had acted for the best. Thus the discussion ended, and the next day Fitzpiers went on his old rounds as usual. But it was easy for so super-subtle an eye as his to discern, Or to think he discerned that he was no longer regarded as an extrinsic, unfathomed gentleman of limitless potentiality, scientific and social, but as Mr. Melbury's compeer, and therefore, in a degree, only one of themselves. The Hintock Woodlanders held with all the strength of inherited conviction to the aristocratic principle, and as soon as they had discovered that Fitzpiers was one of the old Buckbury Fitzpierses, They had accorded to him for nothing a touching of hat-brims, promptness of service, and deference of approach, which Melbury had to do without, though he paid for it over and over.

But now, having proved a traitor to his own cause by his marriage, Fitzpiers was believed no more as a superior hedged by his own divinity, while as a doctor he began to be rated no higher than old Jones, whom they had so long despised. His few patients seemed, in his two months' absence, to have dwindled considerably in number, and no sooner had he returned than there came to him from the board of guardians a complaint that a pauper had been neglected by his substitute. In a fit of pride, Fitzpiers resigned his appointment as one of the surgeons to the union, which had been the nucleus of his practice here. At the end of a fortnight he came indoors one evening to grace more briskly than usual.

They have written to me again about that practice in Budmouth that I once negotiated for. He said to her. The premium asked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that between your father and myself it ought to be raised. Then we can get away from this place forever. The question had been mooted between them before, and she was not unprepared to consider it. They had not proceeded far with the discussion when a knock came to the door. And in a minute Grammer ran up to say that a message had arrived from Hintock House requesting Dr. Fitzpiers to attend there at once. Mrs. Charmont had met with a slight accident through the overturning of her carriage. "'This is something, anyhow,' said Fitzpiers, rising with an interest which he could not have defined.

"'I have had a presentiment that this mysterious woman and I were to be better acquainted.' The latter words were murmured to himself alone. Good night, said Grace, as soon as he was ready. I shall be asleep probably when you return. Good night, he replied inattentively, and went downstairs. It was the first time since our marriage that he had left her without a kiss.

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Winterbourne's house had been pulled down. On this account, his face had been seen but fitfully in Hintock, and he would probably have disappeared from the place altogether, But for a slight business connection with Melbury, on whose premises Giles kept his cider-making apparatus, now that he had no place of his own to stow it in. Coming here one evening on his way to a hut beyond the wood where he now slept, he noticed that the familiar brown-thatched pinion of his paternal roof had vanished from its sight, and that the walls were levelled. In present circumstances he had a feeling for the spot that might have been called morbid, and when he had supped in the hut aforesaid he made use of the spare hour before bedtime to return to Little Hintock in the twilight and ramble over the patch of ground on which he had first seen the day.

He repeated this evening's visit on several like occasions. Even in the gloom he could trace where the different rooms had stood, could mark the shape of the kitchen chimney-corner in which he had roasted apples and potatoes in his boyhood, cast his bullets, and burnt his initials and articles that did and did not belong to him. The apple-trees still remained to show where the garden had been, The oldest of them even now retaining the crippled slant to North East, given them by the great November gale of 1824, which carried a brig bodily over the Chesil bank. They were at present bent to a still greater obliquity by the heaviness of their produce. Apples bobbed against his head, and in the grass beneath he crunched scores of them as he walked.

There was nobody to gather them now.

It was on the evening under notice that, half-sitting, half-leaning, against one of these inclined trunks, Winterbourne had become lost in his thoughts as usual, till one little star after another had taken up a position in the piece of sky which now confronted him, where his walls and chimney had formerly raised their outlines. The house had jutted awkwardly into the road, and the opening cause by its absence was very distinct. In the silence, the trot of horses and the spin of carriage-wheels became audible, and the vehicle soon shaped itself against the blank sky, bearing down upon him with the bend in the lane which here occurred, and of which the house had been the cause. He could discern the figure of a woman high up on the driving-seat of a phaeton, a groom being just visible behind.

Presently there was a slight scrape, then a scream. Winterbourne went across to the spot and found that the Phaeton had half overturned, its driver sitting on the heap of rubbish which had once been his dwelling, and the man seizing the horses' heads. The equipage was Mrs. Charmant's, and the unseated charioteer was that lady herself. To his inquiry, if she were hurt, she made some incoherent reply to the effect that she did not know. The damage in other respects was little or none. The Phaeton was righted, and Mrs. Charmin placed in it, and the reins given to the servant. It appeared that she had been deceived by the removal of the house, imagining the gap caused by the demolition to be the opening of the road, so that she turned in upon the ruins instead of at the bend a few yards further on.

"'Drive home! Drive home!' cried the lady impatiently, and they started on their way. They had not, however, gone many paces, when, the air being still, Winterbourne heard her say, Stop! Tell that man to call the doctor, Mr. Fitzpiers, and send him on to the house. I find I am hurt more seriously than I thought.

Winterbourne took the message from the groom and proceeded to the doctor's at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into the darkness and waited till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door. He stood for a few minutes, looking at the window, which by its light revealed the room where Grace was sitting, and went away under the gloomy trees. Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw open for the first time. Contrary to his expectation, there was no visible sign of that confusion or alarm which a serious accident to the mistress of the abode would have occasioned. He was shown into a room at the top of the staircase, cosily and femininely draped, where, by the light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figure reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown of her head.

A deep purple dressing-gown formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her hair-plats. Her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream of smoke towards the ceiling. The doctor's first feeling was the sense of his exaggerated prevision in having brought appliances for a serious case, the next something more curious. While the scene and the moment were new to him and unanticipated, The sentiment and essence of the moment were indescribably familiar. What could be the cause of it? Probably a dream. Mrs. Charmond did not move more than to raise her eyes to him, and he came and stood by her.

She glanced up at his face across her brows and forehead, and then he observed a blush creep slowly over her decidedly handsome cheeks. Her eyes, which had lingered upon him with an inquiring, conscious expression, were hastily withdrawn. and she mechanically applied the cigarette again to her lips. For a moment he forgot his errand, till suddenly arousing himself he addressed her, formally condoled with her, and made the usual professional inquiries about what had happened to her and where she was hurt. That's what I want you to tell me, she murmured, in tones of indefinable reserve. I quite believe in you, for I know you are very accomplished, because you study so hard. I'll do my best to justify your good opinion, said the young man, bowing, and, none the less, that I am happy to find the accident has not been serious.

I am very much shaken, she said. Oh, yes, he replied, and completed his examination, which convinced him that there was really nothing the matter with her, and more than ever puzzled him as to why he had been fetched, since she did not appear to be a timid woman. You must rest a while, and I'll send something. He said. Oh, I forgot, she returned. Look here. And she showed him a little scrape on her arm, the full round arm that was exposed. Put some court plaster on that, please. He obeyed. And now, she said, before you go, I want to put a question to you. Sit round there in front of me, on that low chair, and bring the candles, or one, to the little table. Do you smoke? Yes. That's right, I am learning.

Take one of these, and here's a light. She threw him a box of matches. Fitzpiers caught it, and having lit up, regarded her from his new position, which, with the shifting of the candles, for the first time afforded him a full view of her face. "'How many years have passed since we first met?' she resumed in a voice which she mainly endeavoured to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and eyeing him with daring bashfulness. We met, do you say? She nodded. I saw you recently at an hotel in London when you were passing through, I suppose with your bride, and I recognized you as one I had met in my girlhood. Do you remember, when you were studying at Heidelberg, an English family that was staying there, who used to walk, and a young lady who wore a long tail of rare-coloured hair?

Ah! I see it before my eyes, who lost her gloves on the great terrace, who was going back in the dusk to find them, to whom I said, "'I'll go for them,' and you said, "'Oh, they are not worth coming all that way up again for. I do remember, and how very long we stayed talking there. I went next morning while the dew was on the grass, and there they lay, the little fingers sticking out damp and thin. I see them now. I pick them up, and then—' Well—I kissed him," he rejoined rather shamefacedly. "'But you had hardly ever seen me except in the dusk.' "'Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed him. I wondered how I could make the most of my travail, and decided that I would call at your hotel with him that afternoon.

It rained, and I waited till the next day. I called, and you were gone.' Yes, answered she, with dry melancholy. My mother, knowing my disposition, said she had no wish for such a chit as me to go falling in love with an impecunious student, and spirited me away to Baden. As it is all over and past, I'll tell you one thing. I should have sent you a line, passing warm, had I known your name. That name I never knew till my maid said, as you passed up the hotel stairs a month ago, there's Dr. Fitzpiers. Good heavens. said Fitzpiers musingly. How the time comes back to me—the evening, the morning, the dew, the spot. When I found that you were really gone, it was as if a cold iron had been passed down my back.

I went up to where you had stood when I last saw you. I flung myself on the grass, and being not much more than a boy, my eyes were literally blinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I could not forget your voice. For how long? Oh, ever so long. Days and days. Days and days? Only days and days? Oh, the heart of a man. Days and days. But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not full-blown, love. It was the merest bud, red, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion and posse, a giant and embryo. It never matured. So much the better, perhaps. Perhaps. But see how powerless is the human will against predestination. We were prevented meeting. We have met.

One feature of the case remains the same amid many changes. You are still rich, and I am still poor. Better than that, you have, judging by your last remark, outgrown the foolish, impulsive passions of your early girlhood. I have not outgrown mine. I beg your pardon, she said with vibrations of strong feeling in her words. I have been placed in a position which hinders such outgrowings. Besides, I don't believe that the genuine subjects of emotions do outgrow them. I believe that the older such people get, the worse they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may feel they are cured, but a mere threescore and ten won't do it, at least for me. He gazed at her in an undisguised admiration. Here was a soul of souls.

Mrs. Charmond, you speak truly, he exclaimed, but you speak sadly as well. Why is that? I always am sad when I come here, she said, dropping to a low tone. with a sense of having been too demonstrative. Then may I inquire why you came? A man brought me. Women are always carried about like corks upon the waves of masculine desires. I hope I have not alarmed you, but Hintock has a curious effect of bottling up the emotions till one can no longer hold them. I am often obliged to fly away and discharge my sentiments somewhere, or I should die outright. There is very good society in the county for those who have the privilege of entering it. Perhaps so, but the misery of remote country life is that your neighbors have no toleration for difference of opinion and habit.

My neighbors think I am an atheist, except those who think I am a Roman Catholic, and when I speak disrespectfully of the weather or crops, they think I am a blasphemer. She broke into a low musical laugh at the idea. You don't wish me to stay any longer. He inquired, when he found that she remained musing. No, I think not. Then tell me that I am to be gone. Why, cannot you go without? I may consult my own feelings only, if left to myself. Well, if you do, what then? Do you suppose you'll be in my way? I feared it might be so. Then fear no more, but good-night. Come tomorrow, and see if I am going on right. This renewal of acquaintance touches me. I have already a friendship for you. If it depends upon myself, it shall last forever.

My best hope's that it may. Goodbye. Fitzpiers went down the stairs absolutely unable to decide whether she had sent for him in the natural alarm which might have followed her mishap, or with a single view of making herself known to him as she had done. for which the capsize had afforded excellent opportunity. Outside the house he mused over the spot under the light of the stars. It seemed very strange that he should have come there more than once, when its inhabitant was absent, and observed the house with a nameless interest, that he should have assumed offhand before he knew, Grace, that it was where she lived, that, in short, at sundry times and seasons, the individuality of Hintock House should have forced itself upon him as appertaining to some existence with which he was concerned.

The intersection of his temporal orbit with Mrs. Charmond for a day or two in the past had created a sentimental interest in her at the time, but it had been so evanescent that in the ordinary onward roll of affairs he would scarce ever have recalled it again. To find her here, however, in these somewhat romantic circumstances, magnified that bygone and transitory tenderness to indescribable proportions.

On entering Little Hintock, he found himself regarding it in a new way, from the Hintock House point of view, rather than from his own and the Melbury's. The household had all gone to bed, and as he went upstairs he heard the snore of the timber-merchant from his quarter of the building, and turned into the passage, communicating with his own rooms in a strange access of sadness. A light was burning for him in the chamber, but Grace, though in bed, was not asleep. In a moment her sympathetic voice came from behind the curtains. "'Edgar, is she very seriously hurt?' Fitzpears had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmant as a patient, that he was not on the instant ready with a reply. "'Oh, no,' he said.

There were no bones broken, but she is shaken. I am going again tomorrow. Another inquiry or two, and Grace said, "'Did she ask for me?' "'Well, I think she did. I don't quite remember. But I am under the impression that she spoke of you.' "'Cannot you recollect at all what she said?' "'I cannot just this minute.' "'At any rate, she did not talk much about me,' said Grace, with disappointment. "'Oh, no!' But you did, perhaps, she added, innocently fishing for a compliment. Oh, yes, you may depend upon that, he replied warmly, though scarcely thinking of what he was saying. So vividly was there present to his mind the personality of Mrs. Charmonde.

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He always found Mrs. Sharman reclining on a sofa, and, behaving generally, he became a patient who was in no great hurry to lose that title. On each occasion he looked gravely at the little scratch on her arm, as if it had been a serious wound. He had also, to his further satisfaction, found a slight scar on her temple, and it was very convenient to put a piece of black plaster on this conspicuous part of her person in preference to gold-beater's skin, so that it might catch the eyes of the servants, and make his presence appear decidedly necessary in case there should be any doubt of the fact. "'Oh, you hurt me!' she exclaimed one day. He was peeling off a bit of plaster on her arm, under which the scrape had turned the colour of an unripe blackberry, previous to vanishing altogether.

"'Wait a moment, then. I'll damp it,' said Fitzpiers. He put his lips to the place and kept them there, Till the plaster came off easily. "'It was at your request that I put it on,' said he. "'I know it,' she replied. "'Is that blue vein still in my temple that used to show there? The scar must be just upon it. If the cut had been a little deeper it would have spilt my hot blood indeed.' Fitzpiers examined so closely that his breath touched her tenderly, at which their eyes rose to an encounter. hers showing themselves as deep and mysterious as interstellar space. She turned her face away suddenly. "'Ah! None of that! None of that! I cannot coquette with you!' she cried. "'Don't suppose I consent for one moment.

Our poor, brief, youthful hour of love-making was too long ago to bear continuing now. It is as well that we should understand each other on that point before we go further.' "'Croquette! Nor I with you!' As it was when I found the historic love, so it is now. I might have been, and may be foolish, but I am no trifler. I naturally cannot forget the little space in which I flitted across the field of your vision in those days of the past, and the recollection opens up all sorts of imaginings. Suppose my mother had not taken me away, she murmured, her dreamy eyes resting on the swaying tip of a distant tree. I should have seen you again. And then? Then the fire would have burned higher and higher.

What would have immediately followed I know not, but sorrow and sickness of heart at last. Why? Well, that's the end of all love, according to nature's law. I can give no other reason. Oh, don't speak like that! she exclaimed. Since we are only picturing the possibilities of that time, don't for pity's sake spoil the picture. Her voice sang almost to a whisper, as she added, with an incipient pout upon her full lips. Let me think, at least, that if you had really loved me at all seriously, you would have loved me for ever and ever. You are right. Think it with all your heart," said he. It is a pleasant thought, and costs nothing. She weighed that remark in silence a while. "'Did you ever hear anything of me from then till now?' she inquired.

"'Not a word. "'So much the better. I had to fight the battle of life as well as you. "'I may tell you about it some day, but don't ever ask me to do it, and particularly do not press me to tell you now.' Thus, the two or three days that they had spent in tender acquaintance on the romantic slopes above the Neckar were stretched out in retrospect to the length and importance of years, made to form a canvas of infinite fancies, idle dreams, luxurious melancholies, and sweet, alluring assertions, which could neither be proved nor disproved. Grace was never mentioned between them, but a rumor of his proposed domestic changes somehow reached her ears. Doctor, you are going away," she exclaimed, confronting him with accusatory reproach in her large, dark eyes, no less than in her rich, cooing voice.

"'Oh, yes, you are,' she went on, springing to her feet, with an air which might almost have been called passionate. "'It has no use denying it. You have bought a practice at Budmouth. I don't blame you. Nobody can live at Hintock, least of all a professional man who wants to keep abreast of recent discovery.' And there is nobody here to induce such a one to stay for other reasons. That's right. That's right. Go away. But no, I have not actually bought the practice as yet, though I am indeed entreaty for it. And, my dear friend, if I continue to feel about the business as I feel at this moment, perhaps I may conclude never to go at all. But you hate Hintock, and everybody and everything in it, that you don't mean to take away with you.

Fitzpiers contradicted this idea in his most vibratory tones, and she lapsed into the frivolous archness under which she hid passions of no means strength, strange, smouldering, erratic passions, kept down like a stifled conflagration, but bursting out, now here, now there, the only certain element in their direction being its unexpectedness. If one word could have expressed her, it would have been in consequence. She was a woman of perversities, delighting in frequent contrasts. She liked mystery, in her life, in her love, in her history. To be fair to her, there was nothing in the latter which she had any great reason to be ashamed of, and many things of which she might have been proud. But it had never been fathomed by the honest minds of Hintock, and she rarely volunteered her experiences.

As for her capricious nature, the people on her estates grew accustomed to it, and with that marvellous subtlety of contrivance in steering round odd tempers that is found in sons of the soil and dependents generally, they managed to get along under her government rather better than they would have done beneath a more equable rule.

Now, with regard to the doctor's notion of leaving Hintock, he had advanced further towards completing the purchase of the Budmouth surgeon's goodwill than he had admitted to Mrs. Charmonde. The whole matter hung upon what he might do in the ensuing twenty-four hours. The evening after leaving her, he went out into the lane, and walked and pondered between the high hedges, Now greenish-white with wild clematis, here called Old Man's beard from its aspect later in the year. The letter of acceptance was to be written that night, after which his departure from Hintock would be irrevocable. But could he go away, remembering what had just passed? The trees, the hills, the leaves, the grass—each had been endowed and quickened with a subtle charm since he had discovered the person and history, and, above all, Mould as their owner.

There was every temporal reason for leaving. It would be entering again into a world which he had only quitted in a passion for isolation, induced by a fit of Achillean moodiness after an imagined slight. His wife, herself, saw the awkwardness of their position here, and cheerfully welcomed the proposed change, towards which every step had been taken but the last. But could he find it in his heart? As he found it clearly enough in his conscience to go away. He drew a troubled breath, and went indoors. Here he rapidly penned the letter, wherein he withdrew once for all from the Treaty for the Budmouth Practice. As the postman had already left Little Hintock for that night, he sent one of Melbury's men to intercept a mail cart on another turnpike road, and so got the letter off.

The man returned, met Fitzpiers and Delaney, and told him the thing was done. Fitzpiers went back to his house, musing. Why had he carried out this impulse, taking such wild trouble to effect a probable injury to his own and his young wife's prospects? His motive was fantastic, glowing, shapeless as the fiery scenery about the western sky. A Mrs. Charmond could overtly be nothing more to him than a patient now, and to his wife, at the outside, a patron. In the unattached bachelor days of his first sojourning here, how highly proper an emotional reason for lingering on would have appeared to troublesome dubiousness. Matrimonial ambition is such an honorable thing.

"'My father has told me that you have sent off one of the men with a letter to Budmouth,' cried Grace, coming out vivaciously, to meet him under the declining light of the sky, wherein hung, solitary, the folding star. "'I said at once that you had finally agreed to pay the premium they asked, and that the tedious question had been settled. When do we go, Edgar?' "'I have altered my mind.' said he. They want too much. Seven hundred and fifty is too large a sum, and, in short, I have declined to go further. We must wait for another opportunity. I fear I am not a good business man. He spoke the last words with a moment of refaltering at the great foolishness of his act, for, as he looked in her fair and honorable face, his heart reproached him for what he had done.

Her manner that evening showed her disappointment. Personally, she liked the home of her childhood much, and she was not ambitious, but her husband had seemed so dissatisfied with the circumstances hereabouts since their marriage that she had sincerely hoped to go for his sake. It was two or three days before he visited Mrs. Charmond again. The morning had been windy, and little showers had sowed themselves like grain against the walls and window-panes of the Hintock cottages. He went on foot across the wilder recesses of the park, where slimy streams of green moisture, exuding from decayed holes caused by old amputations, ran down the bark of the oaks and elms, the Rhine below being coated with a lightiness wash as green as emerald.

They were stout-trunked trees, that never rocked their stems in the fiercest gale, responding to it entirely by crooking their limbs. Wrinkled like an old crone's face, and antlered with dead branches that rose above the foliage of their summits, they were nevertheless still green, though yellow had invaded the leaves of other trees.

She was in a little boudoir or writing-room on the first floor. And Fitzpiers was much surprised to find that the window-curtains were closed, and a red-shaded lamp and candles burning, though out of doors it was broad daylight. Moreover, a large fire was burning in the grate, though it was not cold. "'What does all this mean?' he asked. She sat in an easy chair, her face being turned away. "'Oh!' she murmured. It is because the world is so dreary outside. Sorrow and bitterness in the sky, and floods of agonized tears beating against the panes. I lay awake last night, and I could hear the scrape of snails creeping up the window-glass. It was so sad. My eyes were so heavy this morning that I could have wept my life away.

I cannot bear you to see my face. I keep it away from you purposely. Oh, why were we given hungry hearts and wild desires if we have to live in a world like this? Why should death only lend what life is compelled to borrow? Rest? Answer that, Dr. Fitzpiers. You must eat of a second tree of knowledge before you can do it, Felice Charmond. Then, when my emotions have exhausted themselves, I become full of fears, till I think I shall die for very fear. The terrible insistencies of society, how severe they are! And cold and inexorable, ghastly towards those who were made of wax and not of stone. Oh, I am afraid of them. A stab for this error, and a stab for that. Correctives and regulations framed that society may tend to perfection.

An end which I don't care for, in the least. Yet for this, all I do care for has to be stunted and starved. Fitzpiers had seated himself near her. What sets you in this mournful mood? He asked gently. In reality, he knew that it was the result of a loss of tone from staying indoors too much, but he did not say so. My reflections. Doctor, you must not come here any more. They begin to think it a farce already. I say you must come no more. There, don't be angry with me. She jumped up, pressed his hand, and looked anxiously at him. It is necessary. It is best for both you and me. But, said Fitzpiers gloomily, what have we done? Done? We have done nothing. Perhaps we have taught the more. However, it is all vexation.

I am going away to Middleton Abbey near Shotsford, where a relative of my late husband lives, who is confined to her bed. The engagement was made in London, and I can't get out of it. Perhaps it is for the best that I go there till all this is past. When are you going to enter on your new practice, and leave Hintock behind for ever, with your pretty wife on your arm? I have refused the opportunity. I love this place too well to depart. You have, she said, regarding him with wild uncertainty. Why do you ruin yourself in that way? Great Heaven, what have I done? Nothing. Besides, you are going away. Oh, yes, but only to Middleton Abbey for a month or two. Yet perhaps I shall gain strength there, particularly strength of mine, I require it.

And when I come back I shall be a new woman, and you can come and see me safely then, and bring your wife with you, and we'll be friends, she and I. Oh, how this shutting up of oneself does lead to indulgence in idle sentiments! I shall not wish you to give your attendance to me after to-day, but I am glad that you are not going away, if your remaining does not injure your prospects at all. As soon as he had left the room, the mild friendliness she had preserved in her tone at parting, the playful sadness with which she had conversed with him, equally departed from her. She became as heavy as lead, just as she had been before he arrived. Her whole being seemed to dissolve in a sad powerlessness to do anything, and the sense of it made her lips tremulous and her closed eyes wet.

His footsteps again startled her, and she turned round. I return for a moment to tell you that the evening is going to be fine. The sun is shining, so do open your curtains and put out those lights. Shall I do it for you? Please, if you don't mind. He drew back the window-curtains, whereupon the red glow of the lamp and the two candle-flames became almost invisible with the flood of late-autumn sunlight that poured in. Shall I come round to you? He asked, her back being towards him. No, she replied. Why not? Because I am crying, and I don't want to see you. He stood a moment, irresolute, and regretted that he had killed the rosy, passionate lamplight by opening the curtains and letting in garish day.

Then I am going, he said. Very well, she answered, stretching one hand round to him, and patting her eyes with the handkerchief held in the other. Shall I write a line to you at—no, no, A gentle reasonableness came into her tone, and she added, "'It must not be, you know. It won't do.' "'Very well. Good-bye.' The next moment he was gone.

In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid who dressed her for dinner to speak of Dr. Fitzpiers's marriage. "'Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favour Mr. Winterbourne,' said the young woman. "'And why didn't she marry him?' said Mrs. Charmond. "'Because you see, ma'am, he lost his houses.' "'Lost his houses? How came he to do that?' "'The houses were held on lives, and the lives dropped, and your agent wouldn't renew them, though it is said that Mr. Winterbourne had a very good claim. That says I've heard it, ma'am, and it was through it that the match was broken off.' Being just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into a mood of dismal self-reproach.

In refuting that poor man his reasonable request, she said to herself, I foredoomed my rejuvenated girlhood's romance. Who should have thought such a business matter could have nettled my own heart like this? Now for a winter of regrets and agonies and useless wishes, till I forget him in the spring. Oh, I am glad I am going away. She left her chamber and went down to dine with a sigh. On the stairs she stood opposite the large window for a moment and looked out upon the lawn. It was not yet quite dark. Halfway up the steep green slope confronting her stood old Timothy Tangs, who was shortening his way homeward by clambering here where there was no road, and in opposition to express orders that no path was to be made there.

Tangs had momentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff, but observing Mrs. Charmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of hail. His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel to the bottom, his snuff-box rolling in front of him. Her indefinite, idle, impossible passion for Fitzpiers, her constitutional cloud of misery, the sorrowful drops that still hung upon her eyelashes, all made way for the incursive mood started by the spectacle. She burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, her very gloom of the previous hour seeming to render it the more uncontrollable. It had not died out of her when she reached the dining-room, and even there before the servants her shoulders suddenly shook as the scene returned upon her, and the tears of her hilarity mingled with the remnants of those engendered by her grief.

She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of champagne, and a little more still after those, and amused herself in the evening with singing little amatory songs. "'I must do something for that poor man, Winterbourne, however,' she said.

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A week had passed, and Mrs. Sharman had left Hintock House. Middleton Abbey, the place of her sojourn, was about twenty miles distant by road, Eighteen by bridle-paths and footways. Grace observed for the first time that her husband was restless, that at moments he even was disposed to avoid her. The scrupulous civility of mere acquaintanceship crept into his manner, yet when sitting at meals he seemed hardly to hear her remarks. Her little doings interested him no longer, while towards her father his bearing was not far from supercilious. It was plain that his mind was entirely outside her life. Whereabouts outside it she could not tell, in some region of science, possibly, or of psychological literature.

But her hope that he was again immersing himself in those lucubrations which before her marriage had made his light a landmark in Hintock was founded simply on the slender fact that he often sat up late.

One evening she discovered him leaning over a gate on Rubdown Hill. The gate at which Winterbourne had once been standing, and which opened on the brink of a steep, slanting down directly into Blackmoor Vale, or the Vale of the White Heart, extending Beneathiei at this point to a distance of many miles. His attention was fixed on the landscape far away, and Grace's approach was so noiseless that he did not hear her. When she came close, she could see his lips moving unconsciously, as to some impassioned visionary theme. She spoke, and Fitzpeir started. "'What are you looking at?' she asked. "'Oh, I was contemplating our old place of Buckbury, in my idle way,' he said. It had seemed to her that he was looking much to the right of that cradle and tomb of his ancestral dignity, but she had made no further observation, and taking his arm, walked home beside him almost in silence.

She did not know that Middleton Abbey lay in the direction of his gaze. "'Are you going to have out darling this afternoon?' she asked presently. Darling being the light-grey mare which Winterbourne had bought for Grace, and which Fitzpiers now constantly used—the animal having turned out a wonderful bargain in combining a perfect docility with an almost human intelligence. Moreover, she was not too young. Fitzpiers was unfamiliar with horses, and he valued these qualities. "'Yes,' he replied. But not to drive. I am riding her. I practice crossing a horse as often as I can now, for I find that I can take much shorter cuts on horseback. He had, in fact, taken these riding exercises for about a week, only since Mrs.

Sharman's absence, his universal practice hitherto having been to drive. Some few days later, Fitzpiers started on the back of this horse to see a patient in the aforesaid Vale. It was about five o'clock in the evening when he went away, and at bedtime he had not reached home. There was nothing very singular in this, though she was not aware that he had any patient more than five or six miles distant in that direction. The clock had struck one before Fitzpiers entered the house, and he came to his room softly, as if anxious not to disturb her. The next morning she was stirring considerably earlier than he. In the yard there was a conversation going on about the mare, The man who attended to the horses, Darling included, insisted that the latter was Hagrid, for when he had arrived at the stable that morning she was in such a state as no horse could be in by honest riding.

It was true that the doctor had stabled her himself when he got home, so that she was not looked after as she would have been if he had groomed and fed her. But that did not account for the appearance she presented, if Mr. Fitzpiers's journey had been only where he had stated. The phenomenal exhaustion of Darling, as thus related, was sufficient to develop a whole series of tales about riding witches and demons, the narration of which occupied a considerable time. Grace returned indoors, and passing through the outer room, she picked up her husband's overcoat, which he had carelessly flung down across a chair. A turnpike-ticket fell out of the breast-pocket, and she saw that it had been issued at Middleton Gate.

He had therefore visited Middleton the previous night, a distance of at least five-and-thirty miles on horseback there and back. During the day she made some inquiries and learned for the first time that Mrs. Charmond was staying at Middleton Abbey. She could not resist an inference, strange as that inference was.

A few days later he prepared to start again, at the same time and in the same direction. She knew that the state of the cottager who lived that way was a mere pretext. She was quite sure he was going to Mrs. Charmond. Grace was amazed at the mildness of the passion which the suspicion engendered in her. She was but little excited, and her jealousy was languid even to death. It told tales of the nature of her affection for him. In truth, her antinuptial regard for Fitzpiers had been rather of the quality of awe towards a superior being than of tender solicitude for a lover. It had been based upon mystery and strangeness, the mystery of his past, of his knowledge and of his professional skill, of his beliefs.

When this structure of ideals was demolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found them as merely human as the Hintock people themselves, A new foundation was in demand for an enduring and staunch affection, a sympathetic interdependence wherein mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive alliance. Fitzpears had furnished none of that single-minded confidence and truth out of which alone such a second union could spring. Hence it was with a controllable emotion that she now watched the mare being brought around. "'I'll walk with you to the hill if you are not in a great hurry,' she said, rather loath, after all, to let him go. "'Do, there is plenty of time,' replied her husband.

Accordingly, he led along the horse and walked beside her, impatient enough nevertheless. Thus they proceeded to the turnpike road, and ascended to rubdown-hill to the gate he had been leaning over when she surprised him ten days before. This was the end of her excursion. Fitzpiers bade her adieu with affection, even with tenderness, and she observed that he looked weary-eyed. "'Why do you go to-night?' she said. "'You have been called up two nights in succession already.' "'I must go,' he answered almost gloomily. "'Don't wait up for me.' With these words he mounted his horse, passed through the gate which Grace held open for him, and ambled down the steep bridle track to the valley. She closed the gate and watched his descent, and then his journey onward.

His way was east, the evening sun which stood behind her back beaming full upon him as he got out from the shade of the hill. Notwithstanding his untoward proceeding, she determined to be loyal if he proved true, and a determination to love one's best will carry a heart a long way towards making that best and ever-growing thing. The conspicuous coat of the active, though blanching mare, made horse and rider easy objects for the vision. Though Darling had been chosen with such pains by Winterbourne for grace, she had never ridden the sleek creature. But her husband had found the animal exceedingly convenient, particularly now that he had taken to the saddle, plenty of staying power being left in Darling yet.

Fitzpiers, like others of his character, While despising Melbury and his station, did not at all disdain to spend Melbury's money, or appropriate to his own use the horse which belonged to Melbury's daughter. And so the infatuated young surgeon went along through the gorgeous autumn landscape of White Hart Vale, surrounded by orchards lustrous with the reds of apple crops, berries and foliage, the whole intensified by the gilding of the declining sun. The earth this year had been prodigially bountiful, and now was the supreme moment of her bounty. In the poorest spots the hedges were bowed with haws and blackberries, acorns cracked underfoot, and the burst husks of chestnuts lay exposing their auburn contents, as if arranged by anxious sellers in a fruit market.

In all this proud show, some kernels were unsound as their own situation. And she wondered if there were one world in the universe where the fruit had no worm, and marriage no sorrow. Her Tannhauser still moved on, his plodding steed rendering him distinctly visible yet. Could she have heard Fitzpiers's voice at that moment, she would have found him murmuring. Towards the Lothestar of my one desire I flitted, even as a dizzy moth in the owlet light. But he was a silent spectacle to her now. Soon he rose out of the valley and skirted a high plateau of the chalk formation on his right, which rested abruptly on the fruity district of loamy clay, the character and herbage of the two formations being so distinct that the calcerous upland appeared but as a deposit of a few years antiquity upon the level vale.

He kept along the edge of this high, unenclosed country, and the sky behind him, being deep violet, She could still see, white darling in relief upon it, a mere speck now, a wooverman's eccentricity reduced to microscopic dimensions. Upon this high ground he gradually disappeared.

Thus she had beheld a pet animal purchased for her own use, in pure love of her, by one who had always been true, impressed to convey her husband away from her to the side of a new-found idol. While she was musing on the vicissitudes of horses and wives, she discerned shapes moving up the valley towards her, quite near at hand, though till now hidden by the hedges. Surely there were Giles Winterborne with his two horses and cider apparatus, conducted by Robert Creedle. Up, upward they crept, a stray beam of the sun, Alighting every now and then, like a star, on the blades of the pomace shovels, which had been converted to steel mirrors by the action of the malic acid. She opened the gate when they came close, and the panting horses rested as they achieved the ascent.

"'How do you do, Giles?' said she, under a sudden impulse to be familiar with him. He replied with much more reserve. "'You are going for a walk, Mrs. Fitzpiers?' he added. It is pleasant just now. No, I am returning, said she. The vehicles passed through, the gate slammed, and Winterbourne walked by her side, in the rear of the apple mill. He looked and smelt like Autumn's very brother, his face being sunburnt to wheat color, his eyes blue as cornflowers, his boots and leggings dyed with fruit stains, his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips. And everywhere about him that atmosphere of cider, which, at its first return each season, has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among the orchards.

Her heart rose from its late sadness like a released spring, her senses reveled in the sudden lapse back to nature unadorned. The consciousness of having to be genteel because of her husband's profession, the veneer of artificiality which she had acquired at the fashionable schools, were thrown off, and she became the crude country girl of her latent earliest instincts. Nature was bountiful, she thought. No sooner had she been starved off by Edgar Fitzpiers than another being impersonating bare undiluted manliness had risen out of the earth ready to hand. This was an excursion of the imagination which she did not encourage, and she said suddenly, to disguise the confused regard which had followed her thoughts, "'Did you meet my husband?' Winterbourne, with some hesitation.

"'Yes.' "'Where did you meet him?' "'At Café Cross. I come from Middleton Abbey. I've been making cider there for the last week.' "'Haven't they a mill of their own?' "'Yes, but it's out of repair.' I think I heard that Mrs. Charmott had gone there to stay. Yes, I have seen her at the windows once or twice. Grace waited an interval before she went on. Did Mr. Fitzpiers take the way to Middleton? Yes, I met my darling. As she did not reply, he added with a gentler inflection, you know why the mare was called that? Oh, yes, of course, she answered quickly. They had risen so far over the crest of the hill that the whole west sky was revealed. Between the broken clouds they could see far into the recesses of heaven, the eye journeying on under a species of golden arcades, and past fiery obstructions, fancied cairns, logan-stones, stalactites, and stalagmites of topaz.

Deeper than this, there gazed past tin flakes of incandescence till it plunged into a bottomless medium of soft green fire. Her abandonment to the luscious time after her sense of ill-usage, her revolt for the nonce against social law, her passionate desire for primitive life, may have showed in her face. Winterbourne was looking at her, his eyes lingering on a flower that she wore in her bosom. Almost with the abstraction of a somnambulist, he stretched out his hand and gently caressed the flower. She drew back. "'What are you doing, Giles Winterbourne?' she exclaimed, with a look of severe surprise. The evident absence of all premeditation from the act, however, speedily led her to think that it was not necessary to stand upon her dignity here and now.

"'You must bear in mind, Giles,' she said kindly, "'that we are not as we were.' And some people might have said that what you did was taking a liberty. It was more than she need have told him. His action of forgetfulness had made him so angry with himself that he flushed through his tan. "'I don't know what I am coming to,' he exclaimed savagely. "'Ah, I was not once like this.' Tears of vexation were in his eyes. "'No, now it was nothing. I was too reproachful.' It would not have occurred to me if I had not seen something like it done elsewhere, at Middleton lately," he said thoughtfully after a while. "'By whom? Don't ask it.' She scanned him narrowly. "'I know quite well enough,' she returned indifferently.

"'It was by my husband, and the woman was Mrs. Charmond. Association of ideas reminded you when you saw me, Giles. Tell me all you know about that. Please, do, Giles.' But no, I won't hear it. Let the subject cease. As you are my friend, say nothing to my father. They reached a place where their ways divided. Winterborne continued along the highway which kept outside the copse, and Grace opened a gate and entered it.

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She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by nut-bushes, just now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and fours. A little way on, the track she pursued was crossed by a similar one at right angles. Here Grace stopped. Some few yards up the transverse ride, the buxom Sookie Damson was visible, her gown tucked up high through her pocket-hole, and no bonnet on her head, in the act of pulling down boughs from which she was gathering and eating nuts with great rapidity. Her lover, Tim Tang, standing near her, engaged in the same pleasant meal. Crack, crack, went Sookie's jaws every second or two. By an automatic chain of thought, Grace's mind reverted to the tooth-drawing scene described by her husband, and for the first time she wondered if that narrative were really true, Sookie's jaws being so obviously sound and strong.

Grace turned up towards the nut-gatherers, and conquered her reluctance to speak to the girl who was a little in advance of Tim. "'Good-evening, Sookie,' she said. "'Good-evening, Miss Melbury. Crack!' "'Mrs. Fitzpiers.' "'Oh, yes, ma'am, Mrs. Fitzpiers,' said Sookie, with a peculiar smile. "'Grace, not to be daunted,' continued. "'Take care of your teeth, Sookie. That accounts for your toothache.' "'I don't know what an ache is. Either in tooth, ear, or head, thank the Lord. Crack! "'Nother loss of one, either.' "'See for yourself, ma'am.' She parted her red lips and exhibited the whole double row, full and unimpaired. You have never had one drawn? Never. So much the better for your stomach, said Mrs.

Fitzpiers in an altered voice, and turning away quickly she went on. As her husband's character thus shaped itself under the touch of time, Grace was almost startled to find how little she suffered from that jealous excitement which is conventionally attributed to all wives in such circumstances. But though possessed by none of that feline wildness which it was her moral duty to experience, she did not fail to know that she had made a frightful mistake in her marriage. Acquiescence in her father's wishes had been degradation to herself. People are not given premonitions for nothing. She should have obeyed her impulse on that early morning, and steadfastly refused her hand. Oh, that plausible tale which her then betrothed had told her about Suki, the dramatic account of her entreaties to him to draw the aching enemy, and the fine artistic touch he had given to the story by explaining that it was a lovely molar without a flaw.

She traced the remainder of the woodland track dazed by the complications of her position. If his protestations to her before their marriage could be believed, her husband had felt affection of some sort for herself and this woman simultaneously. and was now again spreading the same emotion over Mrs. Charmond and herself conjointly, his manner being still kind and fond at times. But surely, rather than that, he must have played the hypocrite towards her in each case with elaborate completeness. And the thought of this sickened her, for it involved a conjecture that if he had not loved her, his only motive for making her his wife must have been her little fortune. Yet here Grace made a mistake.

For the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such quality as to bear division and transference. He had indeed once declared, though not to her, that on one occasion he had noticed himself to be possessed by five distinct infatuations at the same time. Therein it differed from the highest affection, as the lowest orders of the animal world differ from advanced organisms, partition causing not death, but a multiplied existence. He had loved her sincerely, and had by no means ceased to love her now, but such double and treble-barrelled hearts were naturally beyond her conception. Of poor Suki Damsen Grace thought no more. She had had her day. If he does not love me, I will not love him, said Grace proudly, and though these were mere words, it was a somewhat formidable thing for Fitzpiers that her heart was approximating to a state in which it might be possible to carry them out.

That very absence of hot jealousy which made his courses so easy, and on which, indeed, he congratulated himself, meant, unknown to either wife or husband, more mischief than the inconvenient watchfulness of a jaundiced eye. Her sleep that night was nervous. The wing, allotted to her and her husband, had never seemed so lonely, and at last she got up, put on her dressing-gown, and went downstairs. Her father, who slept lightly, heard her descend and came to the stair-head. "'Is that you, Grace? What's the matter?' said he. "'Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a case at Owlscombe in Whiteheart Vale.' "'But how was that? I saw the woman's husband at Great Hintock just before bedtime, and she was going on well, and the doctor gone then.' "'Then he's detained somewhere else,' said Grace.

"'Never mind me. He will be soon home.' I expect him about one. She went back to her room and dozed and woke several times. One o'clock had been the hour of his return on the last occasion, but it passed now by a long way, and Fitzpiers did not come. Just before dawn she heard the men stirring in the yard, and the flashes of their lanterns spread every now and then through her window-blind. She remembered that her father had told her not to be disturbed if she noticed them, as they would be rising early to send off four loads of hurdles to a distant sheep fair. Peeping out, she saw them bustling about, the hollow-turner among the rest. He was loading his wares, wooden bowls, dishes, spigots, spoons, cheese vats, funnels, and so on, upon one of her father's wagons, who carried them to the fair for him every year out of neighborly kindness.

The scene and the occasion would have enlivened her, but that her husband was still absent, though it was now five o'clock. She could hardly suppose him, whatever his infatuation, to have prolonged to a later hour than ten an ostensibly professional call on Mrs. Sharman at Middleton, and he could have ridden home in two hours and a half. What then had become of him? That he had been out the greater part of the two preceding nights added to her uneasiness. She dressed herself, descended, and went out, the weird twilight of advancing day chilling the rays from the lanterns and making the men's faces wan. As soon as Melbury saw her he came round, showing his alarm. "'Edgar has not come,' she said, "'and I have reason to know that he is not attending anybody.

He has had no rest for two nights before this. I was going to the top of the hill to look for him.' "'I'll come with you,' said Melbury. She begged him not to hinder himself, but he insisted, for he saw a peculiar and rigid gloom in her face over and above her uneasiness, and did not like the look of it. Telling the men he would be with them again soon, he walked beside her to the turnpike road, and partly up the hill whence she had watched Fitzpiers the night before, across the Great White Hart or Blackmoor Vale. They halted beneath a half-dead oak, hollow and disfigured with white tumors. Its roots spread out like accipitran claws, grasping the ground. A chilly wind circled round them, upon whose currents the seeds of a neighboring lime-tree, supported parachute-wise by the wing attached, flew out of the boughs downward like fledglings from their nest.

The vale was wrapped in a dim atmosphere of unnaturalness, and the east was like a livid curtain, edged with pink. There was no sign or sound of Fitzpiers. "'It's no use standing here.' said her father. He may come home fifty ways. Why, look here. Here be darling's tracks, turned homeward and nearly blown dry and hard. He must have come in hours ago without your seeing him. He has not done that, said she. They went back hastily. On entering their own gates, they perceived that the men had left the wagons, and were standing round the door of the stable, which had been appropriated to the doctor's use. Is there anything the matter? cried Grace. "'Oh, no, ma'am. All's well that ends well,' said old Timothy Thangs.

"'I've heard of such things before among workfolk, though not among your gentle people. That's true.' They entered the stable, and saw the pale shape of Darling standing in the middle of her stall, with Fitzpiers on her back, sound asleep. Darling was munching hay as well as she could with the bit in her mouth, and the reins which had fallen from Fitzpiers's hand hung upon her neck. Grace went and touched his hand, shook it before she could arouse him. He moved, started, opened his eyes, and exclaimed, "'Ah, Felice! Oh, it's Grace! I could not see in the gloom. What, am I in the saddle?' "'Yes,' said she. "'How do you come here?' He collected his thoughts, and in a few minutes stammered. "'I was riding along homeward through the vale, very, very sleepy.

Having been up so much of late, when I came opposite Holywell Spring the mare turned her head that way, as if she wanted to drink. I let her go in, and she drank. I thought she would never finish. While she was drinking the clock of Owlscombe Church struck twelve. I distinctly remember counting the strokes. From that moment I positively recollect nothing till I saw you here by my side. The name. If it had been any other horse, he'd have a broken neck. murmured Melbury. "'Tis wonderful, sure, how a quiet hoss will bring a man home at such times," said John Upjohn. "'And what's more wonderful than keeping your seat in a deep slumbering sleep? I've knowed men drows off walking home from Randy's when the mead and other liquors have gone round well, and keep walking for more than a mile on end without waking.

"'Well, doctor, I don't care who the man is, "'tis a mercy you wasn't a-drowned, or a-splintered, or hanged up to a tray like Absalom. Also a handsome gentleman like yourself, as the prophets say. True, murmured old Timothy. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. Or leastwise you might have been a wounded to tatters almost, and no doctor to join up your few limbs together within seven mile. While this grim address was proceeding, Fitzpiers had dismounted, and, taking Grace's arm, walked stiffly indoors with her. Melbury stood staring at the horse. which, in addition to being very weary, was spattered with mud. There was no mud to speak of about the Hintocks just now, only in the clammy hollows of the Vale beyond Owlscombe, the stiff soil of which retained moisture for weeks after the uplands were dry.

While they were rubbing down the mare, Melbury's mind coupled with the foreign quality of the mud, the name he had heard unconsciously muttered by the surgeon when Grace took his hand. Felice! Who was Felice? Why, Mrs. Charmond, and she, as he knew, was staying at Middleton. Melbury had indeed pounced upon the image that filled Fitzpiers's half-awakened soul, wherein there had been a picture of a recent interview on a lawn with a capriciously passionate woman, who had begged him not to come again in tones whose vibration incited him to disobey. "'What are you doing here? Why do you pursue me? Another belongs to you.' If they were to see you, they would seize you as a thief. And she had turbulently admitted to his ringing question that her visit to Middleton had been undertaken less because of the invalid relative than in shamefaced fear of her own weakness if she remained near his home.

A triumph, then, it was to Fitzpiers, poor and hampered as he had become, to recognize his real conquest of this beauty delayed so many years. His was the selfish passion of Congreve's Millamont, To whom love's supreme delight lay in, The heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.

When the horse had been attended to, Melbury stood uneasily here and there about his premises. He was rudely disturbed in the comfortable views which had lately possessed him on his domestic concerns. It is true that he had for some days discerned that Grace more and more sought his company. preferred supervising his kitchen and bakehouse with her stepmother to occupying herself with the lighter details of her own apartments. She seemed no longer able to find in her own hearth an adequate focus for her life, and hence, like a weak queen bee after leading off to an independent home, had hovered again into the parent hive. But he had not construed these and other incidents of the kind till now.

Something was wrong in the dovecot. A ghastly sense that he alone would be responsible for whatever unhappiness should be brought upon her for whom he almost solely lived, whom, to retain under his roof, he had faced the numerous inconveniences involved in giving up the best part of his house to Fitzpiers. There was no room for doubt that, had he allowed events to take their natural course, she would have accepted Winterbourne, and realized his old dream of restitution to that young man's family. That Fitzpiers could allow himself to look on any other creature for a moment than grace filled Melbury with grief and astonishment. In the pure and simple life he had led, it had scarcely occurred to him that after marriage a man might be faithless.

That he could sweep to the heights of Mrs. Charman's position, lift the veil of Isis, so to speak, would have amazed Melbury by its audacity if he had not suspected encouragement from that quarter. What could he and his simple grace do to countervail the passions of such as those two sophisticated beings, versed in the world's ways, armed with every apparatus for victory? In such an encounter, the homely timber-dealer felt as inferior as a bow-and-arrow savage before the precise weapons of modern warfare. Grace came out of the house as the morning drew on. The village was silent, most of the folk having gone to the fair. Fitzpiers had retired to bed and was sleeping off his fatigue. She went to the stable and looked at poor Darling.

In all probability, Giles Winterborne, by obtaining for her a horse of such intelligence and docility, had been the means of saving her husband's life. She paused over the strange thought, and then there appeared her father behind her. She saw that he knew things were not as they ought to be. From the troubled dullness of his eye and from his face, different points of which had independent motions, twitchings and tremblings, unknown to himself and involuntary.

He was detained, I suppose, last night, said Melbury. Oh, yes, a bad case in the Vale, she replied calmly. Nevertheless, he should have stayed at home. But he couldn't, father. Her father turned away. He could hardly bear to see his willem truthful girl brought to the humiliation of having to talk like that. That night Carking Kerr sat beside Melbury's pillow, and his stiff limbs tossed at its presence. "'I can't lie here any longer,' he muttered. Striking a light, he wandered about the room. "'What have I done? What have I done for her?' he said to his wife, who had anxiously awakened. I had long planned that she should marry the son of the man I wanted to make amends to. Do you mind how I told you all about it, Lucy, the night before she came home?

Ah, but I was not content with doing right. I wanted to do more. Don't raft yourself without good need, George, she replied. I won't quite believe that things are so much amiss. I won't believe that Mrs. Charmond has encouraged them. Even supposing she has encouraged a great many, She can have no motive to do it now. What so likely as that she is not quite well, and doesn't care to let another doctor come near her? He did not heed. Grace used to be very busy every day, with fixing a curtain here and driving a tin-tack there, but she cares for no employment now. Do you know anything of Mrs. Charmin's past history? Perhaps that would throw some light upon things. Before she came here as the wife of old Charmin, Four or five years ago, not a soul seems to have heard aught of her.

Why not make inquiries? And then do you wait and see more? There'll be plenty of opportunity. Time enough to cry when you know tis a crying matter, and tis bad to meet troubles halfway. There was some good sense in the notion of seeing further. Melbury resolved to inquire and wait, hoping still, but oppressed between whiles with much fear.

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Examine Grace as her father might. She would admit nothing, for the present, therefore, he simply watched. The suspicion that his darling child was being slighted wrought almost a miraculous change in Melbury's nature. No man so fertile for the time as the ingenuous countryman who finds that his ingenuousness has been abused. Melbury's heretofore confidential candour towards his gentlemanly son-in-law was displaced by a feline's stealth that did injury to his every action, thought, and mood. He knew that a woman once given to a man for life took, as a rule, her lot as it came, and made the best of it, without external interference. But for the first time he asked himself why this so generally should be so.

Moreover, this case was not, he argued, like ordinary cases. Leaving out the question of Grace being anything but an ordinary woman, her peculiar situation, as it were in midair between two planes of society, together with the loneliness of Hintock, made a husband's neglect a far more tragical matter to her than it would be to one who had a large circle of friends to fall back upon. Wisely or unwisely, and whatever other fathers did, he resolved to fight his daughter's battle still. Mrs. Charmont had returned, but Hintock House scarcely gave forth signs of life, so quietly had she re-entered it. He went to church at Great Hintock one afternoon, as usual, there being no service at the smaller village.

A few minutes before his departure, he had casually heard Fitzpiers, who was no church-goer, tell his wife that he was going to walk in the wood. Melbury entered the building and sat down in his pew. The parson came in, then Mrs. Charmond, then Mr. Fitzpiers. The service proceeded, and the jealous father was quite sure that a mutual consciousness was uninterruptedly maintained between those two. He fancied that more than once their eyes met. At the end, Fitzpiers so timed his movement into the aisle that it exactly coincided with Felice Charmond's from the opposite side. and they walked out with their garments in contact, the surgeon being just that two or three inches in her rear which made it convenient for his eyes to rest upon her cheek.

The cheek warmed to a richer tone. This was a worse feature in the flirtation than he had expected. If she had been playing with him in an idle freak, the game might soon have wearied her. But the smallest germ of passion, and women of the world do not change color for nothing, was a threatening development. The mere presence of Fitzpiers in the building after his statement was well-nigh conclusive as far as he was concerned, but Melbury resolved yet to watch.

He had to wait long. Autumn drew shiveringly to its end. One day something seemed to be gone from the gardens. The tenderer leaves of vegetables had shrunk under the first marked frost, and hung like faded linen rags. Then the forest leaves which had been descending at leisure descended in haste and in multitudes, and all the golden colours that had hung overhead were now crowded together in a degraded mass under foot, where the fallen myriads got redder and hornier and curled themselves up to rot. The only suspicious features of Mrs. Sharman's existence at this season were two. The first, that she lived with no companion or relative about her, which, considering her age and attractions, was somewhat unusual conduct for a young widow in a lonely country house.

The other, that she did not, as in previous years, start from Hintock to winter abroad. In Fitzpiers, the only change from his last autumn's habits lay in his abandonment of night study. His lamp never shone from his new dwelling as from his old.

If the suspected ones met, it was by such adroit contrivances that even Melbury's vigilance could not encounter them together. A simple call at her house by the doctor had nothing irregular about it, and that he had paid two or three such calls was certain. What had passed at those interviews was known only to the parties themselves, but that Felice Charmonde was under someone's influence Melbury soon had opportunity of perceiving.

Winter had come on. Owls began to be noisy in the mornings and evenings, and flocks of wood-pigeons made themselves prominent again. One day in February, about six months after the marriage of Fitzpiers, Melbury was returning from Great Hintock on foot through the lane, when he saw before him the surgeon also walking. Melbury would have overtaken him, But at that moment Fitzpiers turned in through a gate to one of the rambling drives among the trees at this side of the wood, which led to nowhere in particular, and the beauty of whose serpentine curves was the only justification for their existence. Felice almost simultaneously trotted down the lane towards the timber-dealer in a little basket-carriage, which he sometimes drove about the estate, unaccompanied by a servant.

She turned in at the same place without having seen either Melbury or, apparently, Fitzpiers. Melbury was soon at the spot, despite his aches and his sixty years. Mrs. Charmond had come up with the doctor, who was standing immediately behind the carriage. She had turned to him, her arm being thrown carelessly over the back of the seat. They looked in each other's faces without uttering a word, an arch yet gloomy smile wreathing her lips. Fitzpiers clasped her hanging hand, and while she remained in the same listless attitude, looking volumes into his eyes, he stealthily unbuttoned her glove, and stripped her hand of it by rolling back the gauntlet over the fingers, so that it came off inside out.

He then raised her hand to his mouth, she still reclining passively, watching him as she might have watched a fly upon her dress. At last she said, "'Well, sir, what excuse for this disobedience?' I make none. Then go your way and let me go mine. She snatched away her hand, touched the pony with the whip, and left him standing there holding the reversed glove. Melbury's first impulse was to reveal his presence to Fitzpiers and upbraid him bitterly, but a moment's thought was sufficient to show him the futility of any such simple proceeding. There was not, after all, so much in what he had witnessed as in what that scene might be the surface and froth of—the Probably a state of mind on which censure operates as an aggravation rather than as a cure.

Moreover, he said to himself that the point of attack should be the woman, if either. He therefore kept out of sight, and musing sadly, even tearfully, for he was meek as a child in matters concerning his daughter, continued his way towards Hintock. The insight which is bred of deep sympathy was never more finely exemplified than in this instance. Through her guarded manner, her dignified speech, her placid countenance, he discerned the interior of Grace's life only too truly, hidden as were its incidents from every outer eye. These incidents had become painful enough. Fitzpiers had latterly developed an irritable discontent which vented itself in monologues when Grace was present to hear them.

The early morning of this day had been dull after a night of wind, and on looking out of the window Fitzpiers had observed some of Melbury's men dragging away a large limb which had been snapped off a beech-tree. Everything was cold and colourless. "'My good heaven,' he said as he stood in his dressing-gown, "'this is life.' He did not know whether Grace was awake or not, and he would not turn his head to ascertain. "'Ah!' Fool! he went on to himself, to clip your own wings when you are free to soar. But I could not rest till I had done it. Why do I never recognize an opportunity till I have missed it, nor the good or ill of a step, till it is irrevocable? I fell in love. Love, indeed! Love's but the frailty of the mind, when tis not with ambition joined, a sickly flame which, if not fed, expires, and feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires.

Ah, old author of the way of the world, you knew, you knew. Grace moved. He thought she heard some part of his soliloquy. He was sorry, though he had not taken any precaution to prevent her. He expected a scene at breakfast, but she only exhibited an extreme reserve. It was enough, however, to make him repent that he should have done anything to produce discomfort, for he attributed her manner entirely to what he had said. But Grace's manner had not its cause either in his sayings or in his doings. She had not heard a single word of his regrets. Something even nearer home than her husband's blighted prospects, if blighted they were, was the origin of her mood, a mood that was the mere continuation of what her father had noticed when he would have preferred a passionate jealousy in her.

as the more natural. She had made a discovery, one which to a girl of honest nature was almost appalling. She had looked into her heart and found that her early interest in Giles Winterbourne had become revitalized into a luxuriant growth by her widening perceptions of what was great and little in life. His homeliness no longer offended her acquired tastes. His comparative want of so-called culture did not now jar on her intellect. His country dress even pleased her eye. His exterior roughness fascinated her. Having discovered by marriage how much that was humanly not great could coexist with attainments of an exceptional order, there was a revulsion in her sentiments from all that she had formerly clung to in this kind.

Honestly, goodness, manliness, tenderness, devotion—for her only existed in their purity now, in the breasts of unvarnished men. And here was one who had manifested them towards her from his youth up. There was further that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a man whom she had wronged, a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly transactions, while not without a touch of sublimity he had, like Horatio, borne himself throughout his scathing, as one in suffering all that suffers nothing. It was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband's murmurs, that had bred the abstraction visible in her. When her father approached the house after witnessing the interview between Fitzpiers and Mrs.

Charmond, Grace was looking out of her sitting-room window, as if she had nothing to do, or think of, or care for. He stood still. "'Ah, Grace,' he said, regarding her fixedly. "'Yes, father,' she murmured. "'Waiting for your dear husband,' he inquired, speaking with the sarcasm of pitiful affection. "'Oh, no, not especially.' He has a great many patients to see this afternoon. Melbury came quite close. Grace, what's the use of talking like that, when you know—here, come down and walk with me out in the garden, child. He unfastened the door in the ivy-laced wall, and waited. This apparent indifference alarmed him. He would far rather that she had rushed in all the fire of jealousy to Hintock House, regardless of conventionality, confronted and attacked Felice Charmonde, undubulous in Rostow, and accused her, even in exaggerated shape, of stealing away her husband.

Such a storm might have cleared the air. She emerged in a minute or two, and they went inside together. You know as well as I do, he resumed, that there is something threatening mischief to your life, and yet you pretend you do not. Do you suppose I don't see the trouble in your face every day? I am very sure that this quietude has wrong conduct in you. You should look more into matters. I am quiet because my sadness is not of a nature to stir me to action. Melbury wanted to ask her a dozen questions. Did she not feel jealous? Was she not indignant? But a natural delicacy restrained him. You are very tame and let alone, I am bound to say, he remarked pointedly. I am what I feel, father, she repeated.

He glanced at her, and there returned upon his mind the scene of her offering to wed Winterbourne instead of Fitzpiers in the last few days before her marriage. And he asked himself if it could be the fact that she loved Winterbourne, now that she had lost him, more than she had ever done when she was comparatively free to choose him. "'What would you have me do?' she asked in a low voice. He recalled his mind from the retrospective pain to the practical matter before them. "'I would have you go to Mrs. Charmant,' he said. "'Go to Mrs. Charmant? What for?' she said. "'Well, if I must speak plain, dear Grace, to ask her, to appeal to her in the name of your common womanhood and your many-like sentiments on things, not to make unhappiness between you and your husband.

It lies with her entirely to do one or the other, that I can see.' Grace's face had heated at her father's words, and the very rustle of her skirts upon the box edging bespoke hauteur. "'I shall not think of going to her father. Of course I could not.' She answered. "'Why, don't you want to be happier than you be at present?' said Melbury, more moved on her account than she was herself. "'I don't wish to be more humiliated. If I have anything to bear, I can bear it in silence.' "'But, my dear maid, you are too young. You don't know what the present state of things may lead to. Just see the harm done already. Your husband would have gone away to Budmouth to a bigger practice if it had not been for this.

Although it has gone on such a little way, it is poisoning your future even now. Mrs. Sherman is thoughtlessly bad, not bad by calculation, and just a word to her now might save you a peck of woes. Ah, I loved her once. said Grace, with a broken articulation, and she would not care for me then. Now I no longer love her. Let her do her worst. I don't care. You ought to care. You've got a very good position to start with. You have been well educated, well tended, and you have become the wife of a professional man of unusually good family. Surely you ought to make the best of your position." I don't see that I ought. I wish I had never got into it. I wish you had never, never thought of educating me.

I wish I worked in the woods, like Marty South. I hate genteelife, and I want to be no better than she." Why? said her amazed father. "'Because cultivation has only brought me inconveniences and troubles. I say again, I wish you had never sent me to those fashionable schools you set your mind on.' It all arose out of that, father. If I had stayed at home, I should have married—she closed up her mouth suddenly, and was silent, and he saw that she was not far from crying. Melbury was much grieved. What, would you like to have grown up as we be here at Hintock? Knowing no more, and with no more chance of seeing good life than we have here? Yes, I have never got any happiness outside Hintock that I know of, and I have suffered many a heartache at being sent away.

Oh, the misery of those January days when I had got back to school and left you all here in the woods so happy. I used to wonder why I had to bear it, And I was always a little despised by the other girls at school, because they knew where I came from, and that my parents were not in so good a station as theirs. Her poor father was much hurt at what he taught her ingratitude and intractability. He had admitted to himself bitterly enough that he should have let young hearts have their way, or rather should have helped on her affection with Winterbourne, and given her to him according to his original plan. But he was not prepared for her deprecation of those attainments whose contemplation had been a labor of years, and a severe tax upon his purse.

"'Very well,' he said, with much heaviness of spirit. "'If you don't like to go to her, I won't wish to force you.' And so the question remained for him still. How should he remedy this perilous state of things? For days he sat in a moody attitude over the fire, a pitcher of cider standing on the hearth beside him. and his drinking-horn inverted upon the top of it. He spent a week and more thus composing a letter to the chief offender, which he would every now and then attempt to complete, and suddenly crumple up in his hand.

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The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter Thirty-One.

As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom of the woodman's homeward journey, the Hintocks, great and little, began to have ears for a rumour of the events out of which had grown the timber-dealer's troubles. It took the form of a wide sprinkling of conjecture, wherein no man knew the exact truth. Tantalizing phenomena, at once showing and concealing the real relationship of the persons concerned, caused a diffusion of excited surprise. Honest people, as the woodlanders were, it was hardly to be expected that they could remain immersed in the study of their trees and gardens amid such circumstances, or sit with their backs turned, Like the good burghers of Coventry at the passage of the beautiful lady.

Rumor, for a wonder, exaggerated little. There were, in fact, in this case as in thousands, the well-worn incidents old as the hills, which, with individual variations, made a mourner of Ariadne, a byword of Vashti, and a corpse of the Countess Amy. There were encounters accidental and contrived, stealthy correspondence, sudden misgivings on one side, self-reproaches on the other. The inner state of the twain was one as of confused noise that would not allow the accents of calmer reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this direction, and headlong plunges in that, dignified safeguards, undignified collapses. Not a single rash step by deliberate intention, And all against judgment. It was all that Melbury had expected and feared.

It was more, for he had overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as it now had done. What should he do? Appeal to Mrs. Charmant himself, since Grace would not? He bethought himself of Winterbourne and resolved to consult him, feeling the strong need of some friend of his own sex to whom he might unburden his mind. He had entirely lost faith in his own judgment. That judgment on which he had relied for so many years seemed recently like a false companion unmasked, to have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy and spaciousness, where all had seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid to form a conjecture on the weather, or the time, or the fruit promise. So great was his self-abasement.

It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles. The woods seemed to be in a cold sweat, beads of perspiration hung from every bare twig. The sky had no colour, and the trees rose before him as haggard grey phantoms, whose days of substantiality were past. Melbury seldom saw Winterbourne now, but he believed him to be occupying a lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. Sharman's estate, though still within the circuit of the woodland. The timber merchant's thin legs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, his eyes on the dead leaves of last year, while every now and then a hasty, ay, escaped his lips in reply to some bitter proposition. His notice was attracted by a thin blue haze of smoke, behind which arose sounds of voices and chopping.

Bending his steps that way, he saw Winterbourne just in front of him. It just now happened that Giles, after being for a long time apathetic and unemployed, had become one of the busiest men in the neighbourhood. It is often thus, fallen friends lost sight of, we expect to find starving. We discover them going on fairly well. Without any solicitation or desire for profit on his part, he had been asked to execute during that winter a very large order for hurdles and other copseware, for which purpose he had been obliged to buy several acres of brushwood standing. He was now engaged in the cutting and manufacture of the same, proceeding with the work daily like an automaton.

The hazel-tree did not belie its name today. The whole of the copse-wood where the mist had cleared returned purest tints of that hue, amid which Winterborne himself was in the act of making a hurdle, the stakes being driven firmly into the ground in a row over which he bent and wove the twigs. Beside him was a square, compact pile, like the altar of cane, formed of hurdles already finished, which bristled on all sides with the sharp points of their stakes. At a little distance, the men in his employ were assisting him to carry out his contract. Rows of copsewood lay on the ground as it had fallen under the axe, and a shelter had been constructed near at hand, in front of which burned the fire whose smoke had attracted him.

The air was so dank that the smoke hung heavy, and crept away amid the bushes without rising from the ground.

After wistfully regarding Winterbourne a while, Melbury drew nearer and briefly inquired of Giles how he came to be so busily engaged, with an undertone of slight surprise that Winterbourne could seem so thriving after being deprived of Grace. Melbury was not without emotion at the meeting, for Grace's affairs had divided them and ended their intimacy of old times. Winterbourne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes from his occupation of chopping about, That he held in front of him. "'T'will be up in April before you get it all cleared,' said Melbury. "'Yes, there or thereabouts,' said Winterborne, a chop of the billhook jerking the last word into two pieces. There was another interval.

Melbury still looked on, a chip from Winterborne's hook occasionally flying against the waistcoat and legs of his visitor, who took no heed. "'Nah, Giles, you should have been my partner.' "'You should have been my son-in-law,' the old man said at last. "'It would have been far better for her and for me.' Winterbourne saw that something had gone wrong with his former friend, and throwing down the switch he was about to interweave, he responded only too readily to the mood of the timber-dealer. "'Is she ill?' he said hurriedly. "'No, no.' Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and then, as though he could not bring himself to proceed, turned to go away. Winterbourne told one of his men to pack up the tools for the night, and walked after Melbury.

"'Heaven forbid I should seem too inquisitive, sir,' he said, "'especially since we don't stand as we used to stand to one another. But I hope it is well with them all over your way.' "'No,' said Melbury. "'No.' He stopped. and struck the smooth trunk of a young ash-tree with the flat of his hand. "'I would that his ear had been where that rind is,' he exclaimed. "'I should have treated him to little compared with what he deserves.' "'Now,' said Winterborne, "'don't be in a hurry to go home. I've put some cider down to warm in my shelter here, and we'll sit and drink it and talk this over.' Melbury turned unresistingly as Giles took his arm, and they went back to where the fire was, and sat down under the screen, the other woodmen having gone.

He drew out the cider mug from the ashes, and they drank together. Giles, you ought to have had her, as I said just now, repeated Melbury. I'll tell you why for the first time. He thereupon told Winterbourne, as with great relief, The story of how he had won away Giles's father's chosen one, by nothing worse than lovers' cajoleries, it is true, but by means which accepting love would certainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explained how he had always intended to make reparation to Winterbourne the father by giving grace to Winterbourne the son, till the devil tempted him in the person of Fitzpiers, and he broke his virtuous vow.

How highly you thought that man, to be sure! Who'd have supposed he'd have been so weak and wrong-headed as this? You ought to have had her, Giles, and there's an end to it. Wintermore knew how to preserve his calm under this unconsciously cruel tearing of a healing wound, to which Melbury's concentration on the more vital subject had blinded him. The young man endeavoured to make the best of the case for Grace's sake. She would hardly have been happy with me, he said in the dry, unimpassioned voice under which he hid his feelings. I was not well enough educated, too rough in short. I couldn't have surrounded her with the refinements she looked for, anyhow at all. "'Nonsense, you are quite wrong there,' said the unwise old man doggedly.

"'She told me only this day that she hates refinements and such-like. "'All that my trouble and money bought for her in that way is thrown away upon her quite. "'Hmph! She'd fain be more like Marty South. Think of that. That's the top of her ambition. Perhaps she's right.' Giles, she loved you, under the rind, and, what's more, she loves you still. Worse luck for the poor maid.

If Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly stirring up, he might have held his peace. Winterbourne was silent a long time. The darkness had closed in around them, and the monotonous drip of the fog from the branches quickened as it turned to fine rain. Oh, she never cared much for me. Giles managed to say as he stirred the embers with a brand. She did, and does, I tell you, said the other obstinately. However, that's all vain talking now. What I come to ask you about is a more practical matter, how to make the best of things as they are. I'm thinking of a desperate step, of calling on the woman Charmonde. I'm going to appeal to her, since Grace will not, to she who holds the balance in her hands, not he.

While she's got the will to lead him astray, he will follow, poor, unpractical, lofty notioned dreamer. And how long she'll do it depends upon her whim. Did she ever hear anything about her character before she came to Hintock?

She's been a bit of a charmer in her time, I believe, replied Giles, with the same level quietude as he regarded the red coals. One who has smiled where she is not loved, and loved where she is not married. Before Mr. Sharman made her his wife, she was a play actress. "'Hey, but how close you've kept all this, Giles. What besides?' Mr. Sharman was a rich man, engaged in the iron trade in the North, twenty or thirty years older than she. He married her and retired, and came down here and bought this property, as they do nowadays. "'Yes, yes, I know all about that, but the other I did not know. I fear it bodes no good.' For how can a go and appeal to the forbearance of a woman in this matter who has made cross loves and crooked entanglements a trade for years?

I thank you, Giles, for finding out, but it makes my plan the harder that she should have belonged to that unstable tribe. Another pause ensued, and they looked gloomily at the smoke that beat about the hurdles which sheltered them, through whose weavings a large drop of rain fell at intervals and spat smartly into the fire. Mrs. Charmond had been no friend to Winterbourne, but he was manly, and it was not in his heart to let her be condemned without a trial. She said to be generous, he answered. You might not appeal to her in vain. It shall be done, said Melbury, rising. For good or for evil, to Mrs. Charmond I'll go.

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At nine o'clock the next morning, Melbury dressed himself up in shining broadcloth, creased with folding and smelling of camphor, and started for Hintock House. He was the more impelled to go at once by the absence of his son-in-law in London for a few days, to attend, really or ostensibly, some professional meetings. He said nothing of his destination either to his wife or to Grace, fearing that they might entreat him to abandon so risky a project, and went out unobserved. He had chosen his time with the view, as he supposed, of conveniently catching Mrs. Charmond when she had just finished her breakfast, before any other business people should be about if any came. Plodding thoughtfully onward, he crossed a glade lying between Little Hintock Woods and the plantation which abutted on the park, and the spot being open he was discerned there by Winterbourne from the copse on the next hill, where he and his men were working.

Knowing his mission, the younger man hastened down from the copse, and managed to intercept the timber-merchant.

"'I have been thinking of this, sir,' he said, "'and I am of the opinion that it will be best to put off your visit for the present.' But Melbury would not even stop to hear him. His mind was made up, and the appeal was to be made, and Winterbourne stood and watched him sadly till he entered the second plantation and disappeared.

Melbury rang at the tradesman's door of the manor-house, and was at once informed that the lady was not yet visible, as indeed he might have guessed had he been anybody but the man he was. Melbury said he would wait, whereupon the young man informed him in a neighbourly way that, between themselves, she was in bed asleep. Never mind, said Melbury, retreating into the court. I'll stand about here. Charred so fully with his mission he shrank from contact with anybody. But he walked about the paved court till he was tired, and still nobody came to him. At last he entered the house and sat down in a small waiting-room, from which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor and of the white-capped maids flitting jauntily hither and hither.

They had heard of his arrival, but had not seen him enter, and, imagining him still in the court, discussed freely the possible reason of his calling. They marvel at his temerity, for though most of the tongues which had been let loose attributed the chief blameworthiness to Fitzpiers, these of her household preferred to regard their mistress as the deeper sinner.

Melbury sat with his hands resting on the familiar knobbed-thorn walking-stick, whose growing he had seen before he enjoyed its use. The scene to him was not the material environment of his person, but a tragic vision that traveled with him like an envelope. Through his vision, the incidents of the moment but gleamed confusedly here and there, as an outer landscape through the high-coloured scenes of a stained window. He waited thus an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. He began to look pale and ill, whereupon the butler, who came in, asked him to have a glass of wine. Melbury roused himself, and said, "'No, no, is she almost ready?' "'She is just finishing breakfast,' said the butler. "'She will soon see you now.

I am just going to tell her you are here.' "'What, haven't you told her before?' said Melbury. "'Oh, no,' said the other. "'You see, you came so very early.' At last the bell rang. Mrs. Charmond could see him. She was not in her private sitting-room when he reached it, but in a minute he heard her coming from the front staircase, and she entered where he stood. At this time of the morning Mrs. Charmond looked her full age, and more. She might almost have been taken for the typical Femme de Trondance, though she was really not more than seven or eight-and-twenty. There being no fire in the room, she came in with a shawl thrown loosely round her shoulders, and obviously without the least suspicion that Melbury had called upon any other errand than Timber.

Felice was, indeed, the only woman in the parish who had not heard the rumour of her own weaknesses. She was at this moment living in a fool's paradise in respect of that rumour, though not in respect of the weaknesses themselves which, if the truth be told, cause her grave misgivings. Do sit down, Mr. Melbury. You have felled all the trees that were to be purchased by you this season, except the oaks, I believe. Yes, said Melbury. How very nice! It must be so charming to work in the woods just now. She was too careless to affect an interest in an extraneous person's affairs so consummately as to deceive in the manner of the perfect social machine. Hence her words, very nice, so charming, were uttered with a perfunctoriness that made them sound absurdly unreal.

"'Yes, yes,' said Melbury, in a reverie. He did not take a chair, and she also remained standing. "'Resting upon his stick, he began,' "'Mrs. Sharmon, I have called upon a more serious matter, at least to me, than tree-throwing, and whatever mistakes I make in my manner of speaking upon it to you, madam, do me the justice to set him down to my want of practice and not my want of care.' Mrs. Sharmon looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess his meaning, but apart from that she had such dread of contact with anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone were enough to distress her. Yes, what is it? she said.

I am an old man, said Melbury, whom, somewhat late in life, God thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother was a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the child was young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye to me, for she was all I had left to love. For her sake entirely, I married a second wife, a homespun woman, who had been kind as a mother to her. In due time the question of her education came on, and I said, I will educate the maid well if I live upon bread to do it. Of her possible marriage I could not bear to think, for it seemed like a death that she should cleave to another man, and grow to think his house her home rather than mine.

But I saw it as the law of nature that this should be, and that it was for the maid's happiness that she should have a home when I was gone, and I made up my mind without a murmur to help it on for her sake. In my youth I had wronged a dear friend, and to make amends I determined to give her, my most precious possession, to my friend's son, seeing that they liked each other well.

Things came about which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter's happiness to do this, inasmuch as the young man was poor and she was delicately reared. Another man came and paid court to her, one or equal in breeding and accomplishments. In every way it seemed to me that he only could give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost. I urged her on, and she married him. But, ma'am, a fatal mistake was at the root of my reckoning. I found that this well-born gentleman I had calculated on so surely was not staunch of heart, and that therein lay a danger of great sorrow for my daughter. Madam, he saw you, and you know the rest. I have come to make no demands, to utter no threats.

I have come simply as a father in great grief about his only child, and I beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, and to do nothing which can turn her husband's heart away from her forever. Forbid him your presence, ma'am, and speak to him on his duty as one with your power over him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent between them may be patched up, for it is not as if you would lose by doing so. Your course is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man, And the gratitude you would win from me and mine by your kindness is more than I can say.

Mrs. Charmond had first rushed into a mood of indignation on comprehending Melbury's story. Hot and cold by turns, she had murmured, Leave me! Leave me! But as he seemed to take no notice of this, his words began to influence her, and when he ceased speaking, she said with hurried hot breath, What has led you to think this of me? Who says I have won your daughter's husband away from her? Some monstrous calumnies are afloat, of which I have known nothing until now. Melbury started, and looked at her simply. But surely, ma'am, you know the truth better than I. Her features became a little pinched, and the touches of powder on her handsome face for the first time show themselves as an extrinsic film.

"'Will you leave me to myself?' she said with a faintness which suggested a guilty conscience. This is so utterly unexpected. You obtain admission to my presence by misrepresentation. As gods in heaven, ma'am, that's not true. I made no pretence, and I thought in reason you would know why I had come. This gossip—I have heard nothing of it. Tell me of it, I say. Tell you, ma'am. Not I. What the gossip is, no matter. What really is, you know. Set the facts right, and the scandal will write itself. But pardon me, I speak roughly, and I came to speak to you gently, to coax you, beg you to be my daughter's friend. She loved you once, ma'am. You began by liking her. Then you dropped her without a reason, and it hurt her warm heart more than I can tell you.

But you were within your right as a superior, no doubt. But if you would consider her position now, surely, surely you would do her no harm. Certainly I would do her no harm. Melbury's eye met hers. It was curious, but the allusion to Grace's former love for her seemed to touch her more than all Melbury's other arguments. "'Oh, Melbury,' she burst out, "'you have made me so unhappy. How could you come to me like this? It is too dreadful. Now go away, go, go!' "'I will,' he said in a husky tone. As soon as he was out of the room she went to a corner, and there sat and writhed under an emotion in which hurt pride and vexation mingled with better sentiments. Mrs. Charman's mobile spirit was subject to these fierce periods of stress and storm.

She had never so clearly perceived till now that her soul was being slowly invaded by a delirium which had brought about all this, that she was losing judgment and dignity under it, becoming an animated impulse only, A passion incarnate. A fascination had led her on. It was as if she had been seized by a hand of velvet, and this was where she found herself overshadowed with sudden night, as if a tornado had passed by. While she sat, or rather crouched, unhinged by the interview, lunch-time came, and then the early afternoon, almost without her consciousness. Then a strange gentleman who says it is not necessary to give his name was suddenly announced. "'I cannot see him, whoever he may be. I am not at home to anybody.' She heard no more of her visitor, and shortly after, in an attempt to recover some mental serenity by violent physical exercise, she put on her hat and cloak, and went out of doors, taking a path which led her up the slope to the nearest spur of the wood.

She disliked the woods, but they had the advantage of being a place in which she could walk comparatively unobserved.

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There is agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these matters concern. It was not till the Hintock dinner-time, one o'clock, that Grace discovered her father's absence from the house after a departure in the morning under somewhat unusual conditions. By a little reasoning and inquiry she was able to come to a conclusion on his destination, and to divine his errand. Her husband was absent, and her father did not return. He had, in truth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did not know. In an indefinite dread that something serious would arise out of Melbury's visit by reason of the inequalities of temper and nervous irritation to which he was subject—something possibly that would bring her much more misery than accompanied her present negative state of mind—she left the house about three o'clock, and took a loitering walk in the woodland track by which she imagined he would come home.

This track under the bare trees and over the cracking sticks, screened and roofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud by a network of boughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger trees behind her, and swept round into the coppice where Winterbourne and his men were clearing the undergrowth. Had Giles's attention been concentrated on his hurdles, he would not have seen her. But ever since Melbury's passage across the opposite glade in the morning, he had been as uneasy and unsettled as Grace herself, and her advent now was the one appearance which, since her father's avowal, could arrest him more than Melbury's return with his tidings.

Fearing that something might be the matter, he hastened up to her. She had not seen her old lover for a long time, and, too conscious of the late pranks of her heart, she could not behold him calmly. "'I am only looking for my father,' she said, in an unnecessarily apologetic intonation. "'I was looking for him, too,' said Giles. "'I think he may perhaps have gone on farther.' "'Then you knew he was going to the house, Giles,' she said, turning her large, tender eyes anxiously upon him. "'Did he tell you what for?' Winterbourne glanced doubtingly at her, and then softly hinted that her father had visited him the evening before, and that their old friendship was quite restored, on which she guessed the rest.

"'Oh, I am glad, indeed, that you two are friends again,' she cried. And then they stood facing each other, fearing each other, troubling each other's souls. Grace experienced acute misery at the sight of these wood-cutting scenes, because she had estranged herself from them, craving, even to its defects and inconveniences, that homely, sylvan life of her father, which in the best probable succession of events would shortly be denied her. At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South was shaping Spargads to take home from manufacture during the evenings. While Winterbourne and Mrs. Fitzpiers stood looking at her, in their mutual embarrassment at each other's presence, they beheld approaching the girl a lady in a dark fur mantle and black hat, having a white veil tied picturesquely round it.

She spoke to Marty, who turned and curtseyed, and the lady fell into conversation with her. It was Mrs. Charmond. On leaving her house, Mrs. Charmond had walked on and onward under the fret and fever of her mind with more vigor than she was accustomed to show in her normal moods, a fever which the solace of a cigarette did not entirely allay. Reaching the coppice, she listlessly observed Marty at work, threw away her cigarette, and came near. Chop, chop, chop, went Marty's little bill-hook with never more assiduity till Mrs. Charmond spoke. "'Who is that young lady I see talking to the woodman yonder?' she asked. "'Mrs. Fitzpiers, ma'am,' said Marty. "'Oh,' said Mrs. Charmond with something like a start, for she had not recognized Grace at that distance.

"'And the man she is talking to?' "'That's Mr. Winterbourne.' A redness stole into Marty's face as she mentioned Giles's name, which Mrs. Sharman did not fail to notice, informed her of the state of the girl's heart. Are you engaged to him? She asked softly. "'No, ma'am,' said Marty. "'She was once, and I think—' But Marty could not possibly explain the complications of her thoughts on this matter, which were nothing less than one of extraordinary acuteness for a girl so young and inexperienced, namely, that she saw danger to two hearts naturally honest, in grace being thrown back into Winterbourne's society by the neglect of her husband. Mrs. Charmant, however, with the almost supersensory means to knowledge which women have on such occasions, Quite understood what Marty had intended to convey, and the picture thus exhibited to her of lives drifting away, involving the wreck of poor Marty's hopes, prompted her to more generous resolves than all Melbury's remonstrances had been able to stimulate.

Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl good afternoon, and went on over the stumps of Hazel to where Grace and Winterbourne were standing. They saw her approach, and Winterbourne said, "'She's coming to you. It is a good omen.' She dislikes me, so I'll go away. He accordingly retreated to where he had been working before Grace came, and Grace's formidable rival approached her, each woman taking the other's measure as she came near. Dear Mrs. Fitzpiers, said Felice Charmin, with some inward turmoil which stopped her speech, I have not seen you for a long time. She held out her hand tentatively, while Grace stood like a wild animal, on first confronting a mirror or other puzzling product of civilization.

Was it really Mrs. Charmond speaking to her thus? If it was, she could no longer form any guess as to what it signified. "'I want to talk to you,' said Mrs. Charmond imploringly, for the gaze of the young woman had chilled her through. Can you walk on with me till we are quite alone?' Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork they moved on evenly, side by side, into the deeper recesses of the wood. They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Sharman had meant to go, but she could not begin her conversation, and in default of it kept walking. "'I have seen your father,' she said at length, "'and I am much troubled by what he told me.' "'What did he tell you?' I have not been admitted to his confidence on anything he may have said to you.

Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine? True, true," returned Grace mournfully. Why should you repeat what we both know to be in our minds already? Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband. The moment that the speaker's tongue touched this dangerous subject, a vivid look of self-consciousness flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam, what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression that none but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace's position, would have had the power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost. "'Then you do love him?' she exclaimed in a tone of much surprise. "'What do you mean, my young friend?' "'Why,' cried Grace, I thought till now that you had only been cruelly flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments—a rich lady with a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised, not much less than her who belongs to him.

But I guess from your manner that you do love him desperately, and I don't hate you as I did before." "'Yes, indeed,' continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue, "'since it is not playing in your case at all, but real. Oh, I do pity you more than I despise you.' For you will suffer most. Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. "'I ought not allow myself to argue with you,' she exclaimed. "'I demean myself by doing it. But I liked you once, and for the sake of that time I tried to tell you how mistaken you are.' Much of her confusion resulted from her wonder and alarm at finding herself in a sense dominated mentally and emotionally by this simple schoolgirl. "'I do not love him,' she went on with desperate untruth.

It was a kindness, my making somewhat more of him than one usually does of one's doctor. I was lonely. I talked—well, I trifled with him. I am very sorry if such child's playing out of pure friendship has been a serious matter to you. Who could have expected it? But the world is so simple here. Oh, that is affectation," said Grace, shaking her head. It is no use. You love him. I can see in your face that in this matter of my husband you have not let your acts belie your feelings. During these last four or six months you have been terribly indiscreet, but you have not been insincere, and that almost disarms me. I have been insincere, if you will have the word. I mean I have coquetted, and I do not love him.

But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. You may have trifled with others, But you love him as you never loved another man. "'Well, I won't argue,' said Mrs. Sherman, laughing faintly. "'And you come to reproach me for it, child?' "'No,' said Grace magnanimously. "'You may go on loving him if you like. I don't mind at all. You'll find it, let me tell you, a bit'er a business for yourself than for me in the end. He'll get tired of you soon, as tired as can be. You don't know him so well as I, and then you may wish you'd never seen him.' Mrs. Charmant had grown quite weak and pale under this prophecy. It was extraordinary that Grace, whom almost everyone would have characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fiber than her interlocutor.

"'You exaggerate, cruel, silly young woman,' she reiterated, writhing with little agonies. "'It is nothing but playful friendship, nothing. It will be proved by my future conduct. I shall at once refuse to see him more, since it will make no difference to my heart.' and much more to my name. "'I question if you will refuse to see him again,' said Grace dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "'But I am not incensed against you as you are against me,' she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "'Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty. Now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable, When I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life and getting covered with mud to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man, the plaything of a Finnish coquette.

I thought that what was getting to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see that tragedy lies on your side of the situation no less than on mine, and more, that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguish at yours. That if I have had disappointments, you have had despairs. Heaven may fortify me. God help you." I cannot attempt to reply to your eloquence, returned the other, struggling to restore a dignity which had completely collapsed. My acts will be my proofs. In the world which you have seen nothing of, friendships between men and women are not unknown, and it would have been better both for you and your father if each had judged me more respectfully, and left me alone.

As it is, I wish never to see or speak to you, madam, any more. Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charman turned away. The two went apart in directly opposite courses, and were soon hidden from each other by their umbrageous surroundings and by the shadows of Eve. In the excitement of the long argument, they had walked onward and zigzagged about without regarding direction or distance. All sounds of the woodcutters had long since faded into remoteness, and even had not the interval been too great for hearing them, they would have been silent and homeward-bound at this twilight hour. But Grace went on her course without any misgiving, though there was much underwood here, with only the narrowest passages for walking, across which brambles hung.

She had not, however, traversed this, the wildest part of the woods, since her childhood, and the transformation of outlines had been great. Old trees, which once were landmarks, had been felled or blown down, and the bushes, which then had been small and scrubby, were now large and overhanging. She soon found that her ideas as to direction were vague, that she had indeed no ideas as to direction at all. If the evening had not been growing so dark, and the wind had not put on its night moan so distinctly, Grace would not have minded. But she was rather frightened now, and began to strike across, hither and thither, in random courses. Denser grew the darkness, more developed the wind-voices, and still no recognisable spot or outlet of any kind appeared, nor any sound of the hintox floated near, though she had wandered probably between one and two hours, and began to be weary.

She was vexed at her foolishness, since the ground she had covered, if in a straight line, must inevitably have taken her out of the wood to some remote village or other. But she had wasted her forces in countermarches, and now, in much alarm, wondered if she would have to pass the night here. She stood still to meditate, and fancied that between the soughing of the wind she heard shuffling footsteps on the leaves, heavier than those of rabbits or hares. Though fearing at first to meet anybody on the chance of his being a friend, she decided that the fellow night rambler, even if a poacher, would not injure her, and that he might possibly be someone sent to search for her. She accordingly shouted a rather timid, "'Oi!' The cry was immediately returned by the other person, and Grace, running at once in the direction whence it came, beheld an indistinct figure hastening up to her as rapidly.

They were almost in each other's arms when she recognized in her, vis-a-vis the outline and white veil, of her whom she had parted from an hour and a half before, Mrs. Charmond. "'I have lost my way! I have lost my way!' cried that lady. "'Oh, is it indeed you? I am so glad to meet you or anybody. I have been wandering up and down ever since we parted, and am nearly dead with terror and misery and fatigue.' "'So am I,' said Grace. "'What shall we—shall we do?' "'You won't go away from me?' asked her companion anxiously. "'No, indeed. Are you very tired?' "'I can scarcely move, and I am scratched dreadfully about the ankles.' Grace reflected. "'Perhaps as it is dry underfoot, the best thing for us to do would be to sit down for half an hour, and then start again when we have thoroughly rested.

By walking straight we must come to a track leading somewhere before the morning.' They found a clump of bushy hollies, which afforded a shelter from the wind, and sat down under it, some tufts of dead fern, crisp and dry, that remained from the previous season, forming a sort of nest for them. But it was cold nevertheless on this March night, particularly for Grace, who, with the sanguine prematureness of youth in matters of dress, had considered it springtime, and hence was not so warmly clad as Mrs. Charmond, who still wore her winter fur. But after sitting a while, the latter lady shivered no less than grace as the warmth imparted by her hasty walking began to go off, and they felt the cold air drawing through the holly-leaves which scratched their backs and shoulders.

Moreover, they could hear some drops of rain falling on the trees, though none reached the nook in which they had ensconced themselves. "'If we were to cling close together,' said Mrs. Charmond, "'we should keep each other warm. But—' She added, in an uneven voice, I suppose you won't come near me for the world. Why not? Because—well, you know. Yes, I will. I don't hate you at all. They consequently crept up to one another, and, being in the dark, lonely and weary, did what neither had dreamed of doing beforehand, clasped each other closely, Mrs. Charmin's furs consoling Grace's cold face, and each one's body, as she breathed, alternately heaving against that of her companion. When a few minutes had been spent thus, Mrs.

Charmin said, "'I am so wretched,' in a heavy emotional whisper. "'You are frightened,' said Grace kindly. "'But there is nothing to fear. I know these woods well.' "'I am not frightened at the wood, but I am at other things.' Mrs. Charmond embraced grace more and more tightly, and the younger woman could feel her neighbor's breathing grow deeper and more spasmodic, as though uncontrollable feelings were germinating.

After I had left you, she went on, I regretted something I had said. I have to make a confession. I must make it. She whispered brokenly, the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this woman of passion to respond to Fitzpiers in the first place, leading her now to find luxurious comfort in opening her heart to his wife. I said to you I could give him up without pain or deprivation, that he had only been my pastime. That was untrue. It was said to deceive you. I could not do it without much pain, and, what is more dreadful, I cannot give him up. Even if I would, of myself alone. Why? Because you love him, you mean? Felice Charmin denoted assent by a movement. I knew I was right, said Grace exultedly.

But that should not deter you, she presently added in a moral tone. Oh, do struggle against it, and you will conquer. You are so simple, so simple, cried Felice. You think because you guessed my assumed indifference to him to be a sham, That you know the extremes that people are capable of going to, but a good deal more may have been going on than you have fathomed with all your insight. I cannot give him up until he chooses to give up me. But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and the cut must come from you. Tee! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child? Oh, I suppose I must. I shall lead away my heart if I do not let it all out, after meeting you like this and finding how guileless you are.

She thereupon whispered a few words in the girl's ear, and burst into a violent fit of sobbing. Grace started roughly away from the shelter of the fir, and sprang to her feet. "'Oh, my God!' she exclaimed, thunderstruck, at a revelation transcending her utmost suspicion. "'Can it be? Can it be?' She turned as if to hasten away, but Felice Charmin's sobs came to her ear. Deep darkness circled her about. The funereal trees rocked and chanted their dirges and placebos around her, and she did not know which way to go. After a moment of energy she felt mild again, and turned to the motionless woman at her feet. "'Are you rested?' she asked, in what seemed something like her own voice, grown ten years older.

Without an answer, Mrs. Charmin slowly rose. "'You mean to betray me?' she said from the bitterest depths of her soul. "'Oh, fool! Fool I!' "'No,' said Grace shortly. "'I mean no such thing, but let us be quick now. We have a serious undertaking before us. Think of nothing but going straight on.' They walked on in profound silence, pulling back boughs now growing wet, and treading down woodbine, but still keeping a pretty straight course. Grace began to be thoroughly worn out, and her companion too, when—' On a sudden, they broke into the deserted highway at the hilltop on which the Sherton man had waited for Mrs. Dollery's van. Grace recognized the spot as soon as she looked around her. "'How we have got here, I cannot tell,' she said with cold civility.

"'We have made a complete circuit of Little Hintock. The Hazel Copse is quite on the other side. Now we have only to follow the road.' They dragged themselves onward, turned into the lane, passed the track to Little Hintock, and so reached the park. Here I turn back, said Grace, in the same passionless voice. You are quite near home. Mrs. Charmond stood inert, seeming appalled by her late admission. I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire to unburden my soul, which all but a fool would have kept silent at the grave. She said, I cannot help it now. Is it to be a secret, or do you mean war? A secret, certainly, said Grace, mournfully. How can you expect war from such a helpless, wretched being as I?

And I'll do my best not to see him. I am his slave, but I'll try. Grace was naturally kind, but she could not help using a small dagger now. Pray, don't distress yourself, she said with exquisitely fine scorn. You may keep him, for me. Had she been wounded instead of mortified, she could not have used the words, but Fitzpiers's hold upon her heart was slight. They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward. Passing Marty's cottage, she observed through the window that the girl was writing instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what her correspondence could be. Directly afterward, she met people in search of her, and reached the house to find all in serious alarm. She soon explained that she had lost her way, and her general depression was attributed to exhaustion on that account.

Could she have known what Marty was writing, she would have been surprised. The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached the young girl, and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers to tell him that Mrs. Charmont wore her hair. It was poor Marty's only card, and she played it, knowing nothing of fashion, and thinking a revelation a fatal one for a lover.

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It was at the beginning of April, a few days after the meeting between Grace and Mrs. Charmond in the Wood, that Fitzpiers, just returned from London, was travelling from Sherton Abbas to Hintock in a hired carriage. In his eye there was a doubtful light, and the lines of his refined face showed a vague disquietude. He appeared now like one of those who impressed the beholder as having suffered wrong in being born.

His position was in truth gloomy, and to his appreciative mind it seemed even gloomier than it was. His practice had been slowly dwindling of late, and now threatened to die out altogether, the irrepressible old Dr. Jones capturing patience up to Fitzpiers's very door. Fitzpiers knew only too well the latest and greatest cause of his unpopularity, and yet, so illogical as man, the second branch of his sadness grew out of a remedial measure proposed for the first—a letter from Felice Charmond imploring him not to see her again. To bring about her severance still more effectually, she added she had decided during his absence upon almost immediate departure for the continent. The time was that dull interval in a woodlander's life which coincides with great activity in the life of the woodland itself, a period following the close of the winter tree-cutting and preceding the barking season, when the saps are just beginning to heave with the force of hydraulic lifts inside all the trunks of the forest.

Winterborne's contract was completed, and the plantations were deserted. It was dusk, there were no leaves as yet, the nightingales would not begin to sing for a fortnight, and the mother of the months was in her most attenuated phase, starved and bent to a mere bowed skeleton which glided along behind the bare twigs in Fitzpiers's company. When he reached home he went straight up to his wife's sitting-room. He found it deserted and without a fire. He had mentioned no day for his return. Nevertheless, he wondered why she was not there waiting to receive him. On descending to the other wing of the house and inquiring of Mrs. Melbury, he learned with much surprise that Grace had gone to visit an acquaintance at Chotford Forum three days earlier.

The tidings on this morning reached her father of her being very unwell there, in consequence of which he had ridden over to see her. Fitzpiers went upstairs again, and the little drawing-room, now lighted by a solitary candle, was not rendered more cheerful by the entrance of Grandma Oliver with an apron full of wood, which she threw on the hearth while she raked out the grate and rattled about the fire-irons, with a view to making things comfortable. Fitzpiers considered that Grace ought to have let him know her plans more accurately before leaving home in a freak like this. He went desultorily to the window, the blind of which had not been pulled down, and looked out at the thin, fast-sinking moon, and at the tall stalk of smoke rising from the top of Suki Damson's chimney, signifying that the young woman had just lit her fire to prepare supper.

He became conscious of a discussion and progress on the opposite side of the court. Somebody had looked over the wall to talk to the sawers, and was telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs. Sharman soon arrested his ears. "'Grammer, don't make so much noise with that grate,' said the surgeon, at which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuel suspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement. "'She is off to foreign lands again at last. Have made her mind quite sudden-like.' And it is thought she leave in a day or two. She's been all as if her mind were low for some days past, with a sort of sorrow in her face, as if she'd reproached her own soul.

She's the wrong sort of woman for Hintock, hardly knowing a beach from an oak. That I own. But I don't care who the man is. She's been a very kind friend to me. Well, The day after tomorrow was the Sabbath day, and without charity we are but tinkling simples. But this I do say, that her going will be a blessed thing for a certain married couple who remain. The fire was lighted, and Fitzpiers sat down in front of it, restless as the last leaf upon a tree. A sort of sorrow in her face, as if she reproached her own soul. Poor Felice! How Felice's frame must be pulsing under the conditions of which he had just heard the caricature! How her fair temples must ache! What a mood of wretchedness she must be in!

But for the mixing up of his name with hers, and her determination to sunder their two close acquaintance on that account, she would probably have sent for him professionally. She was now sitting alone, suffering, perhaps wishing that she had not forbidden him to come again. Unable to remain in his lonely room any longer, or to wait for the meal which was in course of preparation, he made himself ready for riding. Descended to the yard, stood by the stable door while Darling was being saddled, and rode off down the lane. He would have preferred walking, but was weary with his day's travel. As he approached the door of Marty South's cottage, which it was necessary to pass on his way, she came from the porch as if she had been awaiting him, and met him in the middle of the road, holding up a letter.

Fitzpiers took it without stopping, and asked over his shoulder from whom it came. Marty hesitated. "'From me,' she said shyly, though with noticeable firmness. This letter contained, in fact, Marty's declaration that she was the original owner of Mrs. Sharman's supplementary locks, and enclosed a sample from the native stock, which had grown considerably by this time. It was her long-contemplated apple of discord, and much her hand trembled as she handed the document up to him. But it was impossible on account of the gloom, for Fitzpiers to read it then, while he had the curiosity to do so, and he put it in his pocket. His imagination having already centred itself on Hintock House, in his pocket the letter remained unopened and forgotten, all the while that Marty was hopefully picturing its excellent weaning effect upon him.

He was not long in reaching the precincts of the manor-house. He drew rein under a group of dark oaks, commanding a view of the front, and reflected a while. His entry would not be altogether unnatural in the circumstances of her possible indisposition, but upon the whole he thought it best to avoid riding up to the door. By silently approaching he could retreat unobserved in the event of her not being alone. Thereupon he dismounted, hitched Darling to a stray bough, hanging a little below the general browsing line of the trees, and proceeded to the door on foot. In the meantime, Melbury had returned from Shotsford Forum. The great court, or quadrangle of the timber-merchant's house, divided from the shady lane by an ivy-covered wall, was entered by two white gates, one standing near each extremity of the wall.

It so happened that at the moment when Fitzpiers was riding out at the lower gate on his way to the manor-house, Melbury was approaching the upper gate to enter it. Fitzpiers, being in front of Melbury, was seen by the latter, but the surgeon, never turning his head, did not observe his father-in-law ambling slowly and silently under the trees, though his horse, too, was a grey one. "'How is, Grace?' said his wife as soon as he entered. Melbury looked gloomy. She's not at all well, he said. I don't like the looks of her at all. I couldn't bear the notion of her biding away in a strange place any longer, and I begged her to let me get her home. At last she agreed to it, but not to laugh, or much persuading.

I was then sorry that I rode over instead of driving, but I have hired a nice comfortable carriage, the easiest going I could get, and she'll be here in a couple of hours or less. I rode on ahead to tell you to get her room ready. But I see your husband has come back. Yes, said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband had hired a carriage all the way from Shotford. What will it cost? she said. I don't care what it costs, he exclaimed testily. I was determined to get her home. Why she went away I can't think. She acts in a way that is not at all likely to mend matters, as far as I can see. Grace had not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.

"'Since Edgar is come,' he continued, "'he might have waited in till I got home to ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out. Where is he gone?' Mrs. Melbury did not know positively, but she told her husband that there was not much doubt about the place of his first visit after an absence. She had, in fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of the manor-house. Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at this moment, when there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, or at any rate to ride along the Shotsford Road to meet his ailing wife, he should be doing the spy to her by going elsewhere. The old man went out of doors again, and his horse, being hardly unsaddled as yet, he told up John to retighten the girths.

When he again mounted and rode off at the heels of the surgeon. By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go any lengths in combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter's husband. He would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means, rough or fair. In his view, there could come of his interference nothing worse than what existed at present. And yet, to every bad, there is a worse. He had entered by the bridal gate. which admitted to the park on this side, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of Fitzpiers's horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which his precursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visible here in the gloom of the boughs he found to be darling, as left by Fitzpiers.

"'Damn him! Why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?' said Melbury. He profited by Fitzpiers's example. Dismounting, he tied his horse under an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the other had done. He was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in his investigation. He did not hesitate to gently open the front door without ringing. The large square hall, with its oak floor, staircase, and wainscot, was lighted by a dim lamp hanging from a beam. Not a soul was visible. He went into the corridor and listened at a door which he knew to be that of the drawing-room. There was no sound, and on turning the handle he found the room empty. A fire burning low in the grate was the sole light of the apartment, its beam, flashed mockingly on the somewhat showy Versillese furniture and gilding here, in style as unlike that of the structural parts of the building as it was possible to be.

and probably introduced by Felice to counteract the fine old-english gloom of the place. Disappointed in his hope of confronting his son-in-law here, he went on to the dining-room. This was without light or fire, and pervaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had not dined there that day. By this time Melbury's mood had a little mollified. Everything here was so pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longer incited to provoke a collision with Fitzpiers, or with anybody. The comparative stateliness of the apartments influenced him to an emotion, rather than to a belief, that where all was outwardly so good and proper, there could not be quite that delinquency within which he had suspected.

It occurred to him, too, that even if his suspicions were justified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into the house might end in confounding its inhabitants at the expense of his daughter's dignity and his own. Any ill result would be pretty sure to hit Grace's hardest in the long run. He would, after all, adopt the more rational course, and plead with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded with Mrs. Charmond. He accordingly retreated as silently as he had come. Passing the door of the drawing-room anew, he fancied that he heard a noise within which was not the crackling of the fire. Melbury gently reopened the door to a distance of a few inches, and saw at the opposite window two figures in the act of stepping out, a man and a woman, in whom he recognized the lady of the house and his son-in-law.

In a moment they had disappeared amid the gloom of the lawn. He returned into the hall, and let himself out by the carriage entrance door, coming round to the lawn front in time to see the two figures parting at the railing which divided the precincts of the house from the open park. Mrs. Charmont turned to hasten back immediately that Fitzpiers had left her side, and he was speedily absorbed into the duskiness of the trees.

Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmott had re-entered the drawing-room, and then followed after Fitzpiers, thinking that he would allow the latter to mount and ride ahead a little before overtaking him and giving him a piece of his mind. His son-in-law might possibly see the second horse near his own, but that would do him no harm, and might prepare him for what he was to expect. The event, however, was different from the plan. On plunging into the thick shade of the clump of oaks he could not perceive his horse blossom anywhere, but feeling his way carefully along, he by and by discerned Fitzpiers's mare, Darling, still standing as before under the adjoining tree. For a moment Melbury thought that his own horse, being young and strong, had broken away from her fastening, but on listening intently he could hear her ambling comfortably along a little way ahead, and a creaking of the saddle which showed that she had a rider.

Walking on as far as a small gate in the corner of the park he met a labourer who, in reply to Melbury's inquiry if he had seen any person on a grey horse, said that he had only met Dr. Fitzpiers. It was just what Melbury had begun to suspect. Fitzpiers had mounted the mare which did not belong to him in mistake for his own. An oversight easily explicable in a man ever unwitting in horse-flesh by the darkness of the spot and the near similarity of the animals in appearance, though Melbury's was readily enough seen to be the greyer horse by day. He hastened back and did what seemed best in the circumstances, got upon old Darling and rode rapidly after Fitzpiers. Melbury had just entered the wood, and was winding along the cartway which led through it, channelled deep in the leaf-mould with large ruts that were formed by the timber-waggons in fetching the spoil of the plantations.

When all at once he descried in front, at a point where the road took a turning around a large chestnut-tree, the form of his own horse-blossom, at which Melbury quickened Darling's pace, thinking to come up with its peers. Nearer view revealed that the horse had no rider. At Melbury's approach, it galloped friskily away under the trees in a homeward direction. Thinking something was wrong, the timber merchant dismounted as soon as he reached the chestnut, and after feeling about for a minute or two discovered Fitzpiers lying on the ground.

"'Here! Help!' cried the latter as soon as he felt Melbury's touch. "'I have been thrown off, but there's not much harm done, I think.' Since Melbury could not now very well read the younger man the lecture he had intended, and as friendliness would be hypocrisy, his instinct was to speak not a single word to his son-in-law. He raised Fitzpiers into a sitting posture, and found that he was a little stunned and stupefied, but, as he had said, not otherwise hurt. How this fall had come about was readily conjecturable. Fitzpiers, imagining there was only old darling under him, had been taken unawares by the younger horse's sprightliness. Melbury was a traveller of the old-fashioned sort. Having just come from Shotford Forum, he still had in his pocket the pilgrim's flask of rum, which he always carried on journeys exceeding a dozen miles, though he seldom drank much of it.

He poured it down the surgeon's throat with such effect that he quickly revived. Melbury got him on his legs, But the question was what to do with him. He could not walk more than a few steps, and the other horse had gone away. With great exertion, Melbury contrived to get him astride Darling, mounting himself behind and holding Fitzpiers round his waist with one arm. Darling, being broad, straight-backed, and high in the withers, was well able to carry double, at any rate as far as Hintock, and at a gentle pace.

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The mayor paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse where Winterbourne had worked, and into the heavier soil where the oaks grew. Past Great Willey, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards Nelcombe Bottom, intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly supposed to be haunted by the spirits of the fratricised exercise from Hintock House. By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength, but as he had eaten nothing since making a hasty breakfast in London that morning, his anxiety about Felice having hurried him away from home before dining, As a consequence, the old rum administered by his father-in-law flew to the young man's head and loosened his tongue, without his ever having recognized who it was that had lent him a kindly hand.

He began to speak in desultory sentences, Melbury still supporting him. "'I've come all the way from London to-day,' said Fitzpiers. "'Ah, that's the place to meet your equals. I live at Hintock—worse, at Little Hintock—at And I'm quite lost there. There's not a man within ten miles of Hintock who can comprehend me. I tell you, Farmer What's Your Name, that I'm a man of education. I know several languages. The poets and I are familiar friends. I used to read more in metaphysics than anybody within fifty miles, and since I gave up that, there's nobody can match me in the whole county of Wessex as a scientist. Yet I am doomed to live with tradespeople in a miserable little hole like Hintock. Indeed, muttered Melbury.

Fitzpiers, increasingly energized by the alcohol, here reared himself up suddenly from the bowed posture he had hitherto held, thrusting his shoulders so violently against Melbury's breast as to make it difficult for the man to keep hold on the reins. "'People don't appreciate me here,' the surgeon exclaimed. Lowering his voice, he added softly and slowly, "'Except one, except one—a passionate soul!' As warm as she is clever, as beautiful as she is warm, and as rich as she is beautiful. I say, old fellow, those claws of yours clutch me rather tight. Rather like the eagles, you know, that ate the liver out of pro—pre—the man on Mount Caucasus. People don't appreciate me, I say, except her. Ah, gods, I am an unlucky man.

She would have been mine. She would have taken my name, but unfortunately it cannot be so. I stooped to mate beneath me, and now I blew it. The position was becoming a very trying one for Melbury, corporeally and mentally. He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his left arm, and he began to hate the contact. He hardly knew what to do. It was useless to remonstrate with Fitzpiers in his intellectual confusion from the rum and from the fall. He remained silent, his hold upon his companion, however, being stern rather than compassionate. You hurt me a little bit, farmer, though I am much obliged to you for your kindness. People don't appreciate me, I say. Between ourselves I am losing my practice here.

And why? Because I see matchless attraction where matchless attraction is, both in person and position. I mention no name, so nobody will be the wiser. But I have lost her, in a legitimate sense, that is. If I were a free man now, things have come to such a pass that she could not refuse me. While with her fortune, which I don't covet for itself, I should have a chance of satisfying an honorable ambition—a chance I have never had yet, and now never, never shall have, probably. Melbury, his heart throbbing against the other's backbone, and his brain on fire with indignation, ventured to mutter huskily, Why? The horse ambled on some steps before Fitzpiers replied— Because I am tied and bound to another by law, as tightly as I am to you by your arm.

Not that I complain of your arm. I thank you for helping me. Well, where are we? Not nearly home yet. Home, I say. It is a home, when I might have been at the other house over there. In a stupefied way he flung his hand in the direction of the park. I was just two months too early in committing myself. Had I only seen the other first? Here, the old man's arm gave Fitzpiers a convulsive shake. "'What are you doing?' continued the latter. "'Keep still, please, or put me down. I was saying that I lost her by a mere little two months. There's no chance for me now in this world, and it makes me reckless, reckless, unless indeed anything should happen to the other one. She is amiable enough, but if anything should happen to her—and I hear she is ill—well, if it should—we I should be free, and my fame, my happiness would be ensured.

These were the last words that Fitzpiers uttered in the seat in front of the timber-merchant. Unable longer to master himself, Melbury, the skin of his face compressed, whipped away his spare arm from Fitzpiers's waist and seized him by the collar. "'You heartless villain! After all we have done for you,' he cried with a quivering lip. "'And the money of hers that you've had, and the roof we've provided to shelter ye. It is to me, George Melbury, that you dare to talk like that.' The exclamation was accompanied by a powerful swing from the shoulder, which flung the young man headlong into the road. Fitzpiers fell with a heavy thud upon the stumps of some undergrowth, which had been cut during the winter preceding.

Darling continued her walk for a few paces further, and stopped. "'God forgive me.' Melbury murmured, repenting of what he had done. He tried me too sorely, and now perhaps I've murdered him. He turned round in the saddle and looked towards the spot on which Fitzpiers had fallen. To his great surprise, he beheld the surgeon rise to his feet with a bound, as if unhurt, and walk away rapidly under the trees. Melbury listened till the rustle at Fitzpiers's footsteps died away. It might have been a crime but for the mercy of providence in providing leaves for his fall, he said to himself, and then his mind reverted to the words of Fitzpiers, and his indignation so mounted within him that he almost wished the fall had put an end to the young man there and then.

He had not ridden far when he discerned his own grey mare standing under some bushes. Leaving Darling for a moment, Melbury went forward, and easily caught the younger animal, now disheartened at its freak. He then made the pair of them fast to a tree, and, turning back, endeavoured to find some traces of Fitzpiers, feeling pitifully that, after all, he had gone further than he intended with the offender. But though he threaded the wood, hither and thither, his toes ploughing layer after layer of the little horny scrolls that had once been leaves, he could not find them. He stood listening and looking round. The breeze was oozing through the network of boughs as though through a strainer. The trunks and larger branches stood against the light of the sky in the forms of writhing men, gigantic candelabra, pikes, halberds, lances, and whatever besides the fancy chose to make of them.

Giving up the search, Melbury came back to the horses and walked slowly homeward, leading one in each hand. It happened that on this selfsame evening a boy had been returning from Great to Little Hintock about the time of Fitzpiers's and Melbury's passage home along that route. A horse-collar that had been left at the harness-menders to be repaired was required for use at five o'clock next morning, and in consequence the boy had to fetch it overnight. He put his head through the collar, and accompanied his walk by whistling the one tune he knew as an antidote to fear. The boy suddenly became aware of a horse trotting rather friscally along the track behind him, and, not knowing whether to expect friend or foe, Pruden suggested that he should cease his whistling and retreat among the trees till the horse and his rider had gone by, a course to which he was still more inclined when he found how noiselessly they approached, and saw that the horse looked pale, and remembered what he had read about death in the revelation.

He therefore deposited the collar by a tree and hid himself behind it. The horseman came on, and the youth, whose eyes were his keenest telescopes, to his great relief recognized the doctor. As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in the darkness taken Blossom for Darling, and he had not discovered his mistake when he came up opposite the boy, though he was somewhat surprised at the liveliness of his usually placid mare. The only other pair of eyes on the spot whose vision was as keen as the young carter's were those of the horse, and, with that strongly conservative objection to the unusual which animals show, Blossom, on eyeing the collar under the tree, quite invisible to his peers, exercised none of the patience of the older horse, but shied sufficiently to unseat so second-rate an equestrian as the surgeon.

He fell, and did not move, lying as Melbury afterwards found him, The boy ran away, salving his conscience for the desertion by thinking how vigorously he would spread the alarm of the accident when he got to Hintock, which he uncompromisingly did, incrusting the skeleton event with a load of dramatic horrors.

Grace had returned, and the fly hired on her account, though not by her husband, at the Crown Hotel, Shotsford Forum, had been paid for and dismissed. The long drive had somewhat revived her, her illness being a feverish, intermittent nervousness which had more to do with mind than body, and she walked about her sitting-room in something of a hopeful mood. Mrs. Melbury had told her as soon as she arrived that her husband had returned from London. He had gone out, she said, to see a patient, as she supposed, and he must soon be back, since he had had no dinner or tea. Grace would not allow her mind to harbor any suspicion of his whereabouts, and her stepmother said nothing of Mrs. Sharman's rumored sorrows and plans of departure.

So the young wife sat by the fire, waiting silently. She had left Hintock in a turmoil of feeling after the revelation of Mrs. Sharman, and had intended not to be at home when her husband returned. But she had thought the matter over, and had allowed her father's influence to prevail and bring her back, and now somewhat regretted that Edgar's arrival had preceded hers. By-and-by Mrs. Melbury came upstairs with a slight air of flurry and abruptness. "'I have something to tell—some bad news,' she said. "'But you must not be alarmed, as it is not so bad as it might have been. Edgar has been thrown off his horse. We don't think he is hurt much.' It happened in the wood the other side of Nelcombe Bottom, where it is said the ghosts of the brothers walk.

She went on to give a few of the particulars, but none of the invented horrors that had been communicated by the boy. "'I thought it better to tell you at once,' she added, "'in case he should not be very well able to walk home and somebody should bring him.' Mrs. Melbury really thought matters much worse than she represented, and Grace knew that she thought so. She sat down dazed for a few minutes, returning a negative to her stepmother's inquiry if she could do anything for her. "'But please go into the bedroom,' Grace said on second thoughts, "'and see if all is ready there in case it is serious.' Mrs. Melbury thereupon called Grammer and they did as directed, supplying the room with everything they could think of for the accommodation of an injured man.

Nobody was left in the lower part of the house. Not many minutes passed when Grace heard a knock at the door—a single knock, not loud enough to reach the ears of those in the bedroom. She went to the top of the stairs, and said faintly, "'Come up,' knowing that the door stood, as usual, in such houses wide open. Retreating into the gloom of the broad landing, she saw rise up the stairs a woman whom at first she did not recognize, till her voice revealed her to be Suki Damson. In great fright and sorrow, a streak of light from the partially closed door of Grace's room fell upon her face as she came forward, and it was drawn and pale. Oh, Miss Melbury, I would say Mrs. Fitzpiers, she said, wringing her hands.

This terrible news—is he dead? Is he hurted very bad? Tell me, I couldn't help coming. Please forgive me, Miss Melbury. Mrs. Fitzpiers, I would say. Grace sank down on the oak chest which stood on the landing, and put her hands to her now flushed face and head. Could she order Suki Damsin downstairs and out of the house? Her husband might be brought in at any moment, and what would happen? But could she order this genuinely grieved woman away? There was a dead silence for half a minute or so, till Suki said, "'Why don't you speak? Is he here? Is he dead? If so, why can't I see him?' Would it be so very wrong? Before Grace had answered, somebody else came to the door below. A footfall light as a rose.

There was a hurried tapping upon the panel, as if with the impatient tips of fingers, whose owner thought not whether a knocker were there or no. Without a pause, and possibly guided by the stray beam of light on the landing, the newcomer ascended the staircase as the first had done. Grace was sufficiently visible, and the lady, for it was a lady, came to her side. "'I could make nobody hear downstairs,' said Felice Charmant, with lips whose dryness could almost be heard, and panting as she stood like one ready to sink on the floor with distress. "'What is the matter? Tell me the worst. Can he live?' She looked at Grace imploringly, without perceiving poor Suki, who, dismayed that such a presence, had shrunk away into the shade.

Mrs. Sharman's little feet were covered in mud. She was quite unconscious of her appearance now. "'I have heard such a dreadful report,' she went on. "'I came to ascertain the truth of it. Is he killed?' "'She won't tell us. He's dying. He's in that room.' burst out Sookie, regardless of consequences, as she heard the distant movement of Mrs. Melbury and Grammer in the bedroom at the end of the passage. "'Where?' said Mrs. Charmond, and on Sookie, pointing out the direction, she made as if to go thither. Grace barred the way. "'He is not there,' she said. "'I have not seen him any more than you. I have heard a report only, not as bad as you think. It must have been exaggerated to you.' Please do not conceal anything.

Let me know all," said Felice, doubtingly. "'You shall know all I know. You have a perfect right to know. Who can have a better right than either of you?' said Grace, with the delicate sting which was lost upon Felice Charmant now. "'I repeat, I have only heard a less alarming account than you have heard. How much it means, and how little, I cannot say. I pray God that it means not much in common humanity.' You probably pray the same, for other reasons. She regarded them both there in the dim light a while.

They stood dumb in their trouble, not stinging back at her, not heeding her mood. A tenderness spread over grace like a dew. It was well, very well conventionally, to address either one of them in the wife's regulation terms of virtuous sarcasm as woman, creature, or thing, for losing their hearts to her husband. But life, what was it, and who was she? She had, like the singer of the Psalm of Asaph, been plagued and chastened all the day long. But could she, by retributive words, in order to please herself the individual, offend against the generation as he would not?

"'He is dying, perhaps,' blubbered Sookie Damsen, putting her apron to her eyes. In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of heart, All for a man who had wronged them, had never really behaved towards either of them anyhow but selfishly. Neither one but would have wellnigh sacrificed half her life to him, even now. The tears which his possibly critical situation could not bring to her eyes surged over at the contemplation of these fellow-women. She turned to the balustrade, bent herself upon it, and wept. Thereupon Felice began to cry also. Without using her handkerchief and letting the tears run down silently. While these three poor women stood together thus, pitying another, though most to be pitied themselves, the pacing of a horse or horses became audible in the court, and in a moment Melbury's voice was heard calling to his stableman.

Grace at once started up, ran down the stairs and out into the quadrangle as her father crossed it towards the door. "'Father, what is the matter with him?' She cried. "'Who, Edgar?' said Melbury abruptly. "'Matter? Nothing.' "'What, my dear, have you got home safe? Well, you were better already. But you ought not to be out in the air like this.' "'But he has been thrown off his horse.' "'I know, I know, I saw it. He got up again and walked off as well as ever. A fall on the leaves didn't hurt a spry fellow like him. He did not come this way,' he added significantly. I suppose he went to look for his horse. I tried to find him, but could not. But after seeing him go away under the trees, I found the horse and led it home for safety.

So we must walk. Now don't you stay out here in this night air. She returned to the house with her father. When she had again ascended to the landing and to her own rooms beyond, it was a great relief to her to find that both Petticoat the First and Petticoat the Second of her bonhomie had silently disappeared. They had in all probability heard the words of her father, and departed with their anxieties relieved. Presently her parents came up to Grace, and busied themselves to see that she was comfortable. Perceiving soon that she would prefer to be left alone, they went away. Grace waited on. The clock raised its voice now and then, but her husband did not return. At her father's usual hour for retiring, he came again to see her.

"'Do not stay up.' she said as soon as he entered. I am not at all tired. I will sit up and wait for him. I think it will be useless, Grace, said Melbury, slowly. Why? I have had a bitter quarrel with him, and on that account I hardly think he will return to-night. A quarrel? Was that after the fall seen by the boy? Melbury nodded an affirmative, without taking his eyes off the candle. Yes, it was when we were coming home together. He said. Something had been swelling up in Grace while her father was speaking. "'How could you want to quarrel with him?' she cried suddenly. "'Why could you not let him come home quietly, if he were inclined to? He is my husband, and now you have married me to him, surely you need not provoke him unnecessarily.

First you induce me to accept him, and then you do things that divide us more than we should naturally be divided.' "'How can you speak so unjustly to me, Grace?' said Melbury, with indignant sorrow. I divided you from your husband, indeed. You little think—he was inclined to say more, to tell her the whole story of the encounter, and that the provocation he had received had lain entirely in hearing her despised. But it would have greatly distressed her, and he forbore. "'You had better lie down. You are tired,' he said soothingly. "'Good-night.' The household went to bed, and silence fell upon the dwelling. Broken only by the occasional scurr of a halter in Melbury Stables. Despite her father's advice, Grace still waited up, but nobody came.

It was a critical time in Grace's emotional life that night. She thought of her husband a good deal, and for the nonce forgot Winterbourne.

How these unhappy women must have admired Edgar, she said to herself. How attractive he must be to everybody, and indeed he is attractive. The possibility is that, piqued by rivalry, these ideas might have transformed into their corresponding emotions by a show of the least reciprocity in Fitzpiers. There was, in truth, a love-bird yearning to fly from our heart, and it wanted a lodging badly. But no husband came. The fact was that Melbury hadn't been much mistaken about the condition of Fitzpiers. People do not fall headlong on stumps of underwood with impunity. Had the old man been able to watch Fitzpiers narrowly enough, he would have observed that on rising and walking into the ticket he dropped blood as he went, that he had not proceeded fifty yards before he showed signs of being dizzy, and, raising his hands to his head, reeled and fell down.

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Grace was not the only one who watched and meditated in Hintock that night. Felice Charmond was in no mood to retire to rest at a customary hour, and over her drawing-room fire at the manor-house she sat As motionless, and in as deep a reverie as grace in her little apartment at the homestead. Having caught ear of Melbury's intelligence while she stood on the landing at his house, and been eased of much of her mental distress, her sense of personal decorum returned upon her with a rush. She descended the stairs, and left the door like a ghost, keeping close to the walls of the building till she got round to the gate of the quadrangle. Through which she noiselessly passed almost before Grace and her father had finished their discourse.

Suki Damsen had thought it well to imitate her superior in this respect, and, descending the back stairs as Felice descended the front, went out at the side door and home to her cottage. Once outside Melbury's gates, Mrs. Charmond ran with all her speed to the manor-house, without stopping or turning her head, and splitting her thin boots in her haste. She entered her own dwelling, as she had emerged from it, By the drawing-room window. In other circumstances she would have felt some timidity at undertaking such an unpremeditated excursion alone. But her anxiety for another had cast out her fear for herself. Everything in the drawing-room was just as she had left it, the candles still burning, the casement closed and the shutters gently pulled to, so as to hide the state of the window from the cursory glance of a servant entering the apartment.

She had been gone about three-quarters of an hour by the clock, and nobody seemed to have discovered her absence. Tired in body, but tense in mind, she sat down, palpitating, round-eyed, bewildered at what she had done. She had been betrayed by affrighted love into a visit which, now that the emotion instigating it had calmed down under her belief that Fitzpiers was in no danger, was the saddest surprise to her. This was how she had set about doing her best to escape her passionate bondage to him. Somehow, in declaring to Grace and to herself the unseemliness of her infatuation, she had grown a convert to its irresistibility. If Heaven would only give her strength—but Heaven never did. One thing was indispensable.

She must go away from Hintock if she meant to withstand further temptation. The struggle was too wearying, too hopeless, while she remained. It was but a continual capitulation of conscience to what she dared not name. By degrees, as she sat, Felice's mind, helped perhaps by the anticlimax of learning that her lover was unharmed after all her fright about him, grew wondrously strong in wise resolve. For the moment she was in a mood, in the words of Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, to run mad with discretion, and was so persuaded that discretion lay in departure that she wished to set about going that very minute. Jumping up from her seat, she began to gather together some small personal knick-knacks scattered about the room to feel that preparations were really in train.

While moving here and there, she fancied that she heard a slight noise out of doors and stood still. Surely it was a tapping at the window. A thought entered her mind and burned her cheek. He had come to that window before, yet was it possible that he should dare to do so now? All the servants were in bed, and in the ordinary course of affairs she would have retired also. Then she remembered that on stepping in by the casement and closing it she had not fastened a window-shutter, so that a streak of light from the interior of the room might have revealed her vigil to an observer on the lawn. How all things conspired against her keeping faith with grace! The tapping recommenced, light as from the bill of a little bird.

Her illegitimate hope overcame her vow. She went and pulled back the shutter, determining, however, to shake her head at him and keep the casement securely closed.

What she saw outside might have struck terror into a heart stouter than a helpless woman's at midnight. In the center of the lowest pane of the window, close to the glass, was a human face, which she barely recognized as the face of its peers. It was surrounded with the darkness of the night without, corpse-like in its pallor, and covered with blood. As this flows in the square area of the pane, it met her frightened eyes like a replica of the pseudarium of St. Veronica. He moved his lips and looked at her imploringly. Her rapid mind pieced together in an instant a possible concatenation of events which might have led to this tragical issue. She unlatched the casement with a terrified hand, and, bending down to where he was crouching, pressed her face to his with passionate solicitude.

She assisted him into the room without a word, to do which it was almost necessary to lift him bodily. Quickly closing the window and fastening the shutters, she bent over him breathlessly. "'Are you hurt much?' she cried faintly. "'Oh, oh, how is this?' "'Rather much, but don't be frightened,' he answered in a difficult whisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if possible. "'A little water, please.' She ran across into the dining-room and brought a bottle and a glass, from which he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with her help got upon the nearest couch. "'Are you dying, Edgar?' she said. "'Do speak to me.' "'I am half dead,' said Fitzpiers, "'but perhaps I shall get over it.

It is chiefly loss of blood.' "'But I thought your fall did not hurt you,' she said. "'Who did this?' Felice, my father-in-law, I have crawled to you more than a mile on my hands and knees. God, I thought I should never have got here. I have come to you because you are the only friend I have in the world now. I can never go back to Hintock, never to the roof of the Melbrys. Not Poppy nor Madrigora will ever medicine this bitter feud, if I were only well again. Let me bind your head, now that you have rested. Yes, but wait a moment. It has stopped bleeding, fortunately, or I should be a dead man before now. While in the wood, I managed to make a tourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could in the dark.

But listen, dear Felice. Can you hide me till I am well? Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly gone, you know, and after this I would not care to recover it if I could. By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where now were her discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him in his pain and trouble and poverty was her single thought. The first step was to hide him, and she asked herself where. A place occurred to her mind. She got him some wine from the dining-room, which strengthened him much. and she managed to remove his boots, and as he could now keep himself upright by leaning upon her on one side and a walking-stick on the other, they went thus in a slow march out of the room and up the stairs.

At the top she took him along a gallery, pausing whenever he required rest, and thence up a smaller staircase to the least-used part of the house, where she unlocked the door. Within was a lumber-room containing abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in piles which obscured the light from the windows, and formed between them nooks and layers in which a person would not be discerned, even should an eye gaze in at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged to the previous owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late Mr. Charmond at the auction, but changing fashion and the taste of a young wife had caused him to be relegated to this dungeon. Here Fitzpiers sat on the floor, against the wall till she had hauled out materials for a bed, which she spread on the floor in one of the aforesaid nooks.

She obtained water, and a basin that washed the dried blood from his face and hands, and when he was comfortably reclining, fetched food from the larder. While he ate, her eyes lingered anxiously on his face, following his every movement with such loving kindness as only a fond woman can show. He was now in a better condition, and discussed his position with her. What I fancy I said to Melbury must have been enough to enrage any man, if other than cold blood, and with knowledge of his presence. But I did not know him, and I was stupefied by what he had given me, so that I hardly was aware of what I said. Well, the veil of that temple is rent in twain. As I am not going to be seen again in Hintock, my first efforts must be directed to allay any alarm that may be felt at my absence.

before I am able to get clear away. Nobody must suspect that I have been hurt, or there will be a country talk about me. Felice, I must at once concoct a letter to check all search for me. I think if you can bring me a pen and paper I may be able to do it now. I could rest better if it were done. Poor thing, how I tire her with running up and down. She fetched writing materials, and held up the blotting-book as a support to his hand, while he penned a brief note to his nominal wife. The animosity shown toward me by your father, he wrote in this coldness of marital epistles, is such that I cannot return again to a roof which is his, even though it shelters you. A parting is unavoidable, as you are sure to be on his side in this division.

I am starting on a journey which will take me a long way from Hintock, and you must not expect to see me there again for some time. He then gave her a few directions bearing upon his professional engagements and other practical matters, concluding without a hint of his destination, or a notion of when she should see him again. He offered to read a note to Felice before he closed it up, but she would not hear or see it. That side of his obligations distressed her beyond endurance. She turned away from Fitzpiers and sobbed bitterly. "'If you can get this posted at a place some miles away,' he whispered, exhausted by the effort of writing, At Shotsford, or Port Breedy, or, still better, Budmouth, it will divert all suspicion from this house as the place of my refuge.

I will drive to one or other of the places myself. Anything to keep it unknown, she murmured. Her voice waited with vague foreboding now that the excitement of helping him had passed away. Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one more thing to be done. In creeping over the fence to the lawn, he said, I made the rail bloody, and it shows rather much on the white paint. I could see it in the dark. At all hazards, it should be washed off. Could you do that also, Felice? What will not women do on such devoted occasions? Weary as she was, she went all the way down the rambling staircases to the ground floor, then to search for a lantern, which she lighted and hid under her cloak, then for a wet sponge, and next went forth into the night.

The white railing stared out of the darkness at her approach, and a ray from the enshrouded lantern fell upon the blood, just where he had told her it would be found. She shuddered. It was almost too much to bear in one day, but with a shaking hand she sponged the rail clean and returned to the house.

The time occupied by these several proceedings was not much less than two hours. When all was done and she had smoothed his extemporized bed and placed everything within his reach that she could think of, She took her leave of him, and locked him in.

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When her husband's letter reached Grace's hands, bearing upon it the postmark of a distant town, it never once crossed her mind that Fitzpiers was within a mile of her still. She felt relieved that he did not write more bitterly of the quarrel with her father, whatever his nature might have been, but the general frigidity of his communication quenched in her the incipient spark that events had kindled so shortly before. From this centre of information it was made known in Hintock that the doctor had gone away, and as none but the Melbury household was aware that he did not return on the night of his accident, no excitement manifested itself in the village. Thus the early days of May passed by.

None but the nocturnal birds and animals observed that late one evening, towards the middle of the month, a closely-wrapped figure with a crutch under one arm and a stick in his hand crept out from Hintock House across the lawn to the shelter of the trees, taking thence a slow and laborious walk to the nearest point of the turnpike road. The mysterious personage was so disguised that his own wife would hardly have known him. Felice Charmant was a practised hand at make-ups, as well she might be, and she had done her utmost in padding and painting Fitzpiers with the old materials of her art in the recesses of the lumber-room. In the highway he was met by a covered carriage which conveyed him to Sherton Abbas whence he proceeded to the nearest port on the south coast, and immediately crossed the channel.

But it was known to everybody that three days after this time Mrs. Charmond executed her long-deferred plan of setting out for a long term of travel and residence on the continent. She went off one morning as unostentatiously as could be, and took no maid with her, having, she said, engaged one to meet her at a point further on on her route. After that, Hintock House, so frequently deserted, was again to be let. Spring had not merged in summer when a clinching rumor, founded on the best of evidence, reached the parish and neighborhood. Mrs. Charmond and Fitzpiers had been seen together in Baden, in relations which set at rest the question that had agitated the little community ever since winter.

Melbury had entered the valley of humiliation even further than grace. His spirit seemed broken. But once a week he mechanically went to market as usual, and here, as he was passing by the conduit one day, his mental condition expressed largely by his gait, he heard his name spoken by a voice formerly familiar. He turned and saw a certain Fred Bowcock, once a promising lawyer's clerk and local dandy, who had been called the cleverest fellow in Sherton, without whose brains the firm of solicitors employing him would be nowhere. But later on, Bowcock had fallen into the mire. He was invited out a good deal, sang songs at agricultural meetings and Burgess's dinners, in sum victualled himself with spirits more frequently than was good for the clever brains, or body either.

He lost the situation, and after an absence spent in trying his powers elsewhere, came back to his native town, where, at the time of the foregoing events in Hintock, he gave legal advice for astonishingly small fees. Mostly carrying on his profession on public-house settles, in whose recesses he might often have been overheard making country people's wills for half a crown. Calling with a learned voice for pen and ink, and a halfpenny sheet of paper, on which he drew up the testament while resting it in a little space wiped with his hand on the table amid the liquid circles formed by the cups and glasses. An idea implanted early in life is difficult to uproot. And many elderly tradespeople still clung to the notion that Fred Beaucock knew a great deal of law.

It was he who had called Melbury by name. You look very down, Mr. Melbury. Very, if I may say as much, he observed when the timber merchant turned. But I know, I know, a very sad case, very. I was bred to the law, as you know, and I am professionally no stranger to such matters. Well, Mrs. Fitzpiers has her remedy. Now, what, a remedy? said Melbury. Under the new law, sir, a new court was established last year, and under the new statute, twenty and twenty-one, Vic, Cap, eighty-five, unmarrying is as easy as marrying. No more acts of Parliament necessary. No longer one law for the rich and another for the poor. But come inside. I was just going to have a nimble king of rum-hot. I'll explain it all to you.

The intelligence amazed Melbury, who saw little of newspapers, and though he was a severely correct man in his habits, and had no taste for entering a tavern with Fred Beaucock, nay, would have been quite uninfluenced by such a character on any other matter in the world, such fascination lay in the idea of delivering his poor girl from bondage that it deprived him of the critical faculty. He could not resist the ex-lawyer's clerk, and entered the inn. Here they sat down to the rum, which Melbury paid for as a matter of course, Beaucock leaning back in the settle, with a legal gravity which would hardly allow him to be conscious of the spirits before him, though they nevertheless disappeared with mysterious quickness.

How much of the exaggerated information on the then new divorce laws which Beaucock imparted to his listener was the result of ignorance, and how much of Dewberry was never ascertained? But he related such a plausible story of the ease with which Grace could become a free woman that her father was irradiated with the project, and though he scarcely wetted his lips, Melbury never knew how he came out of the inn, or when or where he mounted his gig to pursue his way homeward. But home he found himself, his brain having all the way seemed to ring sonorously as a gong in the intensity of its stir. Before he had seen Grace, he was accidentally met by Winterbourne, who found his face shining as if he had, like the lawgiver, conversed with an angel.

He relinquished his horse, and took Winterbourne by the arm to a heap of rendlewood, as Barked Oak was here called, which lay under a privet hedge. "'Giles,' he said, when they had sat down upon the logs, "'there's a new law in the land. Grace can be free quite easily.' I only knew it by the merest accident. I might not have found it out for the next ten years. She can get rid of him, do you hear? Get rid of him. Think of that, my friend, Giles. He related what he had learned of the new legal remedy. A subdued tremulousness about the mouth was all the response that Winterborne made, and Melbury added, My boy, you shall have her yet, if you want her. His feelings had gathered volume as he said this.

And the articulate sound of the old idea drowned his sight in mist. Are you sure? About the new law? asked Winterbourne, so disquieted by a gigantic exultation which loomed alternately with fearful doubt, that he evaded the full acceptance of Melbury's last statement. Melbury said that he had no manner of doubt, for since his talk with Beaucock it had come to his mind that that he had seen some time ago in the weekly paper an allusion to such a legal change, but having no interest in those desperate remedies at the moment, he had passed it over. "'But I am not going to let the matter rest doubtful for a single day,' he continued. "'I am going to London. Bocock will go with me, and we shall get the best advice as soon as we possibly can.

Bocock is a thorough lawyer. Nothing the matter with him but a fiery palate.' I knew him as a staying refuge of Sherton in knots of law at one time. Winterbourne's replies were of the vaguest. The new possibility was almost unthinkable by him at the moment. He was, what was called at Hintock, a solid-going fellow. He maintained his abeyant mood, not from want of reciprocity, but from a taciturn hesitancy, thought by life as he knew it. But— continued the timber-merchant, a temporary crease or two of anxiety supplementing those already established in his forehead by time and care. Grace is not at all well. Nothing constitutional, you know, but she has been in a low, nervous state ever since that night of fright.

I don't doubt but that she will be all right soon. I wonder how she is this evening. He rose with these words, as if he had too long forgotten her personality in the excitement of her previsioned career. They had sat till the evening was beginning to dye the garden brown, and now went towards Melbury's house, Giles a few steps in the rear of his old friend, who was stimulated by the enthusiasm of the moment to outstep the ordinary walking of Winterbourne. He felt shy of entering Grace's presence as a reconstituted lover, which was how her father's manner would be sure to present him, before definite information as to the future state was forthcoming. It seemed too nearly like the act of those who rush in where angels fear to tread.

A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt enough in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at the door than he heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still more unwell than she had been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in the neighborhood, they had called him in, and he had instantly directed them to get her to bed. They were not, however, to consider her illness serious. A feverish, nervous attack, the result of recent events, was what she was suffering from, and she would doubtless be well in a few days.

Winterbourne, therefore, did not remain, and his hope of seeing her that evening was disappointed. Even this aggravation of her morning condition did not greatly depress Melbury. He knew, he said, that his daughter's constitution was sound enough. It was only these domestic troubles that were pulling her down. Once free, she would be blooming again. Melbury diagnosed rightly, as parents usually do. He set out for London the next morning, Jones having paid another visit, and assured him that he might leave home without uneasiness, especially on an errand of that sort, which would the sooner put an end to her suspense. The timber merchant had been away only a day or two. When it was told in Hintock that Mr.

Fitzpiers's hat had been found in the wood. Later on in the afternoon, the hat was brought to Melbury, and, by a piece of ill-fortune, into Grace's presence. It had, doubtless, lain in the wood ever since his fall from the horse, but it looked so clean and uninjured, the summer weather and leafy shelter having much favored its preservation, that Grace would not believe it had remained so long concealed. A very little fact was enough to set her fevered fancy at work at this conjecture. She thought him still in the neighborhood. She feared his sudden appearance, and her nervous malady developed consequences so grave that Dr. Jones began to look serious, and the household was alarmed. It was the beginning of June, and a cuckoo at this time of the summer scarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the night.

The bird's note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now absolute torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the Wednesday of Melbury's departure, and the day after the discovery of Fitzpiers's hat, the cuckoo began at two o'clock in the morning with a sudden cry from one of Melbury's apple-trees, not three yards from the window of Grace's room. "'Oh, he is coming!' she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from the bed, out upon the floor. These starts and frights continued till noon, and when the doctor had arrived and had seen her, and had talked with Mrs. Melbury, he sat down and meditated. That ever-present terror it was indispensable to remove from her mind at all hazards, and he thought how this might be done.

Without saying a word to anybody in the house, or to the disquieted Winterbourne waiting in the lane below, Dr. Jones went home and wrote to Mr. Melbury at the London address he had obtained from his wife. The gist of his communication was that Mrs. Fitzpiers should be assured as soon as possible that steps were being taken to sever the bond, which was becoming a torture to her, that she would soon be free, and was even then virtually so. If you can say it at once, it may be the means of averting much harm, he said. Write to her yourself, not to me. On Saturday he drove over to Hintock, and assured her with mysterious pacifications that in a day or two she might expect to receive some assuring news.

So it turned out. When Sunday morning came, there was a letter for Grace from her father. It arrived at seven o'clock, the usual time at which the toddling postman passed by Hintock. At eight Grace awoke, having slept an hour or two for a wonder, and Mrs. Melbury brought up the letter. "'Can you open it yourself?' said she. Oh, yes, yes, said Grace with feeble impatience. She tore the envelope, unfolded the sheet, and read when a creeping blush tinctured her white neck and cheek.

Her father had exercised a bold discretion. He informed her that she need have no further concern about Fitzpiers's return, that she would shortly be a free woman, and therefore, if she should desire to wed her old lover, which he trusted was the case since it was his own deep wish, She would be in a position to do so. In this, Melbury had not written beyond his belief, but he very much stretched to the facts in adding that the League of Formalities for dissolving her union were practically settled. The truth was that on the arrival of the doctor's letter, poor Melbury had been very much agitated, and could with difficulty be prevented by Beaucock from returning to her bedside. What was the use of his rushing back to Hintock?

Beaucock had asked him. The only thing that could do her any good was the breaking of the bond. Though he had not as yet had an interview with the eminent solicitor they were about to consult, he was on the point of seeing him, and the case was clear enough. Thus the simple Melbury, urged by his parental alarm at her danger by the representations of his companion, and by the doctor's letter, had yielded, and sat down to tell her roundly that she was virtually free. "'And you had better also write to the gentleman,' suggested Bowcock. who, scenting notoriety and the germ of a large practice in the case, wished to commit Melbury to it irretrievably, to effect which he knew that nothing would be so potent as awakening the passion of grace for Winterbourne, so that her father might not have the heart to withdraw from his attempt to make her love legitimate when he discovered that there were difficulties in the way.

The nervous, impatient Melbury was much pleased with the idea of starting them at once, as he called it. To put his long-delayed reparative scheme in train had become a passion with him now. He added to the letter addressed to his daughter a passage, hinting that she ought to begin to encourage Winterbourne, lest she should lose him altogether. And he wrote to Giles that the path was virtually open for him at last. Life was short, he declared. There were slips betwixt the cup and the lip. Her interest in him should be reawakened at once, that all might be ready when the good time came for uniting them.

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At these warm words, Winterbourne was not less dazed than he was moved in heart. The novelty of the avowal rendered what it carried with it inapprehensible by him in its entirety. Only a few short months ago, completely estranged from this family, beholding Grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed with the alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the then popular and fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his social boundary, down to so recent a time that flowers, then folded, were hardly faded yet, he was now asked by that jealously guarding father of hers to take courage to get himself ready for the day when he should be able to claim her. The old times came back to him in dim procession.

How he had been snubbed, how Melbury had despised his Christmas party, how that sweet, coy Grace herself had looked down upon him and his household arrangements, and poor Creedle's contrivances. Well, he could not believe it. Surely the adamantine barrier of marriage with another could not be pierced like this. It did violence to custom. Yet a new law might do anything. But was it all within the bounds of probability that a woman who, over and above her own attainments, had been accustomed to those of a cultivated professional man, could ever be the wife of such as he?

Since the date of his rejection he had almost grown to see the reasonableness of that treatment. He had said to himself again and again that her father was right, that the poor carol, Giles Winterbourne, would never have been able to make such a dainty girl happy. Yet, now that she had stood in a position farther removed from his own than at first, he was asked to prepare to woo her. He was full of doubt. Nevertheless, it was not in him to show backwardness. To act so promptly as Melbury desired him to act seemed indeed scarcely wise, because of the uncertainty of events. Giles knew nothing of legal procedure, but he did know that for him to step up to Grace as a lover before the bond which bound her was actually dissolved was simply an extravagant dream of her father's overstrained mind.

He pitied Melbury for his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that the aging man must have suffered acutely to be weakened to this unreasoning desire.

Winterbourne was far too magnanimous to harbour any cynical conjecture that the timber-merchant, in his intense affection for grace, was courting him now because that young lady, when disunited, would be left in an anomalous position, to escape which a bad husband was better than none. He felt quite sure that his old friend was simply on tenterhooks of anxiety to repair the almost irreparable error of dividing two whom nature had striven to join together in earlier days. and that in his ardour to do this he was oblivious of formalities. The cautious supervision of his past years had overleaped itself at last. Hence Winterborne perceived that, in this new beginning, the necessary care not to compromise Grace by too early advances must be exercised by himself.

Perhaps Winterborne was not quite so ardent as heretofore. There was no such thing as a stationary love. Men are either loving more or loving less, but Giles himself recognized no decline in his sense of her dearness. If the flame did indeed burn lower than when he had fetched her from Sherton at her last return from school, the marvel was small. He had been laboring ever since his rejection and her marriage to reduce his former passion to a docile friendship out of pure regard to its expediency, and their separation may have helped him to a partial success. A week and more passed, and there was no further news of Melbury. But the effect of the intelligence he had already transmitted upon the elastic-nerved daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeon Jones had surmised.

It had smoothed her perturbed spirit better than all the opiates in the pharmacopoeia. She had slept unbrokenly a whole night and day. The new law was to her a mysterious, beneficent, godlike entity, lately descended upon earth, That would make her, as she had once been, without trouble or annoyance. Her position fretted her, its abstract features rousing an aversion which was even greater than her aversion to the personality of him who had caused it. It was mortifying, productive of slights, undignified. Him she could forget. Her circumstances she had always with her. She saw nothing of Winterbourne during the days of her recovery, and perhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue than it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specks and flaws inseparable from corporality.

He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in alternation, sometimes leafy and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of the plantations. Sometimes cider-stained, and with apple-pips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on his return from cider-making in White Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside him. In her secret heart she almost approximated to her father's enthusiasm in wishing to show Giles once for all how she still regarded him. The question, whether the future would indeed bring them together for life, was a standing wonder with her. She knew that it could not with any propriety do so just yet, but reverently, believing in her father's sound judgment and knowledge, as girls are wont to do, she remembered what he had written about her giving a hint to Winterbourne lest there should be a risk in delay, and her feelings were not averse to such a step, so far as it could be done without danger at this early stage of the proceedings.

From being a frail phantom of her former equable self, she returned in bounds to a condition of passable philosophy. She bloomed again in the face in the course of a few days, and was well enough to go about as usual. One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that, for a change, she should be driven in the gig to Sherton Market, whither Melbury's man was going under their errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sherton. But it cost her mind that Winterbourne would probably be there, and this made the thought of such a drive interesting. On the way she saw nothing of him, but when the horse was walking through the obstructions of Sheep Street, she discerned the young man on the pavement. She thought of that time when he had been standing under his apple-tree on her return from school, and of the tender opportunity then missed through her fastidiousness.

Her heart rose in her throat. She abjured all such fastidious now. Nor did she forget the last occasion on which she had beheld him in that town, making cider in the courtyard of the Earl of Wessex Hotel, while she was figuring as a fine lady in the balcony above.

Grace directed the man to set her down there in the midst, and immediately went up to her lover. Giles had not before observed her, and his eyes now suppressedly looked his pleasure, without the embarrassment that had formerly marked him at such meetings. When a few words had been spoken, she said archly, "'I have nothing to do. Perhaps you are deeply engaged?' "'Aye, not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I am sorry to say. "'Well, then, I am going to the abbey. Come along with me.' The proposition had suggested itself as a quick escape from publicity, for many eyes were regarding her. She had hoped that sufficient time had elapsed for the extinction of curiosity, but it was quite otherwise.

The people looked at her with tender interest as a deserted girl-wife, without obtrusiveness and without vulgarity, but she was ill-prepared for scrutiny in any shape. They walked about the Abbey Isles and presently sat down. Not a soul was in the building save themselves. She regarded a stained window, with her head sideways, and tentatively asked him if he remembered the last time they were in that town alone. He remembered it perfectly, and remarked, "'You were a proud miss, then, and as dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are now.' Grace slowly shook her head. "'Affliction has taken all that out of me,' she answered impressively. "'Perhaps I'm too far the other way now.' As there was something lurking in this that she could not explain, she added, so quickly as not to allow him time to think of it.

Has my father written to you at all? Yes, said Winterbourne. She glanced ponderingly up at him. Not about me? Yes. His mouth was lined with charactery which told her that he had been bidden to take the hint as to the future which she had been bidden to give. The unexpected discovery sent a scarlet pulsation through Grace for the moment. However, it was only Giles who stood there, of whom she had no fear, and her self-possession returned. "'He said I was to sound you of you two, what you will understand if you care to,' continued Winterbourne, in a low voice. Having been put on this track by herself, he was not disposed to abandon it in a hurry. They had been children together, and there was between them that familiarity as to personal affairs which only such acquaintanceship can give.

You know, Giles," she answered, speaking in a very practical tone, that that is all very well, but I am in a very anomalous position at present, and I cannot say anything to the point about such things as those. No, he said, with a stray air as regarded the subject. He was looking at her with a curious consciousness of discovery. He had not been imagining that the renewed intercourse would show her to him thus. For the first time he realized an unexpectedness in her, which, after all, should not have been unexpected. She before him was not the girl Grace Melbury, whom he used to know. Of course he might easily have prefigured as much, but it had never occurred to him. She was a woman who had been married, she had moved on, and, without having lost her girlish modesty, she had lost her girlish shyness.

The inevitable change, though known to him, had not been heeded, and it struck him into a momentary fixity. The truth was that he had never come into close comradeship with her since her engagement to Fitzpiers, with the brief exception of the evening encounter on Rubdown Hill, when she met him and assigned her apparatus, and that interview had been of too cursory a kind for insight.

Winterbourne had advanced too. He could criticize her. Times had been when to criticise a single trait in Grace Melbury would have lain as far beyond his powers as to criticise a deity. This thing was sure. It was a new woman in many ways whom he had come out to see, a creature of more ideas, more dignity, and above all more assurance than the original Grace had been capable of. He could not at first decide whether he was pleased or displeased at this, but upon the whole the novelty attracted him. She was so sweet and sensitive that she feared his silence betokened something in his brain of the nature of an enemy to her. "'What are you thinking of that makes those lines come in your forehead?' she asked.

"'I did not mean to offend you by speaking of the time being premature as yet.' Touched by the genuine loving-kindness which had lain at the foundation of these words, and which moved, Winterborne turned his face aside as he took her by the hand. He was grieved that he had criticized her. You were very good, dear Grace, he said in a low voice. You were better, much better than you used to be. How? He could not very well tell her how, and said with an evasive smile, you were prettier, which was not what he had really meant. He then remained still holding her right hand in his own, so that they faced in opposite ways, and as he did not let go, she ventured upon a tender remonstrance. I think we have gone as far as we ought to go at present, and far enough to satisfy my poor father that we are the same as ever.

You see, Giles, my case is not settled yet, and if—oh, suppose I never get free—there should be any hitch or informality. She drew a catching breath and turned pale. The dialogue had been affectionate comedy up to this point. The gloomy atmosphere of the past and the still gloomy horizon of the present had been for the interval forgotten. Now the whole environment came back. The due balance of shade among the light was restored. It is sure to be all right, I trust. She resumed in uneasy accents. What did my father say the solicitor had told him? Oh, that all is sure enough. The case is so clear. Nothing could be clearer. But the legal part is not quite done and finished, as is natural. Oh, no, of course not, she said, sunk in meek thought.

But father said it was almost, did he not? Do you know anything about the new law that makes these things so easy? Nothing except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted husbands and wives to part in a way they could not formally do without an act of Parliament. Have you to sign a paper, or swear anything? Is it something like that? Yes, I believe so. How long has it been introduced? Oh, about six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think. To hear these two poor Arcadian innocents talk of imperial law would have made a humane person weep who should have known what a dangerous structure they were building up on their supposed knowledge. They remained in thought, like children, in the presence of the incomprehensible.

Giles, she said at last, it makes me quite weary when I think how serious my situation is, or has been. Shall we not go out from here now? As it may seem rather fast of me, or being so long together, I mean, if anyone else were to see us. I am almost sure, she added, uncertainly, that I ought not to let you hold my hand yet, knowing that the documents, or whatever it may be, have not been signed, so that I am still as married as ever, or almost. My dear father has forgotten himself. Not that I feel morally bound to anyone else after what has taken place. No woman of spirit could, now too that several months have passed. But I wish to keep the proprieties as well as I can. Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds us that life is short.

I myself feel that it is. That is why I wish to understand you in this that we have begun. At times, dear Grace, since receiving your father's letter, I am as uneasy and fearful as a child at what he has said. If one of us was to die before the formal signing and sealing that is to release you had been done, if we should drop out of the world and never have made the most of this little, short, but real opportunity, I should think to myself as I sunk down dying. Would to God that I had spoken out my whole heart, giving her one little kiss when I had the chance to give it, but never did, although she had promised to be mine one day, and now I never can. That's what I should think. She had begun by watching the words from his lips with a mournful regard, as though their passage were visible.

But as he went on she dropped her glance. "'Yes,' she said. "'I have thought that too. And because I have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of the proprieties, to be reserved and cold to you who loved me so long ago, or to hurt your heart, as I used to do at that thoughtless time. Oh, not at all, indeed. But ought I to allow you?' Oh, it is too quick, surely. Her eyes filled with tears of bewildered, alarmed emotion. Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further against her better judgment. Yes, I suppose it is, he said repentantly. I wait till all is settled. What did your father say in that last letter? He meant about making his progress with the petition, but she mistaking him frankly spoke of the personal part.

He said what I have implied. Should I tell more plainly? Oh, no, don't, if it is a secret. Not at all. I will tell every word straight out, Giles, if you wish. He said I was to encourage you. There. But I cannot obey him further to-day. Come, let us go now. She gently slid her hand from his, and went in front of him out of the abbey.

I was thinking of getting some dinner, said Winterbourne, changing to the prosaic as they walked. And you too must require something. Do let me take you to a place I know. Grace was almost without a friend in the world outside her father's house. Her life with Fitzpiers had brought her no society, and sometimes, indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration than any she had ever known before. Hence it was a treat to find herself again the object of thoughtful care. But she questioned if to go publicly to dine with Giles Winterbourne were not a proposal due rather to his unsophistication than to his discretion. She said gently that she would much prefer his ordering her lunch at some place and then coming to tell her it was ready, while she remained in the abbey porch.

Giles saw her secret reasoning, thought how hopelessly blind to propriety he was beside her, and went to do as she wished. He was not absent more than ten minutes, and found Grace where he had left her. It will be quite ready by the time you get there, he said, and told her the name of the inn at which the meal had been ordered, which was one that she had never heard of. I'll find it by inquiry, said Grace, setting out. And shall I see you again? Oh, yes, come to me there. It will not be like going together. I shall want you to find my father's man and the gig for me. He waited on some ten minutes or quarter of an hour till he thought her lunch ended, and that he might fairly take advantage of her invitation to start her on her way home.

He went straight to the Three Tons, a little tavern in a side street, scrupulously clean, but humble and inexpensive. On his way he had an occasional misgiving as to whether the place might be elegant enough for her, and as soon as he entered it and saw her ensconced there he perceived that he had blundered. Grace was seated in the only dining-room that the simple old hostelry could boast of, which was also a general parlour on market-days, a long low apartment with a sanded floor herring-boned with a broom, a wide, red-curtained window to the street, and another to the garden. Grace had retreated to the end of the room, looking out upon the latter, the front part being full of a mixed company which had dropped in since he was there.

She was in a mood of the greatest depression. On arriving and seeing what the tavern was like, she had been taken by surprise, but having gone too far to retreat, she had heroically entered and sat down on the well-scrubbed settle, opposite the narrow table, with its knives and steel forks, tin-pepper boxes, blue salt-cellars, and posters advertising the sale of bullocks against the wall. The last time that she had taken any meal in a public place it had been with Fitzpiers, at the grand new Earl of Wessex Hotel in that town. After two months' roaming and sojourning at the gigantic hotels of the continent. How could she have expected any other kind of accommodation in present circumstances than such as Giles had provided?

And yet, how unprepared she was for this change. The tastes that she had acquired from Fitzpiers had been imbibed so subtly that she hardly knew she possessed them, till confronted by this contrast. The elegant fitzpiers, in fact, at that very moment owed a long bill at the above-mentioned hotel for the luxurious stile in which he used to put her up there whenever they drove to Sheraton. But such is social sentiment that she had been quite comfortable under those debt-impending conditions, while she felt humiliated by her present situation which Winterbourne had paid for, honestly, on the nail. He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and all his pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over again which had spoiled his Christmas party long ago.

But he did not know that this reconnaissance was only the casual result of Grace's apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spite of it—a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confront everybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished her lunch, which he saw had been a very mincing performance, and he brought her out of the house as soon as he could. Now, he said with great sad eyes, You have not finished it all well, I know. Come round to the Earl of Wessex. I'll order a tea there. I did not remember that what was good enough for me was not good enough for you. Her face faded into an aspect of deep distress when she saw what had happened. Oh, no, Giles, she said with extreme pathos.

Certainly not. Why do you say that when you know better? You ever will misunderstand me. Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you have felt out a place at the Tree Tuns? I don't know. Well, since you make me speak, I do not deny it. And yet I have felt at home there these twenty years. Your husband used to always take you to the Earl of Wessex, did he not? Yes, she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the street of a market town that it was her superficial and transitory taste which had been offended, and not her nature or her affection? Fortunately or unfortunately at that moment they saw Melbury's man driving vacantly along the street in search of her, the hour having passed at which he had been told to take her up.

Winterbourne hailed him, and she was powerless then to prolong the discourse. She entered the vehicle sadly, and the horse trotted away.

39 Chapter 39 18:24

The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter Thirty-Nine.

All night did Winterbourne think over that unsatisfactory ending of a pleasant time, forgetting the pleasant time itself. He feared anew that they could never be happy together, even should she be free to choose him. She was accomplished. He was unrefined. It was the original difficulty which he was too sensitive to recklessly ignore, as some men would have done in his place. He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from others in the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very account scrutinize those others' behavior too closely. He was not versatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its rise, meridian, and decline seldom again exactly recurred, as in the breasts of more sanguine mortals.

He at once worshipped her, laid out his life to suit her, wooed her, and lost her. Though it was with almost the same zest, it was not with quite the same hope that he had begun to tread the old tracks again, and allowed himself to be so charmed with her that day. Move another step towards her he would not. He would even repulse her as a tribute to conscience. It would be sheer sin to let her prepare a pitfall for her happiness not much smaller than the first by inveigling her into a union with such as he. Her poor father was now blind to these subtleties which he had formerly beheld as in noontide light. It was his own duty to declare them for her dear sake. Grace, too, had a very uncomfortable night, and her solicitous embarrassment was not lessened the next morning when another letter from her father was put into her hands.

Its tenor was an intenser strain of the one that had preceded it. After stating how extremely glad he was to hear that she was better and able to get out of doors, he went on. "'This is a worrisome business, the solicitor we have come to see being out of town. I do not know when I shall get home.' My great anxiety in this delay is still lest you should lose Giles Winterborne. I cannot rest at night for thinking that, while our business is hanging fire, he may become estranged, or go away from the neighborhood. I have set my heart upon seeing him, your husband. If you ever have another—do then, Grace, give him some temporary encouragement, even though it is over early. For, when I consider the past, I do think that God will forgive me and you for being a little forward.

I have another reason for this, my dear. I feel myself going rapidly down hill, and late affairs have still further helped me that way, and until this thing is done I cannot rest in peace. He added a postscript. I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen tomorrow, possibly therefore I shall return in the evening, after you get this. The paternal longing ran on all fours with her own desire, and yet in forwarding it yesterday she had been on the brink of giving offence. While craving to be a country girl again, just as her father requested, to put off the old eve, the fastidious miss, or rather madam, completely, her first attempt had been beaten by the unexpected vitality of that fastidiousness.

Her father, on returning and seeing the trifling coolness of Giles, would be sure to say that the same perversity which had led her to make difficulties about marrying Fitzpiers was now prompting her to blow hot and cold with poor Winterbourne. If the latter had been the most subtle hand at touching the stops of her delicate soul, instead of one who had just bound himself to let her drift away from him again, if she would, on the wind of her estranging education, he could not have acted more seductively than he did that day. He chanced to be superintending some temporary work in a field opposite her windows. She could not discover what he was doing, but she read his mood keenly and truly. She could see in his coming and going an air of determined abandonment on the whole landscape that lay in her direction.

Oh, how she longed to make it up with him! Her father coming in the evening, which meant she supposed that all formalities would be in train, her marriage virtually annulled, and she be free to be one again. How could she look him in the face if he should see them estranged thus? It was a fair green evening in June. She was seated in the garden in the rustic chair which stood under the laurel bushes, made of peeled-oak branches that came to Melbury's premises as refuse after barking-time. The mass of full-juiced leafage on the heights around her was just swayed into faint gestures by a nearly spent wind which, even in its enfeebled state, did not reach her shelter. All day she had expected Giles to call.

to inquire how she had got home or something or other, but he had not come, and he still tantalized her by going athwart and across that orchard opposite. She could see him as she sat. A slight diversion was presently created by Creedle bringing him a letter. She knew from this that Creedle had just come from Sherton, and had called as usual at the post-office for anything that had arrived by the afternoon post, of which there was no delivery at Hintock. She pondered on what the letter might contain. Particularly whether it were a second refresher for Winterbourne from her father, like her own of the morning. But it appeared to have no bearing upon herself whatever. Giles read its contents, and almost immediately turned away to a gap in the hedge of the orchard, if that could be called a hedge which, owing to the dripping of the trees, was little more than a bank with a bush upon it here and there.

He entered the plantation, and was no doubt going that way homeward to the mysterious hut he occupied on the other side of the woodland. The sad sands were running swiftly through time's glass. She had often felt it in these latter days, and like Giles, she felt it doubly now after the solemn and pathetic reminder in her father's communication. Her freshness would pass. The long-suffering devotion of Giles might suddenly end—might end that very hour. Men were so strange. The thought took away from her all her former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her seat. If the little breach, quarrel, or whatever it might be called of yesterday, was to be healed up, it must be done by her on the instant.

She crossed to the orchard and clambered through the gap after Giles, just as he was diminishing to a fawn-like figure under the green canopy and over the brown floor. Grace had been wrong. Very far wrong in assuming that the letter had no reference to herself because Giles had turned away into the wood after its perusal. It was sad to say, because the missive had so much reference to herself that he had thus turned away. He feared that his grieved discomfiture might be observed. The letter was from Beaucock, written a few hours later than Melbury's, to his daughter. It announced failure. Giles had once done that thriftless man a good turn, and now was the moment when Bocock had chosen to remember it in his own way.

During his absence in town with Melbury, the lawyer's clerk had naturally heard a great deal of the timber-merchant's family scheme of justice to Giles, and his communication was to inform Winterborne at the earliest possible moment that their attempt had failed, in order that the young man should not place himself in a false position towards Grace in the belief of its coming success. The news was, in some, that Fitzpiers's conduct had not been sufficiently cruel to Grace to enable her to snap the bond. She was apparently doomed to be his wife till the end of the chapter. Winterbourne quite forgot his superficial differences with the poor girl, under the warm rush of deep and distracting love for her which the almost tragical information engendered.

To renounce her forever. That was then the end of it for him, after all. There was no longer any question about suitability, or room for tiffs on petty tastes. The curtain had fallen again between them. She could not be his. The cruelty of their late revived hope was now terrible. How could they all have been so simple as to suppose this thing could be done? It was at this moment that, hearing someone coming behind him, he turned and saw her hastening on between the tickets. He perceived in an instant that she did not know the blighting news. "'Giles, why didn't you come across to me?' she asked, with arch reproach. "'Didn't you see me sitting there ever so long?' "'Oh, yes,' he said in unprepared extemporized tones, for her unexpected presence caught him without the slightest plan of behavior in the conjecture.

His manner made her think that she had been too chiding in her speech, and a mild scarlet wave passed over her as she resolved to soften it. "'I have had another letter from my father,' she hastened to continue. "'He thinks he may come home this evening, and, in view of his hopes, it will grieve him if there is any little difference between us, Giles.' "'There is none,' he said, sadly regarding her from the face downwards as he pondered how to lay the cruel truth bare. Still, I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being uncomfortable at the inn.

I have, Grace, I am sure. But you speak in quite an unhappy way. She returned, coming up close to him with the most winning of the many pretty airs that appertain to her. Don't you think you will ever be happy, Giles? He did not reply for some instance. When the sun shines on the north front of Sherton Abbey, that's when my happiness will come to me. said he, staring, as it were, into the earth. But then that means there is something more than my offending you in not liking the three tons. If it is because I did not like to let you kiss me at the abbey, well, you know, Giles, it was not on account of my cold feelings, but because I did certainly just then think it was rather premature, in spite of my poor father.

That was the true reason, the sole one. But I do not want to be hard. God knows I do not," she said, her voice fluctuating. And perhaps as I am on the verge of freedom, I am not right, after all, in thinking there is any harm in your kissing me.

Oh, God, said Winterbourne within himself. His head was turned askance, and he still resolutely regarded the ground. For the last several minutes he had seen this great temptation approaching him in regular siege, and now it had come. The wrong—the wrong—the wrong. The social sin of now taking advantage of the offer of her lips had a magnitude in the eyes of one whose life had been so primitive, so ruled by the purest household laws as Giles's, which can hardly be explained. Did you say anything? she asked timidly. Oh, no, only that—you mean that it must be settled, since my father is coming home, she said gladly. Winterborne, though fighting valiantly against himself all this while, though he would have protected Grace's good repute as the apple of his eye, was a man, and, as Desdemona said, men are not gods.

In face of the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened Schuyall's simplicity about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a man's weakness. Since it was so, since it had come to this, that Grace, deeming herself free to do it, was virtually asking him to demonstrate that he loved her, since he could demonstrate it only too truly, since life was short and love was strong, he gave way to the temptation, notwithstanding that he perfectly well knew her to be wedded irrevocably to Fitzpiers. Indeed, he cared nothing for the past or future. simply accepting the present and what it brought, desiring once in his life to clasp in his arms her he had watched over and loved so long.

She started back suddenly from his embrace, influenced by a sort of inspiration. "'Oh, I suppose,' she stammered, "'that I am really free, that this is right. Is there really a new law? Father cannot have been too sanguine in saying—' He did not answer, and a moment afterwards Grace burst into tears, in spite of herself. "'Oh, why does not my father come home and explain?' she sobbed. "'And let me know clearly what I am. It is too trying, this, to ask me to—and then to leave me so long in so vague a state that I do not know what to do, and perhaps do wrong.' Winterborne felt like a very cane, over and above his previous sorrow. He had sinned against her in not telling her what he knew. He turned aside.

The feeling of his cruelty mounted higher and higher. How could he have dreamed of kissing her? He could hardly refrain from tears. Surely nothing more pitiable had ever been known than the condition of this poor young thing, now as heretofore the victim of her father's well-meant but blundering policy. Even in the hour of Melbury's greatest assurance, Winterbourne had harboured a suspicion that no law, new or old, could undo Grace's marriage without her appearance in public, though he was not sufficiently sure of what might have been enacted to destroy by his own words her pleasing idea that a mere dash of the pen on her father's testimony was going to be sufficient. But he had never suspected the sad fact that the position would be irremediable.

Poor Grace, perhaps feeling that she had indulged in too much fluster for a mere kiss, calmed herself at finding how grave he was. "'I am glad we are friends again anyhow,' she said, smiling through her tears. "'Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I married that you show now, you would have carried me off for your own first instead of second. If we do marry, I hope you will never think badly of me for encouraging you a little.' But my father is so impatient, you know, as his years of infirmities increase, that he will wish to see us a little advance when he comes. That is my only excuse. To Winterborne, all this was sadder than it was sweet. How could she so trust her father's conjectures?

He did not know how to tell her the truth and shame himself, and yet he felt it must be done. We may have been wrong. He began, almost fearfully, in supposing that I can be carried out while we stay here at Hintock. I am not sure but that people may have to appear in public court even under the new act, and if there should be any difficulty, and we cannot marry after all—her cheeks became slowly bloodless. Oh, Giles, she said, grasping his arm. You have heard something. What, cannot my father conclude it there and now? Surely he has done it. Oh, Giles! Giles, don't deceive me! What terrible position am I in? He could not tell her, try as he would. The sense of her implicit trust in his honor absolutely disabled him.

"'I cannot inform you,' he murmured, his voice husky as that of the leaves underfoot. "'Your father will soon be here. Then we shall know. I will take you home.' Inexpressibly dear as she was to him, he offered her his arm with the most reserved air, as he added correctingly, I'll take you at any rate into the drive. Thus they walked on together, grace vibrating between happiness and misgiving. It was only a few minutes' walk to where the drive ran, and they had hardly descended into it when they heard a voice behind them cry, Take out that arm! For a moment they did not heed, and the voice repeated more loudly and hoarsely, Take out that arm! It was Melbury's. He had returned sooner than they expected, and now came up to them.

Grace's hand had been withdrawn like lightning on her hearing the second command. "'I don't blame you. I don't blame you,' he said in the weary cadence of one broken down with scourgings. "'But you two must walk together no more. I have been surprised. I have been cruelly deceived. Giles, don't say anything to me, but go away.' He was evidently not aware that Winterbourne had known the truth before he brought it, and Giles would not stay to discuss it with him then. When the young man had gone, Melbury took his daughter indoors to the room he used as his office. There he sat down and bent over the slope of the bureau, her bewildered gaze fixed upon him. When Melbury had recovered a little he said, "'You are now, as ever, Fitzpiers's wife.

I was deluded.' He has not done you enough harm. You are still subject to his beck and call. Then let it be, and never mind, father," she said with dignified sorrow. I can bear it. It is your trouble that grieves me most. She stooped over him and put her arm round his neck, which distressed Melbury still more. I don't mind at all what comes to me, Grace continued. Whose wife I am, or whose I am not. I do love Giles. I cannot help that, and I have gone further with him than I should have done if I had known exactly how things were. But I do not reproach you. Then Giles did not tell you, said Melbury. No, she said. He could not have known it. His behavior to me proved that he did not know. Her father said nothing more, and Grace went away to the solitude of her chamber.

Her heavy disquietude had many shapes, and for a time she put aside the dominant fact to think of her too free conduct towards Giles. His love-making had been brief as it was sweet, but would he, on reflection, contemn her for forwardness? How could she have been so simple as to suppose she was in a position to behave as she had done? Thus she mentally blamed her ignorance, and yet in the centre of her heart she blessed it a little for what it had momentarily brought her.

40 Chapter 40 15:31

Life among the people involved in these events seemed to be suppressed and hidebound for a while. Grace seldom showed herself outside the house, never outside the garden, for she feared she might encounter Giles Winterbourne, and that she could not bear. This pensive intramural existence of the self-constituted nun appeared likely to continue for an indefinite time. She had learned that there was one possibility in which her formerly imagined position might become real, and only one—that her husband's absence should continue long enough to amount to positive desertion. But she never allowed her mind to dwell much upon the thought, still less did she deliberately hope for such a result. Her regard for Winterbourne had been rarified by the shock which followed its avowal to an ethereal emotion that had little to do with living and doing.

As for Giles, he was lying, or rather sitting, ill at his hut. A feverish indisposition which had been hanging about him for some time, the result of a chill caught the previous winter, seemed to acquire virulence with the prostration of his hopes. But not a soul knew of his languor, and he did not think the case serious enough to send for a medical man. After a few days he was better again, and crept about his home in a great coat, attending to a simple once as usual with his own hands. So matters stood when the limpid inertia of Grace's pool-like existence was disrupted, as by a geezer. She received a letter from Fitzpiers. Such a terrible letter it was in its import, though couched in the gentlest language.

In his absence, Grace had grown to regard him with toleration, and her relation to him with equanimity, till she had almost forgotten how trying his presence would be. He wrote briefly and unaffectedly. He made no excuses, but informed her that he was living quite alone, that he had been led to think that he ought to be together, if she would make up her mind to forgive him. He therefore purported to cross the channel to Budmouth by the steamer on the day he named, which she found to be three days after the time of her present reading. He said that he could not come to Hintock for obvious reasons, which her father would understand even better than herself, As the only alternative, she was to be on the quay to meet the steamer when it arrived from the opposite coast, probably about half an hour before midnight, bringing with her any luggage she might require, join him there, and pass with him into the twin vessel, which left immediately on the other entering the harbour, returning thus with him to his continental dwelling-place, which he did not name.

He had no intention of showing himself on land at all. The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for long hours by the fireless summer chimney-corner, as if he thought it were winter, the pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted and coated with a film of dust. After reading it he looked up. "'You shan't go,' said he. "'I had felt I would not,' she answered. "'But I did not know what you would say.' "'If he comes and lives in England—not too near here and in a respectable way—and want you to come to him, I'm not sure that I'll oppose him in wishing it,' muttered Melbury. "'I'd stint myself to keep you both in a genteel and seemly style, but go abroad—you never shall with my consent.' There the question rested that day.

Grace was unable to reply to her husband in the absence of an address, and the morrow came, and the next day, and the evening on which he had requested her to meet him.

Throughout the whole of it, she remained within the four walls of her room.

The sense of her harassment, carking doubt of what might be impending, hung like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury household. They spoke almost in whispers, and wondered what Fitzpiers would do next. It was the hope of everyone that, finding she did not arrive, he would return again to France, and as for Grace, she was willing to write to him on the most kindly terms if he would only keep away. The night passed, Grace lying tense and wide awake, and her relatives in great part likewise. When they met the next morning they were pale and anxious, though neither speaking of the subject which occupied all their thoughts. The day passed as quietly as the previous ones, and she began to think that, in the rank caprice of his moods, he had abandoned the idea of getting her to join him as quickly as it was formed.

All on a sudden, some person who had just come from Sheraton entered the house with news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his way home to Hintock. He had been seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex Hotel. Her father and Grace were both present when the intelligence was announced. "'Now,' said Melbury, "'we must make the best of what has been a very bad matter. The man is repenting. The partner of a shame, I hear, is gone away from him to Switzerland, so that chapter of his life is probably over.' If he chooses to make a home for ye, I think ye should not say him nay, Grace. Certainly he cannot very well live at Hintock without a blow to his pride, but if he can bear that, and likes Hintock best, why, there's the empty wing of the house as it was before.

Oh, father, said Grace, turning white with dismay. Why not? He said, a little of his former doggedness returning. He was, in truth, disposed to somewhat more leniency towards a husband just now than he had shown formerly from a conviction that he had treated him over roughly in his anger. Surely it is the most respectable thing to do, he continued. I don't like this state that you are in, neither married nor single. It hurts me, and it hurts you, and it will always be remembered against us in Hintock. There has never been any scandal like it in the family before.

He will be here in less than an hour. murmured Grace. The twilight of the room prevented her father seeing the despondent misery of her face. The one tolerable condition, the condition she had deprecated above all others, was that of Fitzpiers's reinstatement there. "'Oh, I won't. I won't see him,' she said, sinking down. She was almost hysterical. "'Try if you cannot,' he returned moodily. "'Oh, yes, I will, I will,' she went on, inconsequently. I'll try, and jumping up suddenly she left the room. In the darkness of the apartment to which she flew nothing could have been seen during the next half-hour, but from a corner a quick breathing was audible from this impressible creature, who combined modern nerves with primitive emotions, and was doomed by such coexistence to be numbered among the distress, and to take her scourgings to their exquisite extremity.

The window was open, On this quiet late summer evening, whatever sound arose in so secluded a district, the chirp of a bird, a call from a voice, the turning of a wheel, extended over bush and tree to unwanted distances. Very few sounds did arise, but as Grace invisibly breathed in the brown glooms of the chamber, the small remote noise of light wheels came into her, accompanied by the trot of a horse on the turnpike road. There seemed to be a sudden hitch or pause in the progress of the vehicle, which was what first drew her attention to it. She knew the point whence the sound proceeded, the hilltop over which travelers passed on their way hitherward from Sherton Abbas, the place at which she had emerged from the wood with Mrs.

Charmond. Grace slid along the floor, and bent her head over the windowsill, listening with open lips. The carriage had stopped, and she heard a man use exclamatory words. Then another said, "'What the devil is the matter with the horse?' She recognized the voice as her husband's. The accident, such as it had been, was soon remedied, and the carriage could be heard descending the hill on the Hintock's side, soon to turn into the lane leading out of the highway, and then into the drong which led out of the lane to the house where she was. A spasm passed through Grace, the Daphnean instinct exceptionally strong in her as a girl, had been revived by her widowed seclusion, and it was not lessened by her affronted sentiments towards the comer, and her regard for another man.

She opened some little ivory tablets that lay on her dressing-table, scribbled in pencil on one of them, I am gone to visit one of my school friends, gathered a few toilet necessities into a hand-bag, and not three minutes after that voice had been heard, her slim form, hastily wrapped up from observation, might have been seen passing out of the back door of Melbury's house. Thence she skimmed up the garden path, through a gap in the hedge, and into the mossy cart-track under the trees which led into the depth of the woods.

The leaves overhead were now in their latter green, so opaque that it was darker at some of the densest spots than in winter-time, scarce a crevice existing by which a ray of light could get down to the ground. But in open places she could see well enough. Summer was ending. In the daytime singing insects hung in every sunbeam. Vegetation was heavy nightly with globes of dew, and after showers, creeping damps and twilight chills came up from the hollows. The plantations were always weird at this hour of the eve, more spectral far than in the leafless season, where there were fewer masses and more minute lineality. The smooth surfaces of glossy plants came out like weak, lidless eyes. There were strange faces and figures from expiring lights that had somehow wandered into the canopied obscurity, while now and then low peeps of the sky between the trunks were like sheeted shapes, and on the tips of boughs sat faint cloven tongues.

But Grace's fear just now was not imaginative or spiritual, and she heeded these impressions but little. She went on as silently as she could, avoiding the hollows where the leaves had accumulated, and stepping upon soundless moss and grass tufts. She paused breathlessly once or twice, and fancied that she could hear, above the beat of her strumming pulse, the vehicle containing Fitzpiers turning in at the gate of her father's premises. She hastened on again. The Hintock woods owned by Mrs. Charmond were presently left behind, and those into which she next plunged were divided from the latter by a bank, from whose top the hedge had long ago perished, starved for want of the sun. It was with some caution that Grace now walked, though she was quite free from any of the commonplace timidities of her ordinary pilgrimages to such spots.

She feared no lurking harms, but that her effort would be all in vain, and her return to the house rendered imperative. She had walked between three and four miles when that prescriptive comfort of relief to wanderers in the woods, a distant light, broke at last upon her searching eyes. It was so very small as to be almost sinister to a stranger, but to her it was what she sought. She pushed forward, and the dim outline of a dwelling was disclosed. The house was a square cot of only one story, sloping up on all sides to a chimney in the midst. It had formerly been the home of a charcoal-burner in times when that fuel was still used in the county houses. Its only appurtenance was a paled enclosure, there being no garden, the shade of the trees preventing the growth of vegetables.

She advanced to the window whence the rays of light proceeded, and the shutters being as yet unclosed, she could survey the whole interior through the panes. The room within was a kitchen, parlour, and scullery all in one. The natural sandstone floor was worn into hills and dales by long treading, so that none of the furniture stood level and the table slanted like a desk. A fire burned in the hearth, in front of which revolved the skin carcass of a rabbit suspended by a string from a nail. Leaning with one arm on the mantel-shelf stood Winterbourne, his eyes on the roasting animal, his face so rapt that speculation could build nothing in it concerning his thoughts, more than that it were not with the scene before him.

She thought his features had changed a little since she saw him last. The firelight did not enable her to perceive that they were positively haggard.

Grace's throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the result so nearly as she had hoped. She went to the door and tapped lightly. He seemed to be accustomed to the noises of woodpeckers, squirrels, and such small creatures, for he took no notice of her tiny signal, and she knocked again. This time he came and opened the door. When the light of the room fell upon her face, he started, and, hardly knowing what she did, crossed the threshold to her, placing his hands upon her two arms, while surprise, joy, alarm, sadness, chased through him by turns. With grace, it was the same. Even in distress there was the fond fact that they had met again. Thus they stood, long tears upon their faces, waxen white, with extreme sad delight.

He broke the silence by saying in a whisper, "'Come in.' "'No, Giles, no,' she answered hurriedly, stepping yet further back from the door. "'I am passing by, and I have called on you. I won't enter. Will you help me? I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout way to Sherton, and so to Exenbury. I have a schoolfellow there, but I cannot get to Sherton alone. Oh, if you will only accompany me a little way.' Don't condemn me, Giles, and be offended. I was obliged to come to you because I have no other help here. Three months ago you were my lover, now you are my only friend. The law has stepped in and forbidden what we thought of. It must not be. But we can act honestly, and yet you can be my friend for one little hour.

I have no other. She could get no further. Covering her eyes with one hand, by an effort of repression, she wept a silent trickle, without sigh or sob. Winterbourne took her hand. "'What has happened?' he said. "'He has come.' There was a stillness as of death till Winterbourne asked. "'You mean this, Grace, that I am to help you get away?' "'Yes,' she said. "'Appearance is no matter when the reality is right. I have said to myself I can trust you.' Giles knew from this that she did not suspect this treachery, if it could be called such earlier in the summer. When they met for the last time as lovers, and in the intensity of his contrition for that tender wrong, he determined to deserve her faith now at least, and so wipe out that reproach from his conscience.

"'I'll come at once,' he said. "'I'll light a lantern.' He unhooked a dark lantern from a nail under the eaves, and she did not notice how his hand shook with a slight strain. Or dream that in making this offer he was taxing a convalescence which could ill afford such self-sacrifice. The lantern was lit, and they started.

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The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter Forty-One.

The first hundred yards of their course lay under motionless trees, whose upper foliage began to hiss with falling drops of rain. By the time that they emerged upon a glade, it rained heavily. This is awkward. said Grace, with an effort to hide her concern. Winterbourne stopped. Grace, he said, preserving a strictly business manner which belied him. You cannot go to Sheridan to-night. But I must. Why, it is nine miles from here. It is almost an impossibility in this rain. True. Why, she murmured, mournfully at the end of a silence. What is reputation to me?

Now hearken. said Giles. You won't go back to your—no, no, no, don't make me, she cried piteously. Then let us turn. They slowly retraced their steps, and again stood before his door. Now, this house from this moment is yours, and not mine, he said deliberately. I have a place nearby where I can stay very well. Her face had drooped. Oh, she murmured as she saw the dilemma. What have I done? There was a smell of something burning within, and he looked through the window. The rabbit that he had been cooking to coax a weak appetite was beginning to char. Please go in and attend to it, he said. Do what you like. Now I leave. You'll find everything about the hut that is necessary. But, Giles, your supper, she exclaimed.

An outhouse would do for me, anything, till tomorrow at daybreak. He signified a negative. I tell you to go in. You may catch agues out here in your delicate state. You can give me my supper through the window if you feel well enough. I'll wait a while. He gently urged her to pass the doorway, and was relieved when he saw her within the room sitting down. Without so much as crossing the threshold himself, he closed the door upon her, and turned the key in the lock. Tapping at the window, he signified that she should open the casement, and when she had done this he handed in the key to her. "'You are locked in,' he said, "'and your own mistress.' Even in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at his scrupulousness as she took the door-key.

"'Do you feel better?' he went on. "'If so, and you wish to give me some of your supper, please do. If not, it's of no importance. I can get some elsewhere.' The grateful sense of his kindness stirred her to action, though she only knew half of what that kindness really was. At the end of some ten minutes she again came to the window, pushed it open, and said in a whisper, "'Giles!' He at once emerged from the shade and saw that she was preparing to hand him his share of the meal upon a plate. "'I don't like to treat you so hardly,' she murmured with deep regret in her words as she heard the rain pattering on the leaves. But I suppose it is best to arrange like this. Oh, yes, he said quickly.

I feel that I could never have reached Sherton. It was impossible. Are you sure you have a snug place out there, with renewed misgiving? Quite. Have you found everything you want? I'm afraid it is rather rough accommodation. I can notice no defects. I have long passed that stage, and you know it, Giles, or you ought to. His eyes sadly contemplated her face, as its pale responsiveness modulated through a crowd of expressions that showed only too clearly to what a pitch she was strung. If ever Winterborne's heart fretted his bosom, it was at this sight of a perfectly defenseless creature conditioned by such circumstances. He forgot his own agony in the satisfaction of having at least found her a shelter.

He took his plate and cup from her hand, saying— Now, I'll push the shutter to, and you will find an iron pin on the inside, which you must fix into the bolt. Do not stir in the morning till I come and call you. She expressed an alarmed hope that he would not go very far away. Oh, no, I shall be quite within hail, said Winterbourne. She bolted the window as directed, and he retreated. His snug place proved to be a wretched little shelter of the roughest kind, formed of four hurdles attached with brakefern. Underneath were dry sticks, hay, and other litter of the sort, upon which he sat down, and there in the dark tried to eat his meal. But his appetite was quite gone. He pushed the plate aside and shook up the hay and sacks so as to form a rude couch, on which he flung himself down to sleep, for it was getting late.

But sleep he could not, for many reasons, of which not the least was thought of his charge. He sat up and looked towards the cot through the damp obscurity. With all its external features the same as usual, he could scarcely believe that it contained a dear friend—he would not use a warmer name—who had come to him so unexpectedly, and he could not help admitting so rashly. He had not ventured to ask any particulars, but the position was pretty clear without them. Though social law had negatived forever their opening paradise of the previous June, it was not without stoical pride that he accepted the present trying conjecture. There was one man on earth in whom she believed absolutely, and he was that man.

That this crisis could end in nothing but sorrow was a view for a moment effaced by this triumphant thought of our trust in him. And the purity of the affection with which he responded to that trust rendered him more than proof against any frailty that besieged him in relation to her. The rain, which had never ceased, now drew his attention by beginning to drop through the meagre screen that covered him. He rose to attempt some remedy for his discomfort, but the trembling of his knees and the throbbing of his pulse told him that in his weakness he was unable to fence against the storm, and he lay down to bear it as best he might. He was angry with himself for his feebleness, he who had been so strong.

It was imperative that she should know nothing of his present state, and to do that she must not see his face by daylight, for its color would inevitably betray him.

The next morning, accordingly, when it was hardly light, he rose and dragged his stiff limbs about the precincts, preparing for her everything she could require for getting breakfast within. On the bench outside the window-sill he placed water, wood, and other necessities, writing with a piece of chalk beside them. It is best that I should not see you. Put my breakfast on the bench. At seven o'clock he tapped at her window, as he had promised, retreating at once, that she might not catch sight of him. But from his shelter under the boughs he could see her very well, when, in response to a signal, she opened the window and the light fell upon her face. The languid largeness of her eyes showed that her sleep had been little more than his own, and the pinkness of their lids, that her waking hours had not been free from tears.

She read the writing, seemed, he thought, disappointed, but took up the materials he had provided, evidently thinking him some way off. Giles waited on, assured that a girl who, in spite of her culture, knew what country life was, would find no difficulty in the simple preparation of their food. Within the cot, it was all very much as he conjectured, though Grace had slept much longer than he. After the loneliness of the night she would have been glad to see him, but appreciating his feeling when she read the writing, she made no attempt to recall him. She found abundance of provisions laid in, his plan being to replenish his buttery weekly, and this being the day after the victualling van had called from Sherton.

When the meal was ready, she put what he required outside, as she had done with the supper, and, notwithstanding her longing to see him, withdrew from the window promptly, and left him to himself. It had been a leaden dawn, and the rain now steadily renewed its fall. As she heard no more of Winterbourne, she concluded that he had gone away to his daily work, and forgotten that he had promised to accompany her to Sheraton. An erroneous conclusion, for he remained all day, by force of his condition, within fifty yards of where she was. The morning wore on, and in her doubt when to start and how to travel she lingered yet, keeping the door carefully bolted, lest an intruder should discover her. Locked in this place she was comparatively safe, at any rate, and doubted if she would be safe elsewhere.

The humid gloom of an ordinary wet day was doubled by the shade and drip of the leafage. Autumn this year was coming in with rains. Gazing in her enforced idleness from the one window of the living room, she could see various small members of the animal community that lived unmolested there. Creatures of hair, fluff, and scale, the toothed kind and the billed kind, underground creatures jointed and ringed, circumambulating the hut, Under the impression that, Giles having gone away, nobody was there, and eyeing it inquisitively with a view to winter quarters. Watching these neighbors, who knew neither law nor sin, distracted her a little from her trouble, and she managed to while away some of the portion of the afternoon by putting Giles's home in order, and making little improvements, which she deemed that he would value when she was gone.

Once or twice she fancied that she heard a faint noise amid the trees, resembling a cough, but as it never came any closer she concluded that it was a squirrel or a bird. At last the daylight lessened, and she made up a larger fire, for the evenings were chilly. As soon as it was too dark, which was comparatively early, to discern the human countenance in this place of shadows, there came to the window, to her great delight, a tapping which she knew from its method to be Giles's. She opened the casement instantly and put her hand out to him, though she could only just perceive his outline. He clasped her fingers, and she noticed the heat of his palm and its shakiness. He had been walking fast in order to get here quickly, she thought.

How could she know that he had just crawled out from the straw of the shelter hard by, and that the heat of his hand was feverishness? My dear good Giles, she burst out impulsively. Anybody would have done it for you, replied Winterbourne, with as much matter-of-fact as he could summon. About my getting to Exbury, she said. I've been thinking, responded Giles with tender deference, that you had better stay where you are for the present, if you wish not to be caught. I need not tell you that the place is yours as long as you like, and perhaps in a day or two, finding you absent, he'll go away. At any rate, in two or three days I could do anything to assist, such as make inquiries, or go a great way towards Sherton Abbas with you, for the cider season will be coming on, and I want to run down the Vale to see how the crops are, and I shall go by the Sherton Road.

But for a day or two I am busy here." He was hoping that by the time mentioned he would be strong enough to engage himself actively on her behalf. I hope you do not feel over much melancholy of being a prisoner. She declared that she did not mind it, but she sighed. From long acquaintance, they could read each other's heart symptoms like books of large type. "'I fear you are sorry you came,' said Giles, "'and that you think I should have advised you more firmly than I did not to stay.' "'Oh, no, dear, dear friend,' answered Grace with a heaving bosom. "'I don't think that that is what I regret. What I regret is my enforced treatment of you, dislodging you, excluding you from your own house. Why should I not speak out?

You know what I feel for you, what I have felt for no other living man, what I shall never feel for a man again. But as I have vowed myself to somebody else than you, and cannot be released, I must behave as I do behave, and keep that vow. I am not bound to him by any divine law, after what he has done. But I have promised, and I will pay. The rest of the evening was passed in his handing her such things as she would require the next day, and casual remarks thereupon—an occupation which diverted her mind to some degree from pathetic views of her attitude towards him, and of life in general. The only infringement, if infringement it could be called, of his predetermined bearing towards her—of was an involuntary passing of her hand to his lips when she put it through the casement to bid him good-night.

He knew she was weeping, though he could not see her tears. She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the cottage. But it will be only for a day or two more, she thought, since go she must. He replied yearningly, I don't like you to go away. Oh, Giles," said she, I know. I know, but I am a woman, and you are a man. I cannot speak more plainly. Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report, you know what is in my mind, because you know me so well. Yes, Grace, yes. I do not at all mean that the question between us has not been settled by the fact of your marriage turning out hopelessly unalterable. I merely meant, well, a feeling no more. In a week at the outside, I should be discovered if I stayed here, and I think that by law he could compel me to return to him.

Yes, perhaps you are right. Go when you wish, dear Grace. His last words that evening were a hopeful remark that all might be well with her yet, that Mr. Fitzpiers would not intrude upon her life if he found that his presence caused her so much pain. Then the window was closed, the shutters folded, and the rustle of his footsteps died away.

No sooner had she retired to rest that night than the wind began to rise, and, after a few prefatory blasts, to be accompanied by rain. The wind grew more violent, and as the storm went on it was difficult to believe that no opaque body, but only an invisible colorless thing, was trampling and climbing over the roof, making branches creak, springing out of the trees upon the chimney, popping its head into the flue, and shrieking and blaspheming at every corner of the walls. As in the old story, the assailant was a spectre, which could be felt, but not seen. She had never before been so struck with the devilry of a gusty night in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit as she was now.

She seemed almost to be apart from herself, a vacuous duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and clear intentions was not there. Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swaying so low as to smite the roof in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth of an adversary, to be followed by a trickle of rain as blood from the wound. To all this weather Giles must be more or less exposed, how much she did not know. At last Grace could hardly endure the idea of such hardship in relation to him. Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused it. He vacated his house on account of her. She was not worth such self-sacrifice. She should not have accepted it of him. And yet, as her anxiety increased with increasing thought, there returned upon her mind some incidents of her late intercourse with him, which she had heeded but little at the time.

The look of his face—what had there been about his face which seemed different from its appearance as of yore? Was it not thinner, less rich in hue? Less like that of Wright-Baudom's brother to whom she had formerly compared him. And his voice, she had distinctly noticed a change in tone. And his gait, surely it had been feebler, stiffer, more like the gait of a weary man. That slight occasional noise she had heard in the day, and attributed to Squirrels. It might have been his cough, after all. Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterbourne was ill, or had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his condition from her that she might have no scruples about accepting a hospitality, which, by the nature of the case, expelled her entertainer.

"'My own own true—my dear kind friend,' she cried to herself. "'Oh, it shall not be—it shall not be—' she hastily wrapped herself up. and obtained a light, with which she entered the adjoining room, the cot possessing only one floor. Setting down the candle on the table there, she went to the door with the key in her hand and placed it in the lock. Before turning it, she paused, her fingers still clutching it, and pressing her other hand to her forehead, she fell into agitating thought. A tattoo on the window, caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it, brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened the door. The darkness was intense, seeming to touch her pupils like a substance.

She only now became aware how heavy the rainfall had been, and was. The dripping of the eaves splashed like a fountain. She stood listening with parted lips, and holding the door in one hand till her eyes, growing accustomed to the obscurity, discerned the wild brandishing of their boughs by the adjoining trees. At last she cried loudly, with an effort, "'Giles! You may come in!' There was no immediate answer to her cry, and, overpowered by her own temerity, Grace retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood looking on the floor. But it was not for long. She again lifted the latch, and with far more determination than the first. "'Giles! Giles!' She cried with the full strength of her voice, and without any of the shamefacedness that had characterized her first cry.

Come in! Come in! Where are you? I have been wicked, and I have thought too much of myself. Do you hear? I don't want to keep you out any longer. I cannot bear that you should suffer so. Giles! A reply! It was a reply. Through the darkness and wind, a voice reached her, floating upon the weather as though part of it.

"'Here I am. All right. Don't trouble about me.' "'Don't you want to come in? Are you not ill? I don't mind what they say, or what they think any more.' "'I am all right,' he repeated. "'It is not necessary for me to come. Good night, good night.' Grace sighed, turned and shut the door slowly. Could she have been mistaken about his health? Perhaps, after all, she had perceived a change in him because she had not seen him for so long. Time sometimes did his ageing work in jerks, as she knew. Well, she had done all she could. He would not come in. She retired to rest again.

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The next morning Grace was at the window early. She felt determined to see him somehow that day, and prepared his breakfast eagerly. Eight o'clock struck, and she remembered that he had not come to arouse her by a knocking as usual. her own anxiety having caused her to stir. The breakfast was set in its place without, but he did not arrive to take it, and she waited on. Nine o'clock arrived, and the breakfast was cold, and still there was no Giles. A thrush, that had been repeating itself a good deal on an opposite bush for some time, came and took a morsel from the plate and bolted it, waited, looked around, and took another. At ten o'clock she drew in the tray and sat down to her own solitary meal.

He must have been called away on business early, the rain having cleared off. Yet she would have liked to assure herself, by thoroughly exploring the precincts of the hut, that he was nowhere in its vicinity. But as the day was comparatively fine, the dread lest some stray passenger or woodman should encounter in such a reconnoiter paralyse her wish. The solitude was further accentuated to-day by the stopping of the clock for want of winding, and the fall into the chimney-corner of flakes of soot loosened by the rains. At noon she heard a slight rustling outside the window, and found that it was caused by an eft which had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last sun-rays that would be worth having till the following May.

She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see little. In front lay the brown leaves of last year, and upon them some yellowish-green ones of this season that had been prematurely blown down by the gale. Above stretched an old beech, with vast arm-pits and great pocket-holes in its sides, where branches had been amputated in past times. A black slug was trying to climb it. Dead boughs were scattered about like ichthyosauri in a museum, and beyond them were perishing woodbine stems, resembling old ropes. From the other window all she could see were more trees, jacketed with lichen and stockinged with moss. At the roots were stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apricots, and tall fungi with more stem than stool.

Next were more trees, close together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was a struggle between these neighbors that she had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting stumps of those of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from their mossy settings like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves, variety upon variety, dark green and pale green, moss like little fir-trees, like plush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss.

The strain upon Grace's mind in various ways was so great on this, the most desolate day she had passed there, that she felt it would be well-nigh impossible to spend another in such circumstances. The evening came at last. The sun, when its chin was on the earth, found an opening through which to pierce the shade, and stretched irradiated gauzes across the damp atmosphere, making the wet trunk shine, and throwing splotches of such ruddiness on the leaves beneath the beach That they were turned to gory hues. When night at last arrived, and with it its time for his return, she was nearly broken down with suspense. The simple evening meal, partly tea, partly supper, which Grace had prepared, stood waiting upon the hearth, and yet Giles did not come.

It was now nearly twenty-four hours since she had seen him. As the room grew darker, and only the firelight broke against the gloom of the walls, She was convinced that it would be beyond her staying power to pass the night without hearing from him or from somebody. Yet eight o'clock drew on, and his form at the window did not appear.

The meal remained untasted. Suddenly rising from before the hearth of smouldering embers, where she had been crouching with her hands clasped over her knees, she crossed the room, unlocked the door, and listened. Every breath of wind had ceased with the decline of day, but the rain had resumed the steady dripping of the night before. Grace might have stood there five minutes, when she fancied she heard that old sound, a cough, at no great distance, and it was presently repeated. If it were Winterbourne's he must be very near her. Why then had he not visited her? A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of Grace, and she looked up anxiously for the lantern, which was hanging above her head.

To light it and go in the direction of the sound would be the obvious way to solve the dread problem, but the conditions made her hesitate, and in a moment a cold sweat pervaded her at further sounds from the same quarter. There were low mutterings, at first like persons in conversation, but gradually resolving themselves into varieties of one voice. It was an endless monologue, like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in deep secret places, where water flows, or where ivy-leaves flap against stones. But by degrees she was convinced that the voice was Winterbourne's. Yet who could be his listener, so mute and patient? For though he argued so rapidly and persistently, nobody replied. A dreadful enlightenment spread through the mind of Grace.

Oh! She cried in her anguish as she hastily prepared herself to go out. How selfishly correct I am always! Too, too correct! Cruel propriety is killing the dearest heart that ever woman clasped to her own. While speaking thus to herself, she had lit the lantern, and hastening out without further thought, took the direction whence the mutterings had proceeded. The course was marked by a little path, which ended at a distance of about forty yards, and a small erection of hurdles, Not much larger than a shock of corn, such as were frequent in the woods and copses when the cutting season was going on. It was too slight even to be called a hovel, and was not high enough to stand upright in, appearing, in short, to be erected for the temporary shelter of fuel.

The side towards Grace was open, and turning the light upon the interior, she beheld what her prescient fear had pictured in snatches all the way thither. Upon the straw within, Winterbourne lay in his clothes, just as she had seen him during the whole of her stay there, except that his hat was off and his hair was matted and wild. Both his clothes and his straw were saturated with rain. His arms were flung over his head, his face was flushed to an unnatural crimson. His eyes had a burning brightness, and though they met her own, she perceived that he did not recognize her. "'Oh, my Giles!' she cried. "'What have I done to you?' But she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that the first thing to be thought of was to get him indoors.

How Grace performed that labor she could never have exactly explained. But by dint of clasping her arms around him, rearing him into a sitting posture, and straining her strength to the uttermost, she put him on one of the hurdles that was loose alongside, and, taking the end of it in both of her hands, dragged them along the path to the entrance of the hut, and, after a pause for breath, in at the doorway. It was somewhat singular that Giles, in his semi-conscious state, acquiesced unresistingly in all that she did, but he never for a moment recognized her, continuing his rapid conversation to himself, and seeming to look upon her as some angel or other supernatural creature of the visionary world in which he was mentally living.

The undertaking occupied her more than ten minutes, but by that time, to her great thankfulness, he was in the inner room, lying on the bed, his damp outer clothing removed. Then the unhappy grace regarded him by the light of the candle. There was something in his look which agonized her, in the rush of his thoughts, accelerating their speed from minute to minute. He seemed to be passing through the universe of ideas like a comet, erratic, inapprehensible, untraceable. Grace's distraction was almost as great as his. In a few moments she firmly believed he was dying. Unable to withstand her impulse, she knelt down beside him, kissed his hands and his face and his hair, exclaiming in a low voice, "'How could I?

How could I?' Her timid morality had, indeed, underrated his chivalry till now, though she knew him so well. The purity of his nature, his freedom from the grosser passions, his scrupulous delicacy, had never been fully understood by Grace till this strained self-sacrifice in lonely juxtaposition to her own person was revealed. The perception of it added something that was little short of reverence to the deep affection for him of a woman who, herself, had more of Artemis than of Aphrodite in her constitution. All that a tender nurse could do, Grace did, and the power to express her solicitude in action, unconscious though the sufferer was, brought her mournful satisfaction. She bathed his hot head, wiped his perspiring hands, moistened his lips, cooled his fiery eyelids, sponged his heated skin, and administered whatever she could find in the house that the imagination could conceive as likely to be in any way alleviating.

That she might have been the cause, or partially the cause of all this, interfused misery with her sorrow. Six months before this date, a scene, almost similar in its mechanical parts, had been enacted at Hintock House. It was between a pair of persons most intimately connected in their lives with these. Outwardly like as it had been, it was yet infinite in spiritual difference, though a woman's devotion had been common to both. Grace rose from her attitude of affection, and bracing her energy saw that something practical must immediately be done. Much as she would have liked, in the emotion of the moment, to keep him entirely to herself, medical assistance was necessary while there remained a possibility of preserving him alive.

Such assistance was fatal to her own concealment, but even had the chance of benefiting him been less than it was, she would have run the hazard for his sake. The question was, where should she get a medical man, competent and near? There was one such man, and only one within accessible distance, a man who, if it were possible to save Winterbourne's life, had the brain most likely to do it. If human pressure could bring him, that man ought to be brought to the sick Giles's side. The attempt should be made. Yet she dreaded to leave her patient, and the minutes raced past, and yet she postponed her departure. At last, when it was after eleven o'clock, Winterbourne fell into a fitful sleep, and it seemed to afford her an opportunity.

She hastily made him as comfortable as she could, put on her things, cut a new candle from the bunch hanging in the cupboard, and, having set it up, placed it so that the light did not fall upon his eyes. She closed the door and started.

The spirit of Winterbourne seemed to keep her company and banish all sense of darkness from her mind. The rains had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood and rotting leaves that lay about her path, which, as scattered by her feet, spread abroad like spilt milk. She would not run the hazard of losing her way by plunging into any short, unfrequented track through the denser parts of the woodland, but followed a more open course, which eventually brought her to the highway. Once here she ran along with great speed, Animated by a devoted purpose which had much about it that was stoical, and it was with scarcely any faltering of spirit that, after an hour's progress, she passed over Rubdown Hill and onward towards that same Hintock, and that same house out of which she had fled a few days before in irresistible alarm.

But that had happened which, above all other things, of chance and change, could make her deliberately frustrate her plan of flight and sink all regard of personal consequences.

One speciality of Fitzpiers's was respected by Grace as much as ever—his professional skill. In this she was right. Had his persistence equaled his insight, instead of being the spasmodic and fitful thing it was, fame and fortune need never have remained a wish with him. His freedom from conventional errors and crusted prejudices had indeed been such as to retard rather than accelerate his advance in Hintock and its neighborhood, Where people could not believe that nature herself effected cures, and that the doctor's business was only to smooth the way. It was past midnight when Grace arrived opposite her father's house, now again temporarily occupied by her husband, unless he had already gone away.

Ever since her emergence from the denser plantations about Winterbourne's residence, a pervasive lightness had hung upon the damp autumn sky, in spite of the vault of cloud. Signifying that a moon of some age was shining above its arch. The two white gates were distinct, and the white balls on the pillars and the puddles and damp ruts left by the recent rain had a cold corpse-eyed luminousness. She entered by the lower gate, and crossed the quadrangle to the wing, wherein the apartments that had been hers since her marriage were situate, till she stood under a window which, if her husband were in the house, gave light to his bedchamber. She faltered, and paused with her hand on her heart in spite of herself.

Could she call to her presence the very cause of all her foregoing troubles? Alas, old Jones was seven miles off. Giles was possibly dying. What else could she do?

It was in a perspiration, wrought even more by consciousness than by exercise, that she picked up some gravel, threw it at the panes, and waited to see the result. The night-bell which had been fixed when Fitzpiers first took up his residence there still remained, but as it had fallen into disuse with the collapse of his practice and his elopement, she did not venture to pull it now.

Whoever slept in the room had heard her signal, slight as it was. In half a minute the window was opened, and a voice said, "'Yes?' inquiringly. Grace recognized her husband in the speaker at once. Her effort was now to disguise her own accents. Doctor, she said in as unusual a tone as she could command. A man is dangerously ill in one chimney hut out towards Delborough, and you must go to him at once in all mercy. I will, readily. The alacrity, surprise and pleasure expressed in his reply amazed her for a moment, but in truth they denoted the sudden relief of a man who, having got back in a mood of contrition from erratic abandonment to fearful joys, found the soothing routine of professional practice unexpectedly opening anew to him.

The highest desire of his soul just now was for a respectable life of painstaking. If this, his first summons since his return, had been to attend upon a cat or dog, he would scarcely have refused it in the circumstances. "'Do you know the way?' she asked. "'Yes,' said he. "'One chimney hut,' she repeated, and immediately. Yes, yes," said Fitzpiers. She remained no longer. She passed out of the white gate without slamming it, and hastened on her way back. Her husband, then, had re-entered her father's house. How he had been able to effect a reconciliation with the old man, what were the terms of the treaty between them, she could not so much as conjecture. Some sort of truce must have been entered into, that was all she could say.

But close as the question lay to her own life, There was a more urgent one which banished it, and she traced her steps quickly along the meandering trackways. Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to leave the house. The state of his mind, over and above his professional seal, was peculiar. At Grace's first remark he had not recognized or suspected her presence, but as she went on he was awakened to the great resemblance of the speaker's voice to his wife's. He had taken in such good faith the statement of the household on his arrival, that she had gone on a visit for a time because she could not at once bring her mind to be reconciled to him, that he could not quite actually believe his comer to be she.

It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's repentant humour at this date that, on receiving the explanation of her absence, he had made no attempt to outrage her feelings by following her, though nobody had informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his entry. and of all that might have been inferred from her precipitancy. Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to follow her either. He sympathized with her flight, much as he deplored it. Moreover, the tragic color of the antecedent events that he had been a great means of creating checked his instinct to interfere. He prayed and trusted that she had got into no danger on her way, as he supposed, to Sherton, and thence to Exbury, If that were the place she had gone to, forbearing all inquiry, since the strangest of her departure would have made it natural.

A few months before this time, a performance by Grace of one-tenth the magnitude of this would have aroused him to unwonted investigation. It was in the same spirit that he had tacitly assented to Fitzpiers's domiciliation there. The two men had not met face to face, but Mrs. Melbury had proposed herself as an intermediary, who made the surgeon's re-entrance comparatively easy to him. Everything was provisional, and nobody asked questions. Fitzpiers had come in the performance of a plan of penitence, which had originated in circumstances hereafter to be explained. His self-humiliation to the very bass string was deliberate, and as soon as a call reached him from the bedside of a dying man his desire was to set to work and do as much good as he could, with the least possible fuss or show.

He therefore refrained from calling up a stableman to get ready any horse or gig, and set out for one chimney-hut on foot, as Grace had done.

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She re-entered the hut, flung off her bonnet and cloak, and approached the sufferer. He had begun anew those terrible mutterings, and his hands were cold. As soon as she saw him, there returned to her that agony of mind which the stimulus of her journey had thrown off her at time. Could he really be dying? She bathed him, kissed him, forgot all things but the fact that lying there before her was he who had loved her more than the mere lover would have loved, had martyred himself for her comfort, cared more for her self-respect than she had thought of caring. This mood continued till she heard quick, smart footsteps without. She knew whose footsteps they were.

Grace sat on the inside of the bed against the wall, holding Giles's hand, so that when her husband entered, the patient lay between herself and him. He stood transfixed at first, noticing Grace only. Slowly he dropped his glance and discerned who the prostrate man was. Strangely enough, though Grace's distaste for her husband's company had amounted almost to dread, and culminated in actual flight, at this moment her last and least feeling was personal. Sensitive femininity was eclipsed by self-effacing purpose, and that it was a husband who stood there was forgotten. The first look that possessed her face was relief. Satisfaction at the presence of the physician obliterated thoughts of the man, which only returned in the form of a subconscious that did not interfere with her words.

Is he dying? Is there any hope? She cried. Grace! said Fitzpiers in an indescribable whisper, more than invocating, if not quite deprecatory. He was arrested by the spectacle, not so much in its intrinsic character, though that was striking enough to a man who called himself the husband of the sufferer's friend and nurse, but in its character as the counterpart of one that had its hour many months before, in which he had figured as the patient, and the woman had been Felice Charmonde. Is he in great danger? Can you save him? She cried again. Fitzpiers aroused himself, came a little nearer, and examined Winterbourne as he stood. His inspection was concluded in a mere glance. Before he spoke, he looked at her contemplatively, as to the effect of his coming words.

"'He is dying,' he said with dry precision. "'What?' said she. "'Nothing can be done—by me or any other man. It will soon be all over. The extremities are dead already.' His eyes still remained fixed on her, the conclusion to which he had come seemed to end his interest, professional and otherwise, in Winterbourne forever. But it cannot be. He was well three days ago. Not well, I expect. This seemed like a secondary attack which has followed some previous illness, possibly typhoid. It may have been months ago, or recently. Ah, he was not well, you are right. He was ill. He was ill when I came. There was nothing more to do or say. She crouched down at the side of the bed, and Fitzpiers took a seat.

Thus they remained in silence, and long as at last did she never turn her eyes, or apparently her thoughts at all, to her husband. He occasionally murmured with automatic authority some slight directions for alleviating the pain of the dying man, which she mechanically obeyed, bending over him during the intervals in silent tears. Winterbourne never recovered consciousness of what was passing, and that he was going became soon perceptible also to her. In less than an hour the delirium passed. Then there was an interval of somnolent painlessness and soft breathing, at the end of which Winterbourne passed quietly away.

Then Fitzpiers broke the silence. "'Have you lived here long?' said he. Grace was wild with sorrow. With all that had befallen her, with the cruelties that had attacked her, with life, with heaven. She answered at random, "'Yes. By what right do you ask?' "'Don't think I claim any right,' said Fitzpiers sadly. "'It is for you to do and say what you choose. I admit, quite as much as you feel, that I am a vagabond, a brute, not worthy to possess the smallest fragment of you. But here I am, and I have happened to take sufficient interest in you to make that inquiry.' "'He is everything to me,' said Grace, hardly heeding her husband, and laying her hand reverently on the dead man's eyelids, where she kept it a long time, pressing down their lashes with gentle touches, as if she were stroking a little bird.

He watched her a while, and then glanced round the chamber, where his eyes fell upon a few dressing necessities that she had brought. "'Grace, if I may call you so,' he said, I have been already humiliated almost to the depths. I have come back since you refused to join me elsewhere. I have entered your father's house and borne all that that cost me without flinching, because I have felt that I deserved humiliation. But is there yet greater humiliation in store for me? You say you have been living here, that he is everything to you. Am I to draw from that the obvious, the extremest inference? Triumph at any price is sweet to men and women, especially the latter. It was her first and last opportunity for repaying him for the cruel contumely which she had borne at his hands so docilely.

Yes, she answered, and there was that in her subtly compounded nature which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so. Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she half repented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind him. It seemed as if all that remained to him of life and spirit had been abstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not move, and in his efforts at self-control closed his mouth together as a vice. His determination was fairly successful, though she saw how very much greater than she had expected her triumph had been. Presently he looked across at Winterbourne. "'Would it startle you to hear?' He said, as if he hardly had breath, to utter the words.

"'That she who was to me what he was to you is dead also?' "'Dead?' She dead? exclaimed Grace. Yes, Felice Charmin is where this young man is. Never, said Grace vehemently. He went on without heeding the insinuation. And I came back to try to make it up with you, but—Fitzpiers rose and moved across the room to go away, looking downward with the droop of a man whose hope was turned to apathy, if not despair. In going round the door his eye fell upon her once more. She was still bending over the body of Winterbourne, her face close to the young man's. Have you been kissing him during his illness? asked her husband. Yes. Since his fevered state set in? Yes. On his lips? Yes. Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as possible.

He drew a small file from his pocket and returned to offer it to her. Grace shook her head. If you don't do as I tell you, you may soon be like him. I don't care. I wish to die. I'll put it here," said Fitzpiers, placing the bottle on a ledge beside him. The sin of not having warned you will not be on my head at any rate, among my other sins. I am now going, and I will send somebody to you. Your father does not know that you are here, so I suppose I shall be bound to tell him. Certainly. Fitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of his feet was soon immersed in the silence that pervaded the spot. Grace remained kneeling and weeping. She hardly knew how long, and then she sat up, covered poor Giles's features, and went towards the door where her husband had stood.

No sign of any other comer greeted her ear, the only perceptible sounds being the tiny cracklings of the dead leaves, which, like a feather-bed, had not yet done rising to their normal level where indented by the pressure of her husband's receding footsteps. It reminded her that she had been struck with a change in his aspect. The extremely intellectual look that had always been in his face was wrought to a finer phase by thinness. And the careworn dignity had been superadded. She returned to Winterbourne's side, and during her meditations another tread drew near the door, entered the outer room, and halted at the entrance of the chamber where Grace was. "'What? Marty?' said Grace. "'Yes, I have heard,' said Marty, whose demeanor had lost all its girlishness under the stroke that seemed almost literally to have bruised her.

"'He died for me.' murmured Grace heavily. Marty did not fully comprehend, and she answered, "'He belongs to neither of us now, and your beauty is no more powerful with him than my plainness. I've come to help you, ma'am. He never cared for me, and he cared much for you, but he cares for us both alike now.' "'Oh, don't, don't, Marty,' Marty said no more, but knelt over Winterbourne from the other side. "'Did you meet my husband?' Mr. Fitzpiers? No. Then what brought you here? I come this way sometimes. I have got to go to the farther side of the wood this time of the year, and I am obliged to get there before four o'clock in the morning, to begin heating the oven for the early baking. I have passed by here often at this time.

Grace looked at her quickly. Then did you know I was here? Yes, ma'am. Did you tell anybody? No, I knew you lived in the hut, that he'd get it up to you, and lodged out himself. Did you know where he lodged? No, that I couldn't find out. Was it at Delborough? No, it was not there, Marty. Would it have been? It would have saved, saved. To check her tears, she turned, and seeing a book on the window-bench, took it up. Look, Marty, this is a salter. He was not an outwardly religious man, but he was pure and perfect in his heart. Shall we read a psalm over him? Oh, yes, we will, with all my heart. Grace opened the thin brown book, which poor Giles had kept at hand, mainly for the convenience of whetting his penknife upon its leather covers.

She began to read in that rich, devotional voice peculiar to women only on such occasions. When it was over, Marty said— I should like to pray for his soul. "'So should I,' said her companion. "'But we must not.' "'Why, nobody would know.' Grace could not resist the argument, influenced as she was by the sense of making amends for having neglected them in the body, and their tender voices united and filled the narrow room with supplicatory murmurs that a Calvinist might have envied. They had hardly ended when new and more numerous footfalls were audible, Also persons in conversation, one of whom Grace recognized as her father. She rose and went to the outer apartment, in which there was only such light as beamed from the inner one.

Melbury and Mrs. Melbury were standing there. "'I don't reproach you, Grace,' said her father, with an estranged manner, and in a voice not at all like his old voice. "'What has come upon you and us is beyond reproach, beyond weeping, beyond wailing.' Perhaps I drove you to it, but I am hurt, I am scourged, I am astonished. In the face of this, there is nothing to be said. Without replying, Grace turned and glided back to the inner chamber. Marty, she said quickly, I cannot look my father in the face until he knows the true circumstances of my life here. Go and tell him what you have told me, what you saw, that he gave up his house to me. She sat down, her face buried in her hands, and Marty went, and after a short absence returned.

Then Grace rose, and going out asked her father if he had met her husband. "'Yes,' said Melbury. "'And you know all that has happened?' "'I do. Forgive me, Grace, for suspecting me of worse than rashness. I ought to know you better. Are you coming with me to what was once your home?' "'No, I am staying with him.' Take no account of me any more. The unwonted, perplexing, agitating relations in which she had stood to Winterbourne quite lately, brought about by Melbury's own contrivance, could not fail to soften the natural anger of a parent at her more recent doings. "'My daughter, things are bad,' he rejoined. "'But why do you persevere to make him worse? What good can you do to Giles by staying here with him?' Mind, I ask no questions.

I don't inquire why you decided to come here, or anything as to what your course would have been if you had not died, though I know there's no deliberate harm in you. As for me, I have lost all claim upon you, and I make no complaint. But I do say that by coming back with me now you will show no less kindness to him, and escape any sound of shame.

But I don't wish to escape it. If you don't on your own account, can you not wish it on mine and hers? Nobody except our household knows that you left home. Then why should you, by a piece of perverseness, bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave? If it were not for my husband? She began, moved by his words. But how can I meet him there? How can any woman who is not a mere man's creature join him after what has taken place? He would go away again rather than keep you out of the house. How do you know that, Father? "'We met him on our way here, and he told us so,' said Mrs. Melbury. "'He had said something like it before. He seemed very much upset altogether.' He declared to her that when he came to our house that he would wait for time and devotion to bring about his forgiveness, said her husband.

"'That was it, wasn't it, Lucy?' "'Yes. He said that he would not intrude upon you, Grace, till you gave him absolute permission,' Mrs. Melbury added. The antecedent to considerateness of Fitzpiers was as welcome to Grace as it was unexpected, and though she did not desire his presence, she was sorry that by her retaliatory fiction she had given him a different reason for avoiding her. She made no further objections to accompanying her parents, taking them into the inner room to give Winterbourne a last look, and gathering up the two or three things that belonged to her. While she was doing this, the two women came who had been called by Melbury, And at their heels, poor Creedle. Forgive me, but I can't ruin my morning nohow, as a man should, Mr.

Melbury, he said. I ha'n't seen him since Thursday night, and I've wondered for days where he's been keeping. There was I expecting him to come home and tell me to wash out the cider-barrels against the making, and here he was. Well, I knowed him from Table High. I knowed his father. Used to bide out upon two sticks in the sun afore he died. And now we've seen the end of the family, which we can't afford to lose, with such a scanty lot of good folk in Hintock as we got. And now Robert Creedle'll be nailed up on parish boards, I believe, and nobody'll clutch down a cyphery.

They started for home, Marty and Creedle remaining behind. For a time Grace and her father walked side by side without speaking. It was just in the blue of the dawn, and the chilling tone of the sky was reflected in her cold, wet face. The whole woods seemed to be a house of death, pervaded by loss to its uttermost length and breadth. Winterbone was gone, and the copses seemed to show the want of him. The young trees, so many of which he had planted, and of which he had spoken so truly, when he had said that he should fall before they fell, were at that very moment sending out their roots in the direction that he had given them with his subtle hand.

One thing made it tolerable to us that your husband should come back to the house, said Melbury at last, the death of Mrs. Charmond. Ah, yes, said Grace, arousing slightly to the recollection. He told me so. Did he tell you how she died? It was no such death as Giles's. She was shot by a disappointed lover. It occurred in Germany. The unfortunate man shot himself afterwards. He was that South Carolina gentleman of very passionate nature who used to haunt this place to force her to an interview, and followed her about everywhere. So ends the brilliant Felice Charmonde. Once a good friend to me, but no friend to you. I can forgive her. said Grace absently. Did Edgar tell you of this? No, but he put a London newspaper, giving an account of it, on the hall table, folded in such a way that we should see it.

It'll be in the Sheraton paper this week, no doubt. To make the event more solemn still to him, he had just before had sharp words with her, and left her. He told Lucy this, as nothing about him appears in the newspaper. And the cause of the quarrel was, of all people, she we've left behind us.

Do you mean Marty? Grace spoke the words but perfunctorily, for, pertinent and pointed as Melbury's story was, she had no heart for it now. Yes, Marty South. Melbury persisted in his narrative to divert her from her present grief, if possible. Before he went away she wrote him a letter, which he kept in his pocket a long while before reading. He chanced to pull it out in Mrs. Sharman's presence, and read it out loud. It contained something which teased her very much, and that led to the rupture. She was following him to make it up when she met with her terrible death. Melbury did not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was that Marty Selb's letter had been concerning a certain personal adornment common to herself and Mrs.

Charmond. Her bullet reached its billet at last. The scene between Fitzpiers and Felice had been sharp. As only a scene can be which arises out of the mortification of one woman by another in the presence of a lover. True, Marty had not effected it by word of mouth. The charge about the locks of hair was made simply by Fitzpiers, reading her letter to him aloud to Felice in the playfully ironical tones of one who had become a little weary of his situation, and was finding his friend, in the phrase of George Herbert, a flat delight. He had stroked those false tresses with his hand many a time without knowing them to be transplanted, and it was impossible when the discovery was so abruptly made to avoid being finely satirical despite her generous disposition.

That was how it had begun, and tragedy had been its end. On his abrupt departure she had followed him to the station, but the train was gone, and in travelling to Baden in search of him she had met his rival, whose reproaches led to an altercation and a death of both. Of that precipitate scene of passion and crime Fitzpiers had known nothing till he saw an account of it in the papers, where, fortunately for himself, no mention was made of his prior acquaintance with the unhappy lady. Nor was there any allusion to him in the subsequent inquiry. The double death being attributed to some gambling losses, though, in point of fact, neither one of them had visited the tables. Melbury and his daughter drew near the house.

Having seen but one living thing on their way, a squirrel, which did not run up its tree, but dropping the sweet chestnut which it carried, cried, Chut, Chut, Chut, and stanked with its hind legs on the ground. When the roofs and chimneys of the homestead began to emerge from the screen of boughs, Grace started, and checked herself in her abstracted advance. "'You clearly understand,' she said to her stepmother, some of her old misgiving returning, "'that I am coming back only on condition of his leaving as he promised. Will you let him know this, that there may be no mistake?' Mrs. Melbury, who had had some long private talks with Fitzpiers, assured Grace that she need have no doubts on that point, and that he would probably be gone by the evening.

Grace then entered with him into Melbury's wing of the house, and sat down listlessly in the parlour while her stepmother went to Fitzpiers.

The prompt obedience to their wishes, which the surgeon showed, did honour to him, if anything could. Before Mrs. Melbury had returned to the room, Grace, who was sitting on the parlour-window bench, saw her husband go from the door under the increasing light of morning, with a bag in his hand. While passing through the gate, he turned his head. The firelight of the room she sat in threw her figure into dark relief against the window as she looked through the panes, and he must have seen her distinctly. In a moment he went on. The gate fell to, and he disappeared. At the hut she had declared that another had displaced him, and now she had banished him.

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The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy Chapter Forty-Four. Fitzpiers had hardly been gone an hour when Grace began to sicken. The next day she kept her room. Old Jones was called in. He murmured some statements in which the words feverish symptoms occurred. Grace heard him, and guessed the means by which she had brought this visitation upon herself. One day, while she still lay there with her head throbbing, wondering if she really were going to join him who had gone before her, Grammar Oliver came to her bedside. "'I don't know where this is meant for you to take, ma'am,' she said, "'but I found it on the table. It was left by Marty, I think, when she came this morning.' Grace turned her hot eyes upon what Grammar held up.

It was the file left at the hut by her husband when he had begged her to take some drops of its contents, if she wished to preserve herself from falling victim to the malady which had pulled down Winterbourne. She examined it as well as she could. The liquid was of an opaline hue, and bore a label with an inscription in Italian. He had probably got it in his wanderings abroad. She knew but little Italian, but could understand that the cordial was a febrifuge of some sort. Her father, her mother, and all the household were anxious for her recovery, and she resolved to obey her husband's directions. Whatever the risk, if any, she was prepared to run it. A glass of water was brought, and the drops dropped in.

The effect, though not miraculous, was remarkable. In less than an hour she felt calmer, cooler, better able to reflect, less inclined to fret and chafe and wear herself away. She took a few drops more. From that time the fever retreated, and went out like a damped conflagration. "'How clever he is,' she said regretfully. "'Why could he not have had more principle, so as to turn his great talents to good account? Perhaps he has saved my useless life. But he doesn't know it, and doesn't care whether he has saved it or not, and on that account will never be told by me. Probably he only gave it to me in the arrogance of his skill.' To show the greatness of his resources beside mine, as Elijah drew down fire from heaven.

As soon as she had quite recovered from this foiled attack upon her life, Grace went to Marty South's cottage. The current of her being had again set towards the loss of Giles Winterbourne. Marty, she said. We both loved him. Will we go to his grave together? Great Hintuck Church stood at the upper part of the village, and could be reached without passing through the street. In the dusk of the late September day, they went thither by secret ways, walking mostly in silence side by side, each busied with her own thoughts. Grace had a trouble exceeding Marty's, that haunting sense of having put out the light of his life by her own hasty doings. She had tried to persuade herself that he might have died of his illness, even if she had not taken possession of his house.

Sometimes she succeeded in her attempt, sometimes she did not. They stood by the grave together, and though the sun had gone down, they could see over the woodland for miles, down to the vale in which he had been accustomed to descend every year, with his portable mill and press, to make cider about this time. Perhaps Grace's first grief, The discovery that if he had lived he could never have claimed her, had some power in softening this, the second. On Marty's part there was the same consideration. Never would she have been his, as no anticipation of gratified affection had been in existence while he was with him. There was none to be disappointed now that he was gone. Grace was abased when, by degree, she found that she never understood Giles as Marty had done.

Marty South alone, of all the women in Hintock and the world, had approximated to Winterbourne's level of intelligent intercourse with nature. In that respect she had formed a complement to him in the other sex, had lived as his counterpart, had subjoined her thought to his as a corollary. The casual glimpses which the ordinary population bestowed upon that wondrous world of sap and leaves called the Hintock woods had been with these two, Giles and Marty, a clear gaze. They had been possessed of its finer mysteries as of commonplace knowledge. They had been able to read its hieroglyphics as ordinary writing. To them, the sights and sounds of night, winter, wind, storm, amid those dense boughs, which had to grace a touch of the uncanny, and even the supernatural, were simple occurrences whose origin, continuance, and laws they foreknew.

They had planted together, and together they had felled. Together they had, with the run of years, mentally collected those remoter signs and symbols, which, seen in few, were of ruinic obscurity. But altogether made an alphabet. From the slight lashings of the twigs upon their faces when brushing through them in the dark, they could pronounce upon the species of the tree whence they stretched. From the quality of the wind's murmur through a bough, they could in like manner name its sort afar off. They knew by a glance at a trunk if its heart were sound or tainted with incipient decay, and by the state of its upper twigs the stratum that had been reached by its roots. The artifices of the season were seen by them from the conjuror's own point of view, and not from that of the spectators.

"'He ought to have married you, Marty, and nobody else in the world,' said Grace with conviction, after thinking somewhat in the above's drain. Marty shook her head. "'In all our out-of-door days and years together, ma'am,' she replied, "'the one thing that he never spoke of to me was love, nor I to him.' And yet you and he could speak in a tongue that nobody else knew, not even my father, though he came nearest knowing, the tongues of the trees and fruits and flowers themselves.

She could indulge in mournful fancies like this to Marty, but the hard core to her grief, which Marty's had not, remained. Had she been sure that Giles's death resulted entirely from his exposure, it would have driven her well nigh to insanity. But there was always that bare possibility, that his exposure had only precipitated what was inevitable. She longed to believe that it had not done even this. There was only one man whose opinion on the circumstances she would be at all disposed to trust. Her husband was that man. Yet to ask him it would be necessary to detail the true conditions in which she and Winterbourne had lived during these three or four critical days that followed her flight. And in withdrawing her original defiant announcement on that point there seemed a weakness which she did not care to show.

She doubted that Fitzpiers would believe her if she made a clean confession of the actual situation, but to volunteer the correction would seem like signaling for a truce, and that, in her present frame of mind, was what she did not feel the need of. It would probably not appear a surprising statement, after what has been already declared of Fitzpiers, that a man whom Grace's fidelity could not keep faithful was stung into passionate throbs of interest concerning her by her avowal of the contrary. He declared to himself that he had never known her dangerously full compass if she were capable of such reprisal, and, melancholy as it may be to admit the fact, his own humiliation and regret engendered a smouldering admiration of her.

He passed a month or two of great misery in Exbury, the place to which he had retired, Quite as much misery, indeed, as Grace, could she have known it, would have been inclined to inflict upon any living creature, how much soever he might have wronged her. Then a sudden hope dawned upon him. He wondered if her affirmation were true. He asked himself whether it were not the act of a woman, whose natural purity and innocence had blinded her to the contingencies of such an announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in many cases, women who ventured on hazardous matters did so because they lacked an imagination sensuous enough to feel their full force. In this light, Grace's bold avowal might merely have denoted the desperation of one who was a child to the realities of obliquity.

Fitzpiers's mental sufferings and suspense led him at last to take a melancholy journey to the neighbourhood of Little Hintock. And here he hovered for hours around the scene of the purest emotional experiences that he had ever known in his life. He walked about the woods that surrounded Melbury's house, keeping out of sight like a criminal. It was a fine evening, and on his way homeward he passed near Marty South's cottage. As usual, she had lighted her candle without closing her shutters. He saw her within, as he had seen her many times before.

She was polishing tools, And though he had not wished to show himself, he could not resist speaking into her through the half-open door.

"'What are you doing that for, Marty?' "'Because I want to clean them. They are not mine.' He could see, indeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy, and another was a bill-hook, which she could only have used with both hands. The spade, though not a new one, had been so completely burnished that it was as bright as silver. Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborns, and he put the question to her. She replied in the affirmative. "'I am going to keep him,' she said. "'But I can't get his apple mill and press. I wish I could. It is going to be sold, they say.' "'Then I will buy it for you,' said Fitzpiers. "'That will be making you a return for the kindness you did me.' His glance fell upon the girl's rare-coloured hair, which had grown again.

"'Oh, Marty, Those locks of yours, and that letter. But it was a kindness to send it, nevertheless," he added, musingly. After this there was a confidence between them, such confidence as there had never been before. Marty was shy, indeed, of speaking about the letter, and her motives in writing it, but she thanked him warmly for his promise of the cider-press. She would travel with it in the autumn season, as he had done, she said. She would be quite strong enough with old Creedle as an assistant. Ah, there was one nearer to him than you, said Fitzpiers, referring to Winterbourne, one who lived where he lived, and was with him when he died. Then Marty, suspecting that he did not know the true circumstances from the fact that Mrs.

Fitzpiers and himself were living apart, told him of Giles's generosity to Grace in giving up his house to her at the risk, and possibly the sacrifice, of his own life. When the surgeon heard it, he almost envied Giles his chivalrous character. He expressed a wish to Marty that his visitor should be kept secret, and went home thoughtfully, feeling that in more than one sense his journey to Hintock had not been in vain. He would have given much to win Grace's forgiveness then, but whatever he dared to hope for in that kind from the future, there was nothing to be done yet, while Giles Winterbourne's memory was green. To wait was imperative. A little time might melt her frozen thoughts, and lead her to look on him with toleration.

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The weeks and months of mourning for Winterbourne had been passed by Grace in the soothing monotony of the memorial act to which she and Marty had devoted themselves. Twice a week the pair went in the dusk to Great Hintock, and, like the two mourners in Cymbeline, sweetened his sad grave with their flowers and their tears. Sometimes Grace thought that it was a pity neither one of them had been his wife for a little while, and given the world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes. Nothing ever had brought home to her with such force as the death how little acquirements and culture weigh beside Stirling's personal character. While her simple sorrow for his loss took its softer edge with the lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her self-reproach at having had a possible hand in causing it knew little abatement.

Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and decay of the leaf. Discussion of the almost contemporaneous death of Mrs. Charmonde abroad had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a marvelous escape from being dragged into the inquiry which followed it through the accident of their having parted just before, under the influence of Marty South's letter, the tiny instrument of a cause deep in nature. Her body was not brought home. It seemed to accord well with the fitful fever of that impassioned woman's life that she should not have found a native grave. She had enjoyed but a life interest in the estate which, after her death, passed to a relative of her husband's, one who knew not the lease, and whose purpose seemed to be to blot out every vestige of her.

On a certain day in February, the cheerful day of St. Valentine, in fact, a letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had be mentally promised her for that particular day a long time before. It announced that Fitzpiers was living at some midland town, where he had obtained a temporary practice as assistant to some local medical man, whose curative principles were all wrong, though he dared not set them right. He had thought fit to communicate with her on that day of tender traditions, to inquire if, in the event of his obtaining a substantial practice that he had in view elsewhere, she could forget the past, and bring herself to join him. There the practical part ended, and he went on.

My last year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace, and dearest wife that ever an erring man undervalued. You may be absolutely indifferent to what I say, but let me say it. I have never loved any woman, alive or dead, as I love, respect, and honor you at this present moment. What you told me in pride and haughtiness of your heart I never believed. This, by the way, was not strictly true. But even if I had believed it, it could not have estranged me from you. Is there any use in telling you? No, there is not. That I dream of your ripe lips more frequently than I say my prayers? That the old familiar rustle of your dress often returns upon my mind till it distracts me? If you could condescend, even only to see me again, you would be breathing life into a corpse.

My pure, pure grace, modest as turtle-dove, how came I ever to possess you? For the sake of being present in your mind on this lover's day, I think I would almost rather have you hate me a little than not think of me at all. You may call my fancies whimsical, but remember, sweet lost one, that nature is one in love, and where it is fine it sends some instance of itself. I will not intrude upon you further now. Make me a little bit happy by sending back one line to say that you will consent, at any rate, to a short interview. I will meet you and leave you as a mere acquaintance if you will only afford me this slight means of making a few explanations and of putting my position before you. Believe me, in spite of all you may do or feel, your lover always wants your husband.

E. It was, oddly enough, the first occasion, or nearly the first, on which Grace had ever received a love-letter from him, his courtship having taken place under conditions which rendered letter-writing unnecessary. Its perusal, therefore, had a certain novelty for her. She thought that upon the whole he wrote love-letters very well, but the chief rational interest of the letter to the reflective grace lay in the chance that such a meeting as he proposed would offer her of setting her doubts at rest, one way or the other, on her actual share in Winterbourne's death. The relief of consulting a skilled mind, the one professional man who had seen Giles at the time, would be immense. As for that statement that she had uttered in her disdainful grief, which at the time she had regarded as her triumph, she was quite prepared to admit to him that his belief was the true one.

For in wronging herself as she did when she made it, she had done what to her was a far more serious thing. She wronged Winterbourne's memory.

Without consulting her father, or anyone in the house or out of it, Grace replied to the letter. She agreed to meet Fitzpiers on two conditions, of which the first was that the place of the meeting should be the top of Rubdown Hill, the second that he would not object to Marty South accompanying her. Whatever part, much or little, there may have been in Fitzpiers's so-called valentine to his wife, he felt a delight as of the bursting of spring when her brief reply came. It was one of the few pleasures that he had experienced of late years at all resembling those of his early youth. He promptly replied that he accepted the conditions, and named the day and hour at which he would be on the spot she mentioned.

A few minutes before three, on the appointed day, found him climbing the well-known hill, which had been the axis of so many critical movements in their lives during his residence at Hintock. The sight of each homely and well-remembered object Swelled the regret that seldom left him now. Whatever paths might lie open to his future, the soothing shades of Hintock were forbidden him forever as a permanent dwelling-place. He longed for the society of grace, but to lay offerings on her slighted altar was his first aim, and until her propitiation was complete he would constrain her in no way to return to him. The least reparation that he could make, in a case where he would gladly have made much, Would be to let her feel absolutely free to choose between living with him and without him.

Moreover, as subtlest in emotions, he cultivated as under glass strange and mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just at present. To show any forwardness in suggesting a modus vivendi to grace would be to put an end to these exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the contemplation of the soft misery she caused him. Approaching the hilltop with a mind strung to these notions, Fitzpiers discerned a gay procession of people coming over the crest, and was not long in perceiving it to be a wedding party. Though the wind was keen, the women were in light attire, and the flowered waistcoats of the men had a pleasing vividness of pattern.

Each of the gentler ones clung to the arm of her partner so tightly as to have with him one step, rise, swing, gait, almost one centre of gravity. In The Buxom Bride, Fitzpiers recognized no other than Suki Damsin, who, in her light gown, looked a giantess. The small husband beside her he saw to be Tim Tang's. Fitzpiers could not escape, for they had seen him. Though of all the beauties in the world whom he did not wish to meet, Suki was the chief. But he put the best face on the matter that he could and came on, the approaching company evidently discussing him and his separation from Mrs. Fitzpiers. As the couples closed upon him, he expressed his congratulations. "'We be just walking round the parishes to show ourselves a bit,' said Tim.

First we head across to Dalborough, and athwart to here, and from here we go to Rubdown and Millshot, and then round by the crossroads home. Home, says I, but it won't be that long. We'll be off next month. Indeed. Where to? Tim informed him that they were going to New Zealand. Not but that he would have been contented with Hintock, but his wife was ambitious and wanted to leave, so he had given way. Then goodbye, said Fitzpiers. I may not see you again. He shook hands with Tim, and turned to the bride. Goodbye, Suki, he said, taking her hand also. I wish you and your husband prosperity in the country you have chosen. With this he left them, and hastened on to his appointment. The wedding party reformed and resumed March likewise.

But in restoring his arm to Sookey, Tim noticed that her full and blooming countenance had undergone a change. "'Hullo, my dear. What's the matter?' said Tim. "'Nothing to speak of,' said she. But to give the lie to her assertion, she was seized with lachrymose twitches that soon produced a dribbling face. "'Now, what the devil's this about?' exclaimed the bridegroom. She's a little wee bit overcome, poor dear," said the first bridesmaid, unfolding her handkerchief and wiping Suki's eyes. "'I never did like parting from people,' said Suki, as soon as she could speak. "'Why him, in particular? Well, he's such a clever doctor. "'Tis a thousand pities we shan't see him any more. There'd be no such clever doctor as he in New Zealand, if I should require one, and the thought of it got the better in my feelings.' They walked on, but Tim's face had grown rigid and pale, for he recalled slight circumstances disregarded at the time of their occurrence.

The former boisterous laughter of the wedding party at the groomsman's jokes was heard ringing through the woods no more.

By this time Fitzpiers had advanced on his way to the top of the hill, where he saw two figures emerging from the bank on the right hand. These were the expected ones, Grace and Marty South, who had evidently come there by a short and secret path through the wood. Grace was muffled up in her winter dress, and he thought that she had never looked so seductive as at this moment, in the noontide bright but heatless sun, and the keen wind, and the purplish-grey masses of brushwood around. Fitzpiers continued to regard the nearing picture, till at length their glances met for a moment, when she demurely set off hers at a tangent and gave him the benefit of her three-quarter face, while with courteous completeness of conduct he lifted his hat in a large arc.

Marty dropped behind, and when Fitzpiers held out his hand, Grace touched it with her fingers. "'I have agreed to be here mostly because I wanted to ask you something important,' said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her intonation modulating in a direction that she had not quite wished it to take. I am most attentive, said her husband. Shall we take to the wood for privacy? Grace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in, and they kept the public road. At any rate would she take his arm? This was also gravely negatived, the refusal being audible to Marty. Why not? he inquired. Oh, Mr. Fitzpiers, how can you ask? Right, right, he said, his effusiveness shrivelled up. As they walked on, she returned to her inquiry. It is about a matter that may perhaps be unpleasant to you, but I think I need not consider that too carefully.

Not at all, said Fitzpiers heroically. Then she took him back to the time of poor Winterbourne's death. and related the precise circumstances amid which his fatal illness had come upon him, particularizing the dampness of the shelter to which he had betaken himself, his concealment from her of the hardship that he was undergoing, all that he had put up with, all that he had done for her in his scrupulous considerateness. The retrospect brought her to tears, as she asked him if he thought that the sin of having driven him to his death was upon her.

Fitzpiers could hardly help showing his satisfaction at what her narrative indirectly revealed. The actual harmlessness of an escapade with her lover, which had at first by her own showing looked so grave, and he did not care to inquire whether that harmlessness had been the result of aim or accident. With regard to her question, he declared that in his judgment no human being could answer it. He thought that upon the whole the balance of probabilities turned in her favor. Winterbourne's apparent strength during the last months of his life must have been delusive. It had often occurred that after a first attack of that insidious disease, a person's apparent recovery was a physiological mendacity.

The relief which came to Grace lay almost as much in sharing her knowledge of the particulars with an intelligent mind as in the assurances Fitzpiers gave her. "'Well, then, to put this case before you and obtain your professional opinion was chiefly why I consented to come here to-day,' said she, when he had reached the aforesaid conclusion. "'For no other reason at all?' he asked ruefully. "'It was nearly the whole.' They stood and looked over a gate at twenty or thirty starlings feeding in the grass, and he started the talk again by saying in a low voice—' And yet I love you more than I ever loved you in my life. Grace did not move her eyes from the birds, and folded her delicate lips as if to keep them in subjection.

It is a different kind of love altogether, said he, less passionate, more profound. It has nothing to do with the material conditions of the object at all, much to do with the character and goodness as revealed by closer observation. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love. "'That's out of measure for measure,' she said, slyly. "'Oh, yes, I meant it as a citation,' blandly replied Fitzpiers. "'Well, then, why not give me a very little bit of your heart again?' The crash of a felled tree in the remote depths of the wood recalled the past at that moment, and all the homely faithfulness of Winterbourne. "'Don't ask it.' "'My heart is in the grave with Giles,' she replied staunchly.

"'Mine is with you, in no less steep a grave, I fear, according to that. I am very sorry, but it cannot be helped.' "'How can you be sorry for me when you willfully keep open the grave?' "'Oh, no, that is not so,' returned Grace quickly, and moved to go away from him. "'But, dearest Grace,' said he, "'you have condescended to come, And I thought from it that perhaps when I had passed through a long state of probation you would be generous, but if there can be no hope of our getting completely reconciled, treat me gently, wretch though I am. I did not say you were a wretch, nor have I ever said so. But you have such a contemptuous way of looking at me that I fear you think so. Grace's heart struggled between the wish not to be harsh and the fear that she might mislead him.

"'I cannot look contemptuous unless I feel contempt,' she said evasively. "'And all I feel is lovelessness.' "'I have been very bad, I know,' he returned. "'But unless you can really love me again, Grace, I would rather go away from you forever. I don't want you to receive me again for duty's sake, or anything of that sort. If I had not cared more for your affection and forgiveness than my own personal comfort, I should not have come back here.' I could have obtained a practice at a distance, and have lived my own life without coldness or reproach. But I have chosen to return to the one spot on earth where my name is tarnished, to enter the house of a man from whom I have had worse treatment than from any other man alive, all for you.

This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who began to look as if she thought she had been shockingly severe. Before you go, he continued, I want to know your pleasure about me. What do you wish me to do or not to do?

You are independent of me, and it seems a mockery to ask that. Far be it from me to advise. But I will think it over. I rather need advice myself than stand in a position to give it. You don't need advice, wisest, dearest woman that ever lived. If you did—would you give it to me? Would you act upon what I gave? That is not a fair inquiry, she said, smiling despite her gravity. I don't mind hearing it. What do you do really think the most correct and proper course for me? It is so easy for me to say, yet I dare not, for it would be provoking you to remonstrances. Knowing, of course, what the advice would be, she did not press him further, and was about to beckon Marty forward and leave him, when he interrupted her with, Oh, one moment, dear Grace.

Will you meet me again? She eventually agreed to meet him that day, fortnight. Fitzpiers expostulated at the interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness with which she entreated him not to come sooner made him say hastily that he submitted to her will, that he would regard her as a friend only, anxious for his reform and well-being, till such time as she might allow him to exceed that privilege.

All this was to assure her. It was only too clear that he had not won her confidence yet. It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all his deductions from previous experience, to find that this girl, though she had been married to him, could yet be so coy. Notwithstanding a certain fascination that it carried with it, his reflections were sombre as he went homeward. He saw how deep had been his offence to produce so great a weariness in a gentle and once unsuspicious soul. He was himself too fastidious to care to coerce her. To be an object of misgiving or dislike to a woman who shared his home was what he could not endure the thought of. Life as it stood was more tolerable. When he was gone, Marty joined Mrs.

Fitzpiers. She would fain have consulted Marty on the question of platonic relations with her former husband, as she preferred to regard him. But Marty showed no great interest in her affairs, so Grace said nothing. They came onward. and saw Melbury standing at the scene of the felling which had been audible to them, when, telling Marty that she wished her meeting with Mr. Fitzpiers to be kept private, she left the girl to join her father. At any rate she would consult him on the expediency of occasionally seeing her husband. Her father was cheerful, and walked by her side as he had done in earlier days.

"'I was thinking of you when you came up,' he said. "'I have considered—' That what has happened is for the best. Since your husband has gone away and seems not to wish to trouble you, why, let him go and drop out of your life. Many women are worse off. You can live here comfortably enough, and he can emigrate or do what he likes for his good. I wouldn't mind sending him the further sum of money he might naturally expect to come to him, so that you may not be bothered with him any more. He could hardly have gone on living here without speaking to me or meeting me, and that would have been very unpleasant on both sides. These remarks checked her intention. There was a sense of weakness in following them by saying that she had just met her husband by appointment.

Then would you advise me not to communicate with him? She observed. I shall never advise you again. You are your own mistress. Do as you like. But my opinion is that if you don't live with him, you had better live without him, and not go shilly-shallying and playing Bo Peep. You sent him away, and now he's gone. Very well. Trouble him no more. Grace felt a guiltiness, she hardly knew why, and made no confession.

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The Woods were uninteresting, and Grace stayed indoors a great deal. She became quite a student reading more than she had done since her marriage, But her seclusion was always broken for the periodical visit to Winterbourne's grave with Marty, which was kept up with pious strictness, for the purpose of putting snowdrops, primroses, and other vernal flowers thereon as they came. One afternoon at sunset she was standing just outside her father's garden, which, like the rest of the Hintock enclosures, abutted on to the wood. A slight footpath led along here, forming a secret way to either of the houses by getting through its boundary hedge. Grace was just about to adopt this mode of entry when a figure approached along the path and held up his hand to detain her.

It was her husband. I am delighted, he said, coming up out of breath, and there seemed no reason to doubt his words. I saw you some way off. I was afraid you would go in before I could reach you.

It is a week before the time, she said reproachfully. I said a fortnight from the last meeting. My dear, you don't suppose I could wait a fortnight without trying to get a glimpse of you, even though you had declined to meet me? Would it make you angry to know that I have been along this path at dusk three or four times since our last meeting? Well, how are you?

She did not refuse her hand, but when he showed a wish to retain it a moment longer than mere formality required, she made it smaller so that it slipped away from him, with again that same alarmed look which always followed his attempts in this direction. He saw that she was not yet out of the elusive wood, not yet to be treated presumably, and he was correspondingly careful to tranquillise her. His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. I had no idea you came so often, she said. How far do you come from? From Exbury. I always walk from Chertonabbas, for if I hire people will know that I come, and my success with you so far has not been great enough to justify such overtness. Now, my dear one, as I must call you, I put it to you, will you see me a little oftener as the spring advances?

Grace lapsed into unwanted sedateness, and, avoiding the question, said, "'I wish you would concentrate on your profession, and give up those strange studies that used to distract you so much. I am sure you would get on.' "'It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to burn, or at least get rid of, all my philosophical literature. It is in the bookcases in your room. The fact is, I never cared much for abstruse studies.' I am glad to hear you say that. And those other books, those piles of old plays, what good are they to a medical man? None whatever, he replied cheerfully. Sell them at Sheraton, for what they will fetch. And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid spellings of Filz, and Ong, and Ilz, and Mary, and Maffoy.

You haven't been reading them, Grace. Oh, no, I just looked into them, that was all. Make a bonfire of them, directly you get home. I meant to do it myself. I can't think what possessed me ever to collect them. I have only a few professional handbooks now, and I'm quite a practical man. I'm in hopes of having some good news to tell you soon, and then do you think you could come to me again? I would rather you did not press me on that just now, she replied with some feeling. You have said you mean to lead a new, useful, effectual life, but I should like to see you put it in practice for a little while before you address that query to me. Besides, I could not live with you. Why not? Grace was silent a few instants.

I go with Marty to Giles's grave. We swore we would show him that devotion, and I mean to keep it up. Well, I wouldn't mind that at all. I have no right to expect anything else, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the man as well as any I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a part of the way to the place and smoke a cigar on the stile while I waited till you came back.

Then you haven't given up smoking? Well, no, I have thought of doing so, but—his extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the question about smoking had been to affect a diversion. Presently she said firmly, and with a moisture in her eye that he could not see, as her mind returned to poor Giles's frustrated ghost, "'I don't like you to speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak lightly. To be frank with you, quite frank, I think of him as my betrothed lover still. I cannot help it, so that it would be wrong for me to join you.' Fitzpiers was now uneasy. "'You say you're betrothed lover still?' He rejoined. When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged, as we common people say?

When you were away. How could that be? Grace would have avoided this, but her neutral candor led her on. It was when I was under the impression that my marriage with you was about to be annulled, and then he could marry me. So I encouraged him to love me. Fitzpiers winced visibly, and yet, upon the whole, she was right in telling it. Indeed, his perception that she was right in her absolute sincerity kept up his affectionate admiration for her under the pain of the rebuff. Time had been when the avowal that Grace had deliberately taken steps to replace him would have brought him no sorrow, but she so far dominated him now that he could not bear to hear her words, although the object of her high regard was no more.

It's rough upon me, that, he said bitterly. Oh, Grace, I did not know you tried to get rid of me. I suppose it is of no use. But I ask, cannot you hope to find a little love in your heart for me again? If I could, I would oblige you, but I fear I cannot, she replied with illogical ruefulness. And I don't see why you should mind my having had one lover beside yourself in my life, when you have had so many. But I can tell you honestly that I love you better than all of them put together, and that's what you will not tell me. I am sorry, but I fear I cannot, she said, sighing again. I wonder if you ever will. He looked musingly into her indistinct face, as if he would read the future there. Now have pity and tell me.

Will you try? To love you again? Yes, if you can.

"'I don't know how to reply,' she answered, her embarrassment proving her truth. "'Will you promise to leave me quite free as to seeing you or not seeing you?' "'Certainly. Have I given you any ground for you to doubt my first promise in that respect?' She was obliged to admit that he had not. "'Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave,' said he with playful sadness. "'It has been there a long time.' She faintly shook her head, but said—' I will try to think of you more if I can. With this, Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked her when she would meet him again. As we arranged, in a fortnight. If it must be a fortnight, it must. This time, at least. I'll consider by the day I see you again, if I can shorten the interval.

Well, be that as it may, I shall come at least twice a week to look at your window. You must do as you like about that. Good night. Say, husband. She seemed almost inclined to give him the word, but, exclaiming, No, no, I cannot, slipped through the garden hedge and disappeared. Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told her that he should haunt the precincts of the dwelling, but his persistence in this course did not result in seeing her much oftener than at the fortnightly interval, which she had herself marked out as proper. At these times, however, she punctually appeared, And as the spring wore on, the meetings were kept up, though their character changed but little with the increase in their number.

The small garden of the cottage, occupied by the Tang's family, father, son, and now son's wife, aligned with the larger one of the timber dealers at its upper end. And when young Tim, after leaving work at Melbury's, stood at dusk in the little bower at the corner of his enclosure to smoke a pipe, He frequently observed the surgeon pass along the outside track before mentioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly, pensively, looking with a sharp eye into the gardens one after another as he proceeded. For Fitzpiers did not now wish to leave the absorbing spot too quickly after travelling so far to reach it, hoping always for a glimpse of her whom he passionately desired to take to his arms anew.

Now Tim began to be struck with these loitering progresses along the garden boundaries in the gloaming, and wondered what they boded. It was, naturally, quite out of his power to divine the singular sentimental revival in Fitzpiers's heart. The fineness of tissue which could take a deep emotional, almost also an artistic pleasure in being the yearning inamorato of a woman he once had deserted, would have seemed an absurdity to the young Saur. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated, therefore the question of affection as between them was settled. But his sukey had, since that meeting on their marriage-day, repentantly admitted, to the urgency of his questioning, to a good deal concerning her past levities.

Putting all things together, he could hardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers's mysterious visits to this spot with sukey's residence under his roof. But he made himself fairly easy. The vessel in which they were about to emigrate sailed that month, and then Suki would be out of Fitzpiers' way forever. The interval at last expired, and the eve of their departure arrived. They were pausing in the room of the cottage allotted to them by Tim's father after a busy day of preparation, which left them weary. In a corner stood their boxes, crammed and corded, their large case for the hold having already been sent away. The firelight shone upon Sookie's fine face and form as she stood looking into it, and upon the face of Tim seated in a corner, and upon the walls of his father's house, which he was beholding that night almost for the last time.

Tim Tangs was not happy. This scheme of emigration was dividing him from his father, for old Tangs would on no account leave Hintock, and had it not been for Sookie's reputation and his own dignity, Tim would at the last moment have abandoned the project. As he sat in the back part of the room, he regarded her moodily, and the fire and the boxes. One thing he had particularly noticed this evening—she was very restless, fitful in her actions, unable to remain seated, and in a marked degree depressed. "'Sorry that you be going after all, Sookie,' he said. She sighed involuntarily. "'I don't know but that I be.' She answered. "'Tis natural, isn't it, when one is going away?' "'But you wasn't born here as I was.' "'No.

There's folks left behind that you'd fain have with you, I reckon.' "'Why do you think that?' "'I've seen things and have heard things. And, Suki, I say it will be a good move for me to get you away. I don't mind his leavings abroad, but I do mind him at home.' Suki's face was not changed from its aspect of listless indifference by the words. She answered nothing, and shortly afterwards he went out for his customary pipe of tobacco at the top of the garden. The restlessness of Suki had indeed owed its presence to the gentleman of Tim's suspicions, but in a different, and it must be added in justice to her, more innocent sense than he supposed, judging from her doings. She had accidentally discovered that Fitzpiers was in the habit of coming secretly once or twice a week to Hintock, and knew that this evening was a favourite one of the seven for his journey.

As she was going next day to leave the country, Suki thought that there could be no great harm in giving way to a little sentimentality by obtaining a glimpse of him quite unknown to himself or to anybody, and thus taking a silent last farewell. Aware that Fitzpiers's time for passing was at hand, she thus betrayed her feeling. No sooner, therefore, had Tim left the room than she let herself noiselessly out of the house and hastened to the corner of the garden, whence she could witness the surgeon's transit across the scene, if he had not already gone by. Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim, lounging in the arbour of the opposite corner, though he was hidden from her. He saw her stealthily climb into the hedge, and so ensconced herself there that nobody could have the least doubt her purpose was to watch unseen for a passer-by.

He went across to the spot and stood behind her. Sukie started, having in her blundering way forgotten that he might be near. She at once descended from the hedge. "'So, he is coming tonight,' said Tim laconically, "'and we'll be always anxious to see our dears.' "'He is coming to-night,' she replied with defiance, "'and we be anxious for our dears.' "'Then will you step indoors, where your dear will soon join me? "'We've to muster by half-past three to-morrow, "'and if we don't get to bed by eight at least, "'our faces will be as long as clock-cases all day.' "'She hesitated for a moment, but ultimately obeyed, "'going slowly down the garden to the house, "'where he heard the door-latch click behind her.

Tim was incensed beyond measure. His marriage had so far been a total failure, a source of bitter regret. The only course for improving his case, that of leaving the country, was a sorry, and possibly might not be a very effectual one. Do what he would, his domestic sky was likely to be overcast to the end of the day. Thus he brooded, and his resentment gathered force. He craved a means of striking one blow back at the cause of his cheerless plight while he was still on the scene of his discomfiture. For some minutes no method suggested itself, and then he had an idea. Coming to a sudden resolution, he hastened along the garden and entered the one attached to the next cottage, which had formerly been the dwelling of a gamekeeper.

Tim descended the path to the back of the house, where only an old woman lived at present, and reaching the wall he stopped. Owing to the slope of the ground, the roof eaves of the linhay were within touch, and he thrust his arm up under them, feeding about in the space on the top of the wall plate. Ah, I thought my memory didn't deceive me, he lipped silently. With some exertion he drew down a cobwebbed object, curiously framed in iron, which clanked as he moved it. It was about three feet in length and half as wide. Tim contemplated it as well as he could in the dying light of day, and raked off the cobwebs with his hand. "'That'll spoil his pretty shin for him, I reckon,' said he. It was a man-trap."

47 Chapter 47 20:07

Were the inventors of automatic machines to be ranged according to the excellence of their devices for producing sound artistic torture, the creator of the man-trap would occupy a very respectable, if not a very high, place. It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular form of man-trap of which this found in the keeper's outhouse was a specimen. For there were other shapes and other sizes, instruments which, if placed in a row beside one of the type disinterred by Tim, would have worn the subordinate aspects of the bears, wild boars, or wolves in a travelling menagerie, as compared with the leading lion or tiger. In short, though many varieties had been in use during those centuries which we are accustomed to look back upon as the true and only period of Merry England, in the rural districts more especially, and onward down to the third decade of the 19th century, this model had borne the palm, and had been most usually followed when the orchards and estates required new ones.

There had been the toothless variety used by the softer-hearted landlords, quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of these resembled the jaws of an old woman, to whom time has left nothing but gums. There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by the middle-natured squires, or those under the influence of their wives, two inches of mercy, two inches of cruelty, two inches of mere nip, two inches of probe, and so on, through the whole extent of the jaws. There were also as a class apart the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh, but only crushed the bone. The sight of one of these gins, when set, produced a vivid impression that it was endowed with life.

It exhibited the combined aspects of a shark, a crocodile, and a scorpion. Each tooth was in the form of a tapering spine, two and a quarter inches long, which, when the jaws were closed, stood in alternation from this side and from that. When they were open, the two halves formed a complete circle between two and three feet in diameter, the plate or treading-place in the midst being about a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions the sole of the apparatus, a pair of springs, each one being of a stiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight of the body when forcing it down. There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered when the gin and others like it were in use.

Tim Tang's great-uncle had endured a night of six hours in this very trap, which lamed him for life. Once a keeper of Hintock Woods set it on the track of a poacher, and afterwards, coming back that way, forgetful of what he had done, walked into it himself. The wound brought on Lockjaw, of which he died. This event occurred during the thirties, and by the year 1840 the use of such implements was well nigh discontinued in the neighborhood. But being made entirely of iron, they by no means disappeared, and in almost every village one could be found in some nook or corner as readily as this was found by Tim. It had, indeed, been a fearful amusement of Tim and other Hintock lads, especially those who had a dim sense of becoming renowned poachers when they reached that prime, to drag out this trap from its hiding, set it, and throw it with billets of wood, which were penetrated by the teeth to the depth of near an inch.

As soon as he had examined the trap, and found that the hinges and springs were still perfect, he shouldered it without more ado, and returned with his burden to his own garden, passing on through the hedge to the path immediately outside the boundary. Here, by the help of a stout stake, he set the trap, and laid it carefully behind a bush while he went forward to reconnoitre. As had been stated, nobody passed this way for days together sometimes. But there was just a possibility that some other pedestrian than the one in request might arrive, and it behooved Tim to be careful as to the identity of his victim. Going about a hundred yards along the rising ground to the right, he reached a ridge whereon a large and thick holly grew.

Beyond this, for some distance, the wood was more open, and the course which Fitzpiers must pursue to reach the point, if he came to night, was visible a long way forward. For some time there was no sign of him or anybody. Then there shaped itself a spot out of the dim mid-distance between the masses of brushwood on either hand, and it enlarged and Tim could hear the brushing of feet over the tufts of sour grass. The airy gait revealed Fitzpiers even before his exact outline could be seen. Tim Tangs turned about and ran down the opposite side of the hill till he was again at the head of his own garden. It was the work Of a few moments to drag out the man-trap, very gently that the plate might not be disturbed sufficiently to throw it, to a space between a pair of young oaks, which, rooted in contiguity, grew apart upward, forming a V-shape opening between, and, being backed up by bushes, left this as the only course for a foot-passenger.

In it he laid the trap, with the same gentleness of handling, locked the chain round one of the trees, and finally slid back the guard which was placed to keep the gin from accidentally catching the arms of him who set it, or, to use a local and better word, toiled it.

Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the adjoining hedge of his father's garden, ran down the path, and softly entered the house. Obedient to his order, Suki had gone to bed, and as soon as he had bolted the door, Tim unlaced and kicked off his boots at the foot of the stairs, and retired likewise, without lighting a candle. His object seemed to be to undress as soon as possible. Before, however, he had completed the operation, a long cry resounded without, penetrating but indescribable. "'What is that?' said Suki, starting up in bed. It sounds as if somebody has caught a hare in his gin. Oh, no, she said. It was not a hare. It was louder. Hark! Do we get to sleep? said Tim.

How be you going to wake at half-past three else? She lay down and was silent. Tim stealthily opened the window and listened. Above the low harmonies produced by the instrumentation of the various species of trees around the premises, he could hear the twitching of a chain from the spot whereon he had set the man-trap, but further human sound there was none. Tim was puzzled. In the haste of his project, he had not calculated upon a cry. But if one, why not more? He soon ceased to essay an answer, for Hintock was dead to him already. In half a dozen hours he would be out of its precincts for life, on his way to the Antipodes. He closed the window and lay down. The hour which had brought these movements of Tim to birth had been operating actively elsewhere.

Awaiting in her father's house the minute of her appointment with her husband, Grace Fitzpiers deliberated on many things. Should she inform her father before going out that the estrangement of herself in Edgar was not so complete as he had imagined, and deemed desirable for her happiness? If she did, so she must in some measure become the apologist for her husband, and she was not prepared to go that far. As for him, he kept her in a mood of considerate gravity. He certainly had changed. He had, at his worst times, always been gentle in his manner towards her. Could it be that she might make of him a true and worthy husband yet? She had married him. There was no getting over that, and ought she any longer to keep him at a distance?

His suave deference to her lightest whim on the question of his comings and goings, when, as her husband, he might show a little independence, was a trait in his character as unexpected as it was engaging. If she had been his empress, and he the thrall, he could not have exhibited a more sensitive care to avoid intruding upon her against her will. Impelled by a remembrance, she took down a prayer-book and turned to the marriage service. Reading it slowly through, she became quite appalled at her recent off-handedness when she discovered what awfully solemn promise she had made to him at those chancel steps not so very long ago. She became lost in long ponderings on how far a person's conscience might be bound by vows made without at the time full recognition of their force.

That particular sentence beginning, whom God hath joined together, was a stagiver for a gentlewoman of strong devotional sentiment. She wondered whether God really did join them together. Before she had done deliberating, the time of her engagement drew near, and she went out of the house almost at the moment that Tim Tang retired to his own.

The position of things at that critical juncture was briefly as follows. Two hundred yards to the right of the upper end of Tang's garden, Fitzpiers was still advancing, having now nearly reached the summit of the wood-clothed ridge, the path being the actual one which further on passed between the two young oaks. Thus far it was according to Tim's conjecture. But about two hundred yards to the left, or rather less, was arising a condition which he had not divined—the emergence of grace, as aforesaid, from the upper corner of her father's garden, with the view of meeting Tim's intended victim. Midway between husband and wife was the diabolical trap, silent, open, ready. Fitzpiers's walk that night had been cheerful, for he was convinced that the slow and gentle method he had adopted was promising success.

The very restraint that he was obliged to exercise upon himself so as not to kill the delicate bud of returning confidence fed his flame. He walked so much more rapidly than Grace, that if they continued advancing as they had begun, he would reach the trap a good half-minute before she could reach the same spot. But here a new circumstance came in. To escape the unpleasantness of being watched or listened to by lurkers, naturally curious by reason of their strained relations, they had arranged that their meeting for tonight should be at the Holm-tree, on the ridge above named. So soon, accordingly as Fitzpiers reached the tree, he stood still to await her. He had not paused under the prickly foliage more than two minutes, when he thought he heard a scream from the other side of the ridge.

Fitzpiers wondered what it could mean, but such wind as there was just now blew in an adverse direction, and his mood was light. He set down the origin of the sound to one of the superstitious freaks or frolicsome skirmishes between sweethearts that still survived in Hintock from old English times, and waited on where he stood till ten minutes had passed. Feeling then a little uneasy, his mind reverted to the scream, and he went over the summit and down the embowered incline. Till he reached the pair of sister oaks with the narrow opening between them. Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell. Stretching out his hand to ascertain the obstruction, it came in contact with a confused mass of silken drapery and ironwork that conveyed absolutely no explanatory idea to his mind at all.

It was but the work of a moment to strike a match, and then he saw a sight which congealed his blood. The man-trap was thrown, and between its jaws was part of a woman's clothing, a patterned silk skirt, gripped in such violence that the iron teeth had passed through it, skewering its tissue in a score of places. He immediately recognized the skirt as that of one of his wife's gowns, the gown that she had worn when she met him on the very last occasion. Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when examining the collection at Hintock House, and the conception instantly flashed through him that Grace had been caught, taken out mangled by some chance-passer, and carried home, some of her clothes being left behind, in the difficulty of getting her free.

The shock of this conviction, striking into the very current of high hope, was so great that he cried out like one in corporeal agony, and in his misery bowed himself down to the ground.

Of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that Fitzpiers had undergone since his sins against grace first began, not any even approximated in intensity to this. "'Oh, my own, my darling! Oh, cruel heaven, it is too much this!' he cried, writhing and rocking himself over the sorry accessories of her he adored. The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to anyone who might have been there to hear it, and one there was. Right and left of the narrow pass between the oaks were dense bushes, and now from behind these a female figure glided, whose appearance, even in the gloom, was, though graceful in outline, noticeably strange. She was in white up to the waist, and figured above.

She was, in short, Grace, his wife, lacking the portion of her dress which the gin retained. "'Don't be grieved about me, don't, Edgar, dear,' she exclaimed, rushing up and bending over him. I am not hurt a bit. I was coming out to find you after I had released myself, but I heard footsteps, and I hid away, because I was without some of my clothing, and I did not know who the person might be. Fitzpiers had sprung to his feet, and his next act was no less unpremeditated by him than it was irresistible by her, and would have been so by any woman not of Amazonian strength. He clasped his arms completely around her, pressed her to his breast, and kissed her passionately. "'You are not dead. You are not hurt.

Thank God, thank God,' he said, almost sobbing in his delight and relief from the horror of his apprehension. "'Grace, my wife, my love—how is this? What has happened?' "'I was coming to you,' she said as distinctly as she could in the half-smothered state of her face against his. I was trying to be as punctual as possible, and as I had started a minute late, I ran along the path very swiftly, fortunately for myself. Just when I passed between the trees I felt something clutch at my dress from behind with the noise, and the next moment I was pulled backward by it and fell to the ground. I screamed with terror, thinking it was a man lying down there to murder me, but the next moment I discovered it was iron, and that my clothes were caught in a trap.

I pulled this way and that, but the thing would not let go, drag it as I would, and I did not know what to do. I did not want to alarm my father or anybody, as I wished nobody to know of these meetings with you. So I could think of no other plan than slipping off my skirt, meaning to run on and tell you what a strange accident had happened to me. But when I had just freed myself by leaving the dress behind, I heard steps, and, not being sure it was you, I did not like to be seen in such a pickle, so I hid away. It was only your speed that saved you. One or both of your legs would have been broken if you had come at ordinary walking pace. Or yours, if you had got here first, said she, beginning to realise the whole ghastliness of the possibility.

Oh, Edgar, there has been an eye watching over us to-night, and we shall be thankful indeed. He continued to press his face to hers. You are mine, mine again now. She gently owned that she supposed she was. I heard what you said when you thought I was injured, she went on shyly, and I know that a man who could suffer as you were suffering must have a tender regard for me. But how does this awful thing come here? I suppose it has something to do with poachers. Fitzpiers was still so shaken by the sense of her danger that he was obliged to sit a while, and it was not until Grace said—if I could only get my skirt out, nobody would know anything about it—that he bestirred himself. By their united efforts, each standing on one of the springs of the trap, they pressed him down sufficiently to insert across the jaws a billet which they dragged from a faggot near at hand.

And it was then possible to extract the silk mouthful from the monster's bite, creased and pierced with many holes, but not torn. Fitzpiers assisted her to put it on again, and when her customary contours were thus restored they walked on together, Grace taking his arm, till he effected an improvement by clasping it around her waist. The ice having been broken in this unexpected manner, she made no further attempt at reserve. "'I would ask you to come into the house,' she said. But my meetings with you have been kept secret from my father, and I should like to prepare them. Never mind, dearest. I could not very well have accepted the invitation. I shall never live here again, as much for your sake as for mine.

I have news to tell you on this very point, but my alarm had put it out of my head. I have bought a practice, or rather a partnership, in the Midlands, and I must go there in a week to take up my permanent residence. My poor old great-aunt died about eight months ago, and left me enough to do this. I have taken a little furnished house for a time, till we can get one of our own. He described the place, and the surroundings, and the view from the windows, and Grace became much interested. "'But why are you not there now?' she said. "'Because I cannot tear myself away from here till I have your promise. Now, darling, you will accompany me there, will you not? To-night has settled that.' Grace's tremblings had gone off, and she did not say nay.

They went on together. The adventure and the emotions consequent upon the reunion which that event had forced on combined to render Grace oblivious of the direction of the dizzeltory ramble, till she noticed that they were in an encircling glade in the densest part of the wood, whereon the moon that had imperceptibly added its rays to the scene shone almost vertically. It was an exceptionally soft, balmy evening for the time of year, and was just at that transient period in the May month when the beech-trees had suddenly unfolded large, limp, young leaves of the softness of butterflies' wings. Boughs bearing such leaves hung low around, and completely enclosed them, so that it was as if they were in a great green vase, which had moss for its bottom and leaf sides.

The clouds having been packed in the west that evening so as to retain the departing glare a long while, the hour had seemed much earlier than it was, but suddenly the question of time occurred to her. "'I must go back,' she said without further delay, as they set their faces toward Hintock. As they walked he examined his watch by the aid of the now strong moonlight. "'By the gods, I think I have lost my train,' said Fitzpiers. "'Dear me, whereabouts are we?' said she, two miles in the direction of Sherton. Then do you hasten on, Edgar? I am not in the least afraid. I recognize now the part of the wood we are in, and I can find my way back quite easily. I'll tell my father we have made it up.

I wish I had not kept our meeting so private, for it may vex him a little to know I have been seeing you. He has been getting old and irritable. That is why I did not. Good-bye. But as I must stay at the Earl of Wessex tonight, for I cannot possibly catch the train, I I think it would be safer for you to let me take care of you. But what will my father think has become of me? He does not know in the least where I am. He thinks I only went into the garden for a few minutes. You will surely guess. Somebody has seen me for certain. I shall go all the way back with you tomorrow. But that newly done up place, the Earl of Wessex? If you are so very particular about the publicity, I will stay at the Tree Tuns.

Oh, no! It is not that I am particular, but I don't have a brush or comb or anything.

48 Chapter 48 16:28

All the evening, Melbury had been coming to his door, saying, "'I wonder where in the world that girl is. Never in all my born days did I know her to buy it out like this. Surely she said she was going into the garden to get some parsley.' Melbury searched the garden, the parsley bed, and the orchard, but could find no trace of her, and then he made inquiries of the cottages of such of his workmen as had not gone to bed, avoiding tangs because he knew the young people were to rise early to leave. In these inquiries one of the men's wives somewhat incautiously let out the fact that she had heard a scream in the wood, though from which direction she could not say. This set Melbury's fears on end.

He told the men to light lanterns, and, headed by himself, they started, Creedle following at the last moment with quite a burden of grapnels and ropes, which he could not be persuaded to leave behind, and the company being joined by the hollow-turner and the man who kept the cider-house as they went along. They explored the precincts of the village, and in a short time lighted upon the man-trap. This discovery simply added an item of fact without helping their conjectures, but Melbury's indefinite alarm was greatly increased when, holding a candle to the ground, he saw in the teeth of the instrument some frayings from Grace's clothing. No intelligence of any kind was gained till they met a woodman from Delborough, who said that he had seen a lady answering to the description her father gave of Grace, walking through the wood on a gentleman's arm in the direction of Sherton.

Was he clutching her tight? said Melbury. Well, rather, said the man. Did she walk lame? Well, tis true, her head hung over towards him a bit. Creedle groaned tragically. Melbury, not suspecting the presence of its peers, coupled this account with the man-trap and the scream. He could not understand what it all meant, but the sinister event of the trap made him follow on. Accordingly, they bore away towards the town, shouting as they went, and in due course emerged upon the highway. Nearing Sherton Abbas, the previous information was confirmed by other strollers, though the gentleman's supporting arm had disappeared from these later accounts. At last they were so near to Sherton that Melbury informed his faithful followers that he did not wish to drag them farther at so late an hour, since he could go on alone and inquire if the woman who had been seen really were Grace.

But they would not leave him alone in his anxiety, and trudged onward till the lamplight from the town began to illuminate their fronts. At the entrance to the high street they got fresh scent of the pursued, but coupled with the new condition that the lady in the costume described had been going up the street alone. Faith, I believe she's mesmerized, or walking in her sleep, said Melbury. However, the identity of this woman with Grace was by no means certain, but they plodded along the street. Perkham, the hairdresser who had despoiled Marty of her tresses, was standing at his door, and they duly put inquiries to him. "'Ah, how's the little Hintock folk by now?' he said before replying. "'Never have I been over there since one winter night some three years ago, and then I lost myself in finding it.

How can you live in such a one-eyed place? Great Hintock is bad enough, but little Hintock, the bats and owls would drive me melancholy mad.' It took two days to raise my spirits to their true pitch again after that night I went there. Mr. Melbury, sir, as a man that's put money by, why not retire and live here and see something of the world? The responses, at last given by him to their queries, guided them to the building that offered the best accommodation in Sheraton, having been enlarged contemporaneously with the construction of the railway, namely the Earl of Wessex Hotel. Leaving the others without, Melbury made prompt inquiry here. His alarm was lessened, though his perplexity was increased when he received a brief reply that such a lady was in the house.

"'Do you know if it's my daughter?' asked Melbury. "'The waiter did not. Do you know the lady's name?' Of this, too, the household was ignorant, the hotel having been taken by brand new people from a distance. They knew the gentleman very well by sight, and had not thought it necessary to ask him to enter his name. Oh, the gentleman appears again now, said Melbury to himself. Well, I want to see the lady, he declared. A message was taken up, and after some delay the shape of grace appeared descending round the bend of the staircase, looking as if she lived there, but in other respects rather guilty and frightened. Why, what the name? began her father. I thought you went out to get parsley. Oh, yes, I did.

But it is all right, said Grace in a flurried whisper. I am not alone here. I am here with Edgar. It is entirely owing to an accident, father. Edgar? An accident? How does he come here? I thought he was two hundred miles off. Yes, so he is. I mean, he has got a beautiful practice, two hundred miles off. He has bought it with his own money, some that came to him, but he travelled here, and I was nearly caught in a man-trap. And that's how it is I am here. We were just thinking of sending a messenger to let you know. Melbury did not seem to be particularly enlightened by this explanation. You were caught in a man-trap? Yes, my dress was. That's how it arose. Edgar is upstairs in his own sitting-room, she went on.

He would not mind seeing you, I am sure. Oh, Faith, I don't want to see him. I have seen him too often already. I'll see him another time, perhaps, if it's to oblige ye. He came to see me. He wanted to consult me about this large partnership I speak of, as it is very promising. Oh, I am glad to hear it, said Melbury dryly. A pause ensued, during which the inquiring faces and whitey-brown clothes of Melbury's companions appeared in the doorway. Then ain't you coming home with us? He asked. "'I think not,' said Grace, blushing. "'Very well. You were your own mistress,' he returned in tones which seemed to assert otherwise. "'Good-night,' and Melbury retreated towards the door. "'Don't be angry, father,' she said, following him a few steps.

"'I have done it for the best.' "'I am not angry, though it is true I have been a little misled in this. However, good-night. I must get home along.' He left the hotel not without relief, for to be under the eyes of strangers while he conversed with his lost child had embarrassed him much. His search party, too, had looked awkward here, having rushed to the task of investigation, some in their shirt-sleeves, others in their leather aprons, and all much stained, just as they had come from their work of barking, and not in their sherton-marketing attire. While Creedle, with his ropes and grapnels and air of impending tragedy, had added melancholy to gawkiness. "'Now, neighbors,' said Melbury, on joining them, "'as it is getting late, we'll leg it home again as fast as we can.

I ought to tell you that there has been some mistake, some arrangement entered into between Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers, which I didn't quite understand. An important practice in the Midland counties has come to him, which made it necessary for her to join him tonight, so she says. That's all it was, and I'm sorry I dragged you out. Well, said the hollow turner, here be we six miles from home, and night-time, and not a hoss or four-footed creeping thing to her name. I say we'll have a muscle and a drop of some'n to strengthen our nerves before we vamp all the way back again. My throat's as dry as a kecks. What do you say, suz? They all concurred in the need for this course, and proceeded to the antique and lampless back street, in which the red curtain of the three tons was the only radiant object.

As soon as they had stumbled down into the room, Melbury ordered them to be served, when they made themselves comfortable by the long table, and stretched out their legs upon the herringbone sand of the floor. Melbury himself, restless as usual, walked to the door while he waited for them, and looked up and down the street. I'd gear a good shake if she were my maid, pretending to go out in the garden, and leading folk a twelve-mile traipse that have got to get up at five o'clock tomorrow," said a barcripper who, not working regularly for Melbury, could afford to indulge in strong opinions. I don't speak so warm as that, said the hollow turner, but if it is right for couples to make a country talk about their separating, and excite the neighbors, and then make fools of them like this, why, I haven't stood upon one leg for five-and-twenty year.

All his listeners knew that when he alluded to his foot-lathe in these enigmatic terms the speaker meant to be impressive, and Creedle chimed in with, "'Ah, young women do wax wantin' in these days. Why couldn't she abode with her father and been faithful?' Poor Creedle was thinking of his old employer. "'But this deceivin' of folks is nothin' unusual in matrimony,' said Farmer Bawtree. I know the man and the wife, Faith, I don't mind owning, as there's no strangers here, that the pair were my own relations. They'd be at it that hot one hour that you'd hear the poker and the tongs and the bellows and the warming-pan flee across the house with the movements of their vengeance, and the next hour you'd hear them singing the spotted cow together as peaceable as two holy twins.

Yes, and very good voices they had, and would strike in like professional ballad-singers to one another's support in the high notes. "'And I know the woman, and the husband of her went away for four-and-twenty year,' said the bark ripper. "'And one night he came home when she was sitting by the fire, and thereupon he sat down himself on the other side in the chimney corner. "'Well,' says she, "'have you any news?' "'I don't know as I have,' says he. "'Have you?' No, says she, except that my daughter by my second husband was married last month, which was a year after I was made a widow by him. Oh, anything else, says he? No, says she. And there they sat, one on each side of the chimney corner, and were found by the neighbours sound asleep in their chairs, not having known what to talk about at all.

Well, I don't care who the man is. said Creedle. They required a good deal to talk about, and that's true. It won't be the same with these. He's such a project, you see, and she's such a wonderful scholar, too. What women do know nowadays? observed the hollow-turner. You can't deceive them as you could do in my time. What they know then was not small, said John Upjohn. Always a good deal more than the men. Why, when I was courting my wife that is now, the skillfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty side as she walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you've noticed that she's got a pretty side to her face as well as a plain one. I can't say I've noticed it in particular much, said the hollow turner blandly.

Well, continued Upjohn, not disconcerted. She has. All women under the sun be prettier one side than the other, and as I was saying, The pains she would take to make me walk on her pretty side were unending. I'll warrant that whether she were going with the sun or against the sun, uphill or downhill, in the wind or the looth, that wart of hers was always toward a hedge, and that dimple towards me. There was I, too simple to see her wheelings and turnings, and she so artful, though two years younger, that she could lead me with a cotton thread like a blind ram, for that was in the third climate of her courtship. Now, I don't think Women have got cleverer, for there was never otherwise. "'How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr.

Upjohn?' inquired a youth, the same who had assisted at Winterbourne's Christmas party. "'Five, from the coldest to the hottest. Leastwise there was five in mine. Can you give us a chronicle of them, Mr. Upjohn?' "'Yes, I could. I could certainly. But tis quite unnecessary. They'll come to you by nature, young man. Too soon for your own good.' "'At present Mrs. Fitzpiers can lead the doctor as your missus could lead you,' the hollow-turner remarked. "'She's got him quite tame. But how long to last I can't say. I happened to be setting a wire in the top of my garden one night when he met her on the other side of the hedge, and the way she queened it and fenced and kept that poor fellow at a distance was enough to freeze her blood.

I should never have supposed it was such a girl.' Melbury now returned into the room, and the men having declared themselves refreshed, they all started on the homeward journey, which was by no means cheerless under the rays of the high moon. Having to walk the whole distance, they came by a footpath rather shorter than the highway, though difficult except to those who knew the country well. This brought them by way of Great Hintock, and passing the churchyard they observed as they walked a motionless figure standing by the gate. I think it was Marty South," said the hollow-turner, parenthetically. "'I think it was. I was always a lonely maid,' said Upjohn, and they passed on homeward and thought of the matter no more.

It was Marty, as they had supposed. That evening had been the particular one of the week, upon which Grace and herself had been accustomed to privately deposit flowers on Giles's grave. And this was the first occasion since his death eight months earlier on which Grace had failed to keep her appointment. Marty had waited in the road just outside Little Hintock, where her fellow-pilgrim had been wont to join her, till she was weary. And at last, thinking that Grace had missed her and gone on alone, she followed away to Great Hintock, but saw no Grace in front of her. It got later, and Marty continued her walk till she reached the churchyard gate, but still no Grace. Yet her sense of comradeship would not allow her to go on to the grave alone, and still thinking the delay had been unavoidable, she stood there with her little basket of flowers in her clasped hands, and her feet chilled by the damp ground, till more than two hours had passed.

She then heard the footsteps of Melbury's men, who presently passed on their return from the search. In the silence of the night Marty could not help hearing fragments of their conversation, From which she acquired a general idea of what had occurred, and where Mrs. Fitzpiers then was. Immediately they had dropped down the hill, she entered the churchyard, going to a secluded corner behind the bushes, where rose the unadorned stone that marked the last bed of Giles Winterbourne. As this solitary and silent girl stood there in the moonlight, a straight, slim figure, clothed in a platless gown, the contours of womanhood so undeveloped as to be scarcely perceptible, The marks of poverty and toil effaced by the misty hour, she touched sublimity at points, and looked almost like a being who had rejected with indifference the attribute of sex for the loftier quality of abstract humanism.

She stooped down and cleared away the withered flowers that Grace had herself laid there the previous week, and put her fresh ones in their place. "'Now, my own own love,' she whispered. You are mine, and only mine, for she has forgot you at last, although for her you died. But I, whenever I get up, I'll think of you, and whenever I lie down, I'll think of you. Whenever I plant the young larches, I'll think that none can ever plant as you planted, and whenever I split a gad, and whenever I turn the cider ring, I'll say no one can do it like you. If I ever forget your name, let me forget home and heaven. But no, no, my love, I can never forget you. For you was a good man, and did good things.

End of chapter 48. That is the end of the Woodlanders by Thomas Hardie.

queue_music Chapters 48