The Woodlanders................................................................................................................................................1

Thomas Hardy ..........................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. ............................................................................................................................................2

CHAPTER II. ...........................................................................................................................................5

CHAPTER III..........................................................................................................................................8

CHAPTER IV........................................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER V.........................................................................................................................................20

CHAPTER VI........................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER VII. ......................................................................................................................................30

CHAPTER VIII.....................................................................................................................................34

CHAPTER IX........................................................................................................................................39

CHAPTER X.........................................................................................................................................44

CHAPTER XI........................................................................................................................................48

CHAPTER XII. ......................................................................................................................................51

CHAPTER XIII.....................................................................................................................................55

CHAPTER XIV.....................................................................................................................................60

CHAPTER XV......................................................................................................................................63

CHAPTER XVI.....................................................................................................................................68

CHAPTER XVII. ...................................................................................................................................73

CHAPTER XVIII. ..................................................................................................................................76

CHAPTER XIX.....................................................................................................................................80

CHAPTER XX......................................................................................................................................86

CHAPTER XXI.....................................................................................................................................90

CHAPTER XXII. ...................................................................................................................................93

CHAPTER XXIII. ..................................................................................................................................97

CHAPTER XXIV................................................................................................................................100

CHAPTER XXV. .................................................................................................................................104

CHAPTER XXVI................................................................................................................................111

CHAPTER XXVII. ..............................................................................................................................116

CHAPTER XXVIII. .............................................................................................................................121

CHAPTER XXIX................................................................................................................................125

CHAPTER XXX. .................................................................................................................................130

CHAPTER XXXI................................................................................................................................134

CHAPTER XXXII. ..............................................................................................................................137

CHAPTER XXXIII. .............................................................................................................................140

CHAPTER XXXIV.............................................................................................................................147

CHAPTER XXXV. ..............................................................................................................................151

CHAPTER XXXVI.............................................................................................................................157

CHAPTER XXXVII............................................................................................................................160

CHAPTER XXXVIII. ..........................................................................................................................164

CHAPTER XXXIX.............................................................................................................................170

CHAPTER XL. ....................................................................................................................................174

CHAPTER XLI. ...................................................................................................................................178

CHAPTER XLII..................................................................................................................................184

CHAPTER XLIII. ................................................................................................................................188

CHAPTER XLIV. ................................................................................................................................195

CHAPTER XLV..................................................................................................................................198

CHAPTER XLVI. ................................................................................................................................204

CHAPTER XLVII...............................................................................................................................208

CHAPTER XLVIII..............................................................................................................................214

The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the forsaken coachroad 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 appleorchards. Here the trees,

timber or fruitbearing, as the case may be, make the way side 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 the

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 tomblike 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

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

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 turnpikeroad, he was mainly puzzled about

the way. The dead men's work that had been expended in climbing that hill, the blistered soles that had

trodden it, and the tears that had wetted it, were not his concern; for fate had given him no time for any but

He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his walkingstick. A closer glance at

his face corroborated the testimony of his clothes. It was selfcomplacent, 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

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 shoetips became audible; and there

loomed in the notch of the hill and 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'sthis will help

The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his stick at its approach, and the woman

"I've been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last halfhour, Mrs. Dollery," he said. "But though

I've been to Great Hintock and Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault about the small village. You

She assured him that she couldthat as she went to Great Hintock her van passed near itthat it was only

up the lane that branched out of the lane into which she was about to turnjust ahead. "Though," continued

Mrs. Dollery, "'tis such a little small place that, as a town gentleman, you'd need have a candle and lantern to

find it if ye don't know where 'tis. Bedad! I wouldn't live there if they'd pay me to. Now at Great Hintock you

He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet outside, where they were ever and anon brushed over by the

This van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dollery, was rather a movable attachment of the roadway than an

extraneous object, to those who knew it well. The old horse, whose hair was of the roughness and color of

heather, whose legjoints, shoulders, and hoofs were distorted by harness and drudgery from

colthoodthough if all had their rights, he ought, symmetrical 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 Abbasthe markettown to which he

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 her gown for modesty's sake, and instead of a bonnet a felt

hat tied down with a handkerchief, to guard against an 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 marketday

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

This hour of coming home from 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 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

"'Tis Barber Percombehe 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 hair cutter, but a

They listened to his conversation, but Mr. Percombe, 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

Thus they rode on till they turned into a halfinvisible 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 selfcontained place rose in stealthy silence

tall stems of smoke, which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearthstones

festooned overhead with hams and flitches. It was one of those 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 a 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 masterbarber'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 undiscerned songsters

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 tonot because there's anybody for'n to cure there, but because 'tis the middle of his district."

The observation was flung at the barber by one of the women at parting, as a last attempt to get at his errand

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 denizens of Little Hintock deemed

windowcurtains unnecessary; and on this account Mr. Percombe made it his business to stop opposite the

casements of each cottage that he came to, with a demeanor which showed that he was endeavoring to

conjecture, from the persons and things he observed within, the whereabouts of somebody or other who

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

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 him 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

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 billhook 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 spargadsthe raw material of her manufacture; on

her right, a heap of chips and endsthe refusewith 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

Beside her, in case she might require more light, a brass candlestick stood on a little round table, curiously

formed of an old coffinstool, 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

definitively shown 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 welltodo villager, whose tenure was by copy of courtroll, or in

any way more permanent than that of the 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 cui bono had led to the discontinuance of the custom, and

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 this 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,

Her face had the usual fulness 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 particularher hair. Its

abundance made it almost unmanageable; its color was, roughly speaking, and as seen here by firelight,

brown, but careful notice, or an observation by day, would have revealed that its true shade was a rare and

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

waistcoatpocketthe 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 sparmaker composed itself into a

postRaffaelite picture of extremest 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

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. Percombe, how you frightened me!" quite lost her color

"I can't," she said; "the chimney smokes so. Mr. Percombe, you look as unnatural out of your shop as a

"Yesto 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

"Don't press meit worries me. I was in hopes you had thought no more of it. I can NOT part with itso

"Now, look here, Marty," said the barber, sitting down on the coffinstool table. "How much do you get for

"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

sovereigna 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

The girl's bosom moved a very little. "Why can't the lady send to some other girl who don't value her

"Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact shade of her own, and 'tis 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 o' purpose?"

"Now listen," and 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 responsibilityI'll make the one sovereign two, rather than go

"No, no, no!" she cried, beginning to be much agitated. "You are atempting me, Mr. Percombe. You go on

like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in the penny book. But I don't want your money, and 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

"Marty, now hearken. The lady that wants it wants it badly. And, between you and me, you'd better let her

"I am not at liberty to tell you. And as she is going abroad soon it makes no difference who she is at all."

Percombe assented by a nod. The girl regarded him reflectively. "Barber Percombe," she said, "I know who

"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. "Wellit is. 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. As she won't wear it till she goes off abroad, she knows nobody will recognize the change. I'm

commissioned to get it for her, and then it is 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 with her is worth if it should be known

that I've let out her name; but honor between us two, 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 nettled 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 like to turn out, it would be as

well to oblige her. I say that 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

Her companion saw from her manner that it was useless to urge her further by speech. "As you are 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, or return the sovereigns." He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a small

mantle lookingglass. "I hope you'll bring it, for your sake and mine. I should have thought she could have

suited herself elsewhere; but as it's her fancy it must be indulged if possible. If you cut it off yourself, mind

how you do it so as to keep all the locks one way." He showed her how this was to be done.

"But I sha'nt," she replied, with laconic indifference. "I value my looks too much to spoil 'em. She wants my

hair to get another lover with; though if stories are true she's broke the heart of many a noble gentleman

"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."

Percombe had retired as far as the door; he came back, planted his cane on the coffinstool, and looked her in

the face. "Marty South," he said, with deliberate emphasis, "YOU'VE GOT A LOVER YOURSELF, and

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

Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes, then suddenly laying down the billhook, 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 wellnigh sodden away by such cleansing. At the top she gently approached a

A weak voice inside answered in the negative; adding, "I should be all right by tomorrow if it were not for

"The tree againalways the tree! Oh, father, don't worry so about that. You know it can do you no harm."

"A Sherton man callednothing to trouble about," she said, soothingly. "Father," she went on, "can Mrs.

"Turn us out? No. Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is turned out of my body. 'Tis lifehold, like

Ambrose Winterborne's. But when my life drops 'twill be hersnot 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 will do

"Nonsense, you know better. How can it be?" She refrained from further speech, and descended to the

The lights in the village went out, house after house, till there only remained two in the darkness. 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

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 lookingglass 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

She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat and opened the door. The night in all its fulness met her

flatly on the threshold, like the very brink of an absolute void, or the antemundane GinnungGap believed in

by her Teuton forefathers. For her eyes were fresh from the blaze, and here there was no streetlamp 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

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 treetops 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 about everywhere. Night, that strange personality, which within walls brings ominous

introspectiveness and selfdistrust, but under the open sky banishes such subjective anxieties as too trivial for

thought, inspired Marty South with a 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

This erection was the wagonhouse 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 piece. 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 lineof battle ships, with which venerable hulks, indeed, these vehicles

evidenced a constructed spirit curiously in harmony. One was laden with sheepcribs, another with hurdles,

another with ash poles, and the fourth, at the foot of which she had placed her thatchingspars was half full of

She was pausing 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 carthouse adjoined the garden, and before Marty had moved she saw enter the latter from the

timbermerchant's back door an elderly woman sheltering a candle with her hand, the light from which cast a

moving thornpattern 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

"'Tis no use to stay in bed," he said, as soon as she came up to where he was pacing restlessly about. "I can't

sleepI 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 (Marty knew he was speaking of his daughter) did not answer his

"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 allowed 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 allthat 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

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

"Well, in one sense it is that," replied Melbury. "It is 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 Winterborne."

His companion repeated the name. "Well, it is all right," she said, presently. "He adores the very ground she

Yes, the timbermerchant asserted, he knew that well enough. Winterborne 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

"Well, then, Lucy, now you've hit it," answered the timber 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 on my conscience ever since that time till this scheme of making amends occurred to me

"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 Winterborne'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 Winterborne's mother, it was but a halfhearted 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.

"But all these things trouble me," said he; "for I feel I am sacrificing her for my own sin; and I think of her,

He took the candle from her hand, held it to the ground, and removed a tile which lay in the gardenpath.

"'Tis the 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

"It is not altogether a sacrifice," said the woman. "He is in love with her, and he's honest and upright. If she

"I wish for nothing definite. But there's a lot of things possible for her. Why, Mrs. Charmond is wanting some

refined young lady, I hear, to go abroad with heras companion or something of the kind. She'd jump at

"True, true," said Melbury; "and I hope it will be for the best. Yes, let me get 'em married up as soon as I can,

so as to have it over and done with." He continued looking at the imprint, while he added, "Suppose she

He admitted it, but said he could not help it. "Whether she write or no, I shall fetch her in a few days." And

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 the blast, they must suffer "buffeting at will by rain and storm" no

But her own existence, and not Mr. Melbury's, was the centre of Marty's consciousness, and it was in relation

"That, then, is the secret of it all," she said. "And Giles Winterborne is not for me, and the less I think of him

She returned to her cottage. The sovereigns were staring at her from the lookingglass 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 their points all one way, as the barber had

directed. Upon the pale scrubbed deal of the coffinstool table they stretched like waving and ropy weeds

She would not turn again to the little lookingglass, 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 own 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 tonight. 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;

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

An armful of gads thrown on the still hot embers caused them to blaze up cheerfully and bring her diminished

headgear into sudden prominence as a shadow. At this a step approached the door.

"Yes, Mr. Winterborne," said Marty, throwing on a tilt bonnet, which completely hid the recent ravages of

The door was flung 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

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

"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 airholes in the top of the lantern being thrown upon

the mist overhead, where they appeared of giant size, as if reaching the tentshaped sky. They had no

remarks to make to each other, and they uttered none. Hardly anything could be more isolated or more

selfcontained than the lives of these two walking here in the lonely antelucan hour, when gray shades,

material and mental, are so very gray. And yet, looked at in a certain way, their lonely courses formed no

detached design at all, but were part of the pattern in the great web of human doings then weaving in both

The shed was reached, and she pointed out the spars. Winterborne regarded them silently, then looked at her.

"Don't you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?" she pleaded, by way of answer. "Because I am afraid

"Oh no, you wouldn't, Mrs. 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 are too good for the thatching of housesthey are good enough for the furniture.

He had a kindly manner of a quietly severe tone; and when she seemed reluctant to show her hands, he took

"They'll get harder in time," she said. "For if father continues ill, I shall have to go on wi' it. Now I'll help put

Winterborne without speaking set down his lantern, lifted her as she was about to stoop over the bundles,

placed her behind him, 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

Her heart swelled, and she could not speak. At length she managed to groan, looking on the ground, "I've

"No, no!" She ran off into 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 wan circles

round them, like eyes weary with watching. She observed them for a few seconds as they set about

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 deadborn 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

Owls that had been catching mice in the outhouses, rabbits that had been eating the wintergreens in the

gardens, and stoats that had been sucking the blood 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 wagonsheds 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 dwellinghouse 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 welladvanced age; older than a stale novelty, but no canonized antique; faded,

not hoary; looking at you from the still distinct middledistance 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 mediaevalism. The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and

revenues of the greatgreat grandfathers and grandmothers who had been the first to gaze from those

rectangular windows, and had stood under that keystoned doorway, could be divined and measured by

homely standards of to day. 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 gardenfront remained much as it had always been, and there was a porch and entrance that way. But the

principal housedoor 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, fagots, 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 longbacked erection, now used for sparmaking, sawing,

cribframing, and copseware manufacture in general. Opposite were the wagonsheds where Marty had

Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's abrupt departure, to see that the wagonloads were properly

made up. Winterborne 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, Winterborne's aunt had

married and emigrated with the brother of the timber merchant many years beforean alliance that was

sufficient to place Winterborne, though the poorer, on a footing of social intimacy with the Melburys. As in

most villages so secluded as this, intermarriages were of Hapsburgian 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 mana partnership

based upon an unwritten code, by which each acted in the way he thought fair towards the other, on a

giveandtake principle. Melbury, with his timber and copseware business, found that the weight of his

labor came in winter and spring. Winterborne 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

Before he had left the shed a boy came from the house to ask him to remain till Mr. Melbury had seen him.

Winterborne thereupon crossed over to the sparhouse where two or three men were already at work, two of

them being travelling sparmakers from Whitehart 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

Besides the itinerant journeyworkers there were also present John Upjohn, engaged in the hollowturnery

trade, who lived hard by; old Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs, top and bottom sawyers, at work in

Mr. Melbury's pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the ciderhouse, and Robert Creedle, an old man who

worked for Winterborne, and stood warming his hands; these latter being enticed in by the ruddy blaze,

though they had no particular business there. None of them call 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 castoff 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 topboots that he had picked up by chance; also chronicles of

voyaging and shipwreck, for his pocketknife had been given him by a weatherbeaten sailor. But Creedle

carried about with him on his uneventful rounds these silent testimonies of war, sport, and adventure, and

Copsework, 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

Winterborne, 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

The topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent onethe personal character of Mrs.

"My brotherinlaw told me, and I have no reason to doubt it," said Creedle, "that she'd sit down to her

dinner with a frock hardly higher than her elbows. 'Oh, you wicked woman!' he said to himself when he first

see her, 'you go to your church, and sit, and kneel, as if your kneejints were greased with very saint's

anointment, and tell off your HearusgoodLords like a business man counting money; and yet you can eat

your victuals such a figure as that!' Whether she's a reformed character by this time I can't say; but I don't

"That I don't knowhardly, I should think, considering his temper. Ah!" Here Creedle threw grieved

remembrance into physical form by slowly resigning his head to obliquity and letting his eyes water. "That

man! 'Not if the angels of heaven come down, Creedle,' he said, 'shall you do another day's work for me!'

Yes he'd say anythinganything; and would as soon take a winged creature's name in vain as yours or

mine! Well, now I must get these spars homealong, and tomorrow, thank God, I must see about using 'em."

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 housedoor and the sparshed, whither she had come now for fuel. She

had two facial aspectsone, of a soft and flexible kind, she used indoors when assisting about the parlor or

up stairs; the other, with stiff lines and corners, when she was bustling among the men in the sparhouse or

"Ah, Grammer Oliver," said John Upjohn, "it do do my heart good to see a old woman like you so dapper and

stirring, when I bear in mind that after fifty one year counts as two did afore! But your smoke didn't rise this

morning till twenty minutes past seven by my beater; and that's late, Grammer Oliver."

"If you was a fullsized man, John, people might take notice of your scornful meanings. 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 spargad to one of the workmen, from which dangled

a long blackpudding"here's something for thy breakfast, and if you want tea you must fetch it from

"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 reasonablesized object. And I don't think maister's slept

at all well tonight. He's anxious about his daughter; and I know what that is, for I've cried bucketfuls for my

"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 is taller out of pattens than her mother was in 'em'tis

"It seems no time ago that she was a little playward girl," said young Timothy Tangs.

"I can mind her mother," said the hollowturner. "Always a teuny, 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 apprenticeshipay, and a long apprenticeship 'twas. I served that master of mine

The hollowturner pronounced the days with emphasis, as if, considering their number, they were a rather

"Mr. Winterborne'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

dirting her a speck. And if he keeps the daughter so long at boardingschool, he'll make her as nesh as her

Just before this moment Winterborne had seen Melbury crossing the court from his door. He was carrying an

open letter in his hand, and came straight to Winterborne. 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 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 while to write long beforehand.' The little rascal, and didn't she! Now, Giles, as you are

going to Sherton market today with your appletrees, why not join me and Grace there, and we'll drive

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 even 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

Winterborne, 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 Ambrose's eyes had been

a reason for keeping it on. As for the timbermerchant, it was plain that his invitation had been given solely

in pursuance of his scheme for uniting the pair. He had made up his mind to the course as a duty, and was

Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned towards the door of the sparhouse, when his footsteps were

"'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

"I heard you wondering why I've kept my daughter so long at boardingschool," 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. "Hey?" he asked, with affected shrewdness. "But you did, you know. Well, now,

though it is my own business more than anybody else's, I'll tell ye. When I was a boy, another boythe

pa'son's sonalong with a lot of others, asked 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 o' 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 'em laugh now if they

There was something between high indifference and humble emotion in his delivery, which made it difficult

for them to reply. Winterborne's interest was of a kind which did not show itself in words; listening, he stood

"You'll be, then, ready, Giles?" Melbury continued, awaking from a reverie. "Well, what was the latest news

"Well, Shottsford is Shottsford stillyou 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 of

home.' It seems that our new neighbor, this young Dr. What'shisname, is a strange, deep, perusing

gentleman; and there's good reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one."

"'Od name it all," murmured the timbermerchant, 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

"I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of bargain he's made," said the topsawyer.

"'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree. "But it seems that he wanted certain books on some mysterious

science or blackart, and in order that the people hereabout should not know anything about his dark

readings, he ordered 'em direct from London, and not from the Sherton bookseller. The parcel was delivered

by mistake at the pa'son's, and he wasn't at home; so his wife opened it, and went into hysterics when she read

'em, thinking her husband had turned heathen, and 'twould be the ruin of the children. But when he came he

said he knew no more about 'em than she; and found they were this Mr. Fitzpier's property. So he wrote

"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 in making such

"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 'em, ten to one they can cure ye 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 I've anything the matter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no taste in it at all."

Mr. Melbury, as became a wellinformed 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

floorhis usual custom when undecided. That stiffness about the arm, hip, and kneejoint which was

apparent when he walked was the net product of the divers 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 selfmade, and had

worked hard. He knew the origin of every one of these cramps: that in his left shoulder had come of carrying

a pollard, unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom 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 bole. On many a morrow after wearying 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 Grammer Oliver to breakfast, he left the shed. Reaching the kitchen, where the family

breakfasted in winter to save houselabor, he sat down by the fire, and looked a long time at the pair of

dancing shadows cast by each fireiron and dogknob on the whitewashed chimneycornera yellow one

"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. Charmond's steward in Round Wood at twelve o'clock, and yet I want to go for Grace."

"Why not let Giles fetch her by himself? 'Twill bring 'em together all the quicker."

"I could do thatbut I should like to go myself. I always have gone, without fail, every time hitherto. It has

been a great pleasure to drive into Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and perhaps she'll be disappointed if I

"Yon may be disappointed, but I don't think she will, if you send Giles," said Mrs. Melbury, dryly.

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 nurse to his child Grace before her

mother's death. After that melancholy event little Grace had clung 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 arrangementfor it was little morehad worked satisfactorily

He returned to the sparhouse 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 with that, and won't be late upon the road.

Winterborne, knowing nothing of the timbermerchant's restitutory aims, quietly thought all this to be a

kindly chance. Wishing even more than her father to despatch his appletree business in the market before

Melbury was careful that the turnout should be seemly. The gig wheels, for instance, were not always

washed during wintertime before a journey, the muddy roads rendering that labor useless; but they were

washed today. The harness was blacked, and when the rather elderly white horse had been put in, and

Winterborne was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury stepped out with a blackingbrush, and with his own

"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 whiteybrown creeps out of the earth over us; but she, fresh from a

"No, no, nothat'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 saw us, 'tis as well to meet 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 firstI 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 doubtfulperhaps a

trifle cynicalfor that strand was wound into him with the rest. He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then

It was his custom during the planting season to carry a specimen appletree 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 the

He drove away, the twigs nodding with each step of the horse; and Melbury went indoors. Before the gig

"Here, Giles, "he said, breathlessly following with some wraps, "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

He watched Winterborne out of sight, saying, with a jerka shape into which emotion with him often

resolved itself"There, 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 hima thousand pities!...And yet 'tis my duty for his father's sake."

Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas without elation and without discomposure. 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 himthat 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

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 pattens,

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 pattens; 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

"Why do you wear pattens, Marty? The turnpike is clean enough, although the lanes are muddy."

"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 appletree. 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, being not unheard of in that

But nature's adornment was still hard byin 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

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

"You know why I don't ask for him so often as I might, I suppose?" said Winterborne. "Or don't you know?"

"Yes. I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is about those 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

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 pattens. "I wonder what you are thinking of!

He blushed a little, shook his head at her, and drove on ahead into the streetsthe churches, the abbey, and

other buildings on this clear bright morning having the liny distinctness of architectural drawings, as if the

original dream and vision of the conceiving mastermason, some mediaeval Vilars or other unknown to

fame, were for a few minutes flashed down through the centuries to an unappreciative age. Giles saw their

eloquent look on this day of transparency, but could not construe it. He turned into the innyard.

Marty, following the same track, marched promptly to the hair dresser's, Mr. Percombe's. Percombe 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

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

Marty, of course, went to the front shop, and handed her packet to him silently. "Thank you," said the barber,

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 others in 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 Winterborne 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

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 appletree,

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.

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 appletree ten

feet high in the middle of the marketplace. Having had occasion to take off the new gloves she had bought

to come home in, she held out to him a hand graduating 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

Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained type, which perhaps was not unnatural.

For true it was that Giles Winterborne, wellattired and wellmannered 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 phenomenasuch 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 viewmay have a great influence upon

feminine opinion of a man's worthso frequently founded on nonessentials; 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

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 baint wanted there," and critically regarded Winterborne'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 universehow

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,

In simple corporeal presentment 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;

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 selfassertion

for her own good. She had wellformed eyebrows which, had her portrait been painted, would probably have

There was nothing remarkable in her dress just now, beyond a natural fitness and a style that was recent for

the streets of Sherton. 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 color must be had because it has been decided by others as imperative at that particular

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 Sherton 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 longcontinued attentiveness which nothing but

There was a little delay in their setting out from the town, and Marty South took advantage of it to hasten

forward, with the view of escaping them on the way, lest they should feel compelled to spoil their teteatete

by asking her to ride. She walked fast, and onethird 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 souls, as the heads of a pair of horses well in hand are drawn in by the rein. She

But between these and herself there was a carriage, apparently a brougham, coming in the same direction,

with lighted lamps. When it overtook herwhich was not soon, on account of her pacethe 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 coming 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 interior of the vehicle.

Marty gladly assented, for she was weary, very weary, after working all night and keeping afoot all day. She

mounted beside the coachman, wondering why this goodfortune had happened to her. He was rather a great

Marty was stirred at the name, so closely connected with her last night's experiences. "Is this her carriage?"

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 poll (since she had kept away her face), and thought that

Marty South was not so 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 extempore 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

"'Tis wonderful that she should ask ye," observed the magisterial coachman, presently. "I have never known

her 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 Tempe of

the parishioners. But she could discern nothing of the lady. She also looked for Miss Melbury and

Winterborne. The nose of their horse sometimes came quite near the back of Mrs. Charmond'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

"Oh, because she's been used to such wonderfully good life, and finds it dull here. She'll soon be off again on

"So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn!" the girl murmured. "Then things don't fay with she any more

Marty now alighted; the lamp again shone upon her, and as the carriage rolled on, a soft voice said to her

"Goodnight, ma'am," said Marty. But she had not been able to see the woman who began so greatly to

interest herthe second person of her own sex who had operated strongly on her mind that day.

Meanwhile, Winterborne and Grace Melbury had also undergone their little experiences of the same

As he drove off with her out of the town the glances of people fell upon them, the younger thinking that Mr.

Winterborne was in a pleasant place, and wondering in what relation he stood towards her. Winterborne

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

Their conversation was in 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.

"Don't Brownley's farmbuildings look strange to you, now they have been moved bodily from the hollow

She admitted that they did, though she should not have seen any difference in them if he had not pointed it

"They had a good crop of bittersweets; they couldn't grind them all" (nodding towards an orchard where

"Why, you are looking at Johnappletrees! You know bittersweets you used to well enough!"

Winterborne 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

However that might be, the fact at present was merely this, that where he was seeing Johnapples and

farmbuildings she was beholding a far remoter scenea scene no less innocent and simple, indeed, but

much contrastinga 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 piano and harp

trembling in the air from the open windows adjoining. Moreover, they were girlsand this was a fact which

Grace Melbury's delicate femininity could not lose sight ofwhose parents Giles would have addressed with

a deferential Sir or Madam. Beside this visioned scene 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

"'Twas very odd what we said to each other years ago; I often think of it. I mean our saying that if we still

"I mean we were young," said she, more considerately. That gruff manner of his in making inquiries

"Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your father SENT me to meet you today."

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 auctionpen. It got darker and darker, and I saidI forget the exact wordsbut I put my

arm round your waist and there you let it stay till your father, sitting in front suddenly stopped telling his

story to Farmer Bollen, to light his pipe. The flash shone 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 'em 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

She owned that she remembered it very well, now that he mentioned the circumstances. "But, goodness! I

"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 did the time seem removed from her present. "Do you ever look at things

"I can't say that I do," answered Giles, his eyes lingering far ahead upon a dark spot, which proved to be a

"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

She then 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. When she had done she said, gayly, "Now do you tell me in return what

"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.

Winterborne, although he had seen it, had not taken it into account. On examination, he said it was Mrs.

Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll, and seemed to feel more nearly akin to it than to the one she was

"Pooh! We can polish off the mileage as well as they, come to that," said Winterborne, reading her mind; and

rising to emulation at what it bespoke, he whipped on the horse. This it was which had brought the nose of

Mr. Melbury's old gray close to the back of Mrs. Charmond's mucheclipsing vehicle.

"There's Marty South Sitting up with the coachman," said he, 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

Thus these people with converging destinies went along the road together, till Winterborne, leaving the track

of the carriage, turned into Little Hintock, where almost the first house was the timbermerchant's. Pencils of

dancing light streamed out of the windows sufficiently to show the white laurestinus flowers, and glance over

the polished leaves of laurel. The interior of the rooms could be seen distinctly, warmed up by the

fireflames, which in the parlor were reflected from the glass of the pictures and bookcase, and in the kitchen

In the kitchen dinner was preparing; for though Melbury dined at one o'clock at other times, today the meal

had been kept back for Grace. A rickety old spit was in motion, its end being fixed in the firedog, 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 Grammer Oliver came and wound it up with a rattle like that of a mill.

In the parlor 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 step mother came out

The character 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 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 round to the yard and

called out from the sparhouse the man who particularly attended to these matters when there was no

conversation to draw him off among the copseworkers inside. Winterborne then returned to the door with

The family had gone into the parlor, 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 beside

those of the two elders; shining also through the loose hair about her temples as sunlight through a brake. Her

father was surveying her in a dazed conjecture, so much had she developed and progressed in manner and

Observing these things, Winterborne remained dubious by the door, mechanically tracing with his fingers

certain timeworn letters carved in the jambsinitials of bygone generations of householders who had

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

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 timbermerchant's roof. He hazarded guesses as to what Grace was

saying just at that moment, and murmured, with some selfderision, "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 spargads and pots and

At the timbermerchant's, in the mean time, the conversation flowed; and, as Giles Winterborne 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 cellarage of his brain. Another was his interview with Mrs.

Charmond'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

"So thoroughly does she trust me," said Melbury, "that I might fell, top, or lop, on my own judgment, any

stick o' timber whatever in her wood, and fix the price o't, 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

"I am afraid 'tis not her regard for you, but her dislike of Hintock, that makes her so easy about the trees,"

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 wellnigh 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 her return, the surfaces of both walls and ceilings standing in such relations to the eye that it

could not avoid taking microscopic note of their irregularities and old fashion. 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 stationariness, 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

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 room 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 to be still 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 treetops against the sky on the neighboring hill.

Beneath this meeting line of light and shade nothing was visible save one solitary point of light, which

blinked as the treetwigs 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

Her conjectures, however, were not intently carried on, and she was watching the light quite idly, when it

gradually changed color, and at length shone blue as sapphire. Thus it remained several minutes, and then it

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

Hintock, as Grace had known the hamlet. Almost every diurnal and nocturnal effect in that woodland place

had hitherto been the direct result of the regular 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

Grace slid out of bed, ran across the room, and lifting the latch, said, "I am not asleep, Grammer. Come in

Before the old woman had entered, Grace was again under the bedclothes. Grammer set down her

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 nowMr. Fitzpiers by name?"

"Well, then, miss, he's come here to get up a practice. I know him very well, through going there to help 'em

scrub sometimes, which your father said I might do, if I wanted to, in my spare time. Being a bachelorman,

he've only a lad in the house. Oh yes, I know him very well. Sometimes he'll talk to me as if I were his own

"Yes. 'Grammer,' 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

this 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 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

"He said, 'Grammer Oliver, I've been here three months, and although there are a good many people in the

Hintocks and the villages round, 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. Grammer, I was made for

"Well, no. How can he be clever? He may be able to jine up a broken man or woman after a fashion, and put

his finger upon an ache if you tell him nearly where 'tis; but these young menthey should live to my time

of life, and then they'd see how clever they were at fiveandtwenty! And yet he's a projick, a real projick,

and says the oddest of rozums. 'Ah, Grammer,' 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

"I don't think so." Grace did not say "Why?" and Grammer hesitated. At last she went on: "Don't tell your

"Not my soulmy body, when I'm dead. One day when I was there cleaning, he said, 'Grammer, you've a

large braina very large organ of brain,' he said. 'A woman's is usually four ounces less than a man's; but

yours is man's size.' Well, thenhee, hee! after he'd flattered me a bit like that, he said he'd give me ten

pounds to have me as a natomy after my death. Well, knowing I'd no chick nor chiel left, and nobody with

any interest in me, I thought, faith, if I can be of any use to my fellowcreatures after I'm gone they are

welcome to my services; 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, Grammer, how can you think to do it? I wish you hadn't told me."

"I wish I hadn'tif you don't like to know it, miss. But you needn't mind. Lordhee, hee!I shall keep

The girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection that conversation languished, and Grammer Oliver, taking

her candle, wished Miss Melbury goodnight. 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 and find in one of its nooks, like a tropical plant in a hedge row, a nucleus of advanced ideas and

practices which had nothing in common with the life around. Chemical experiments, anatomical projects, and

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.

Kaleidoscopic dreams of a weird alchemistsurgeon, Grammer Oliver's skeleton, and the face of Giles

Winterborne, brought Grace Melbury to the morning of the next day. It was fine. A north wind was

blowingthat 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

Meanwhile, Winterborne, though half assured of her father's favor, was rendered a little restless by Miss

Melbury's behavior. Despite his dry selfcontrol, he could not help looking continually from his own door

towards the timbermerchant's, in the probability of somebody's emergence therefrom. His attention was at

length justified by the appearance of two figures, that of Mr. Melbury himself, and Grace beside him. They

stepped out in a direction towards the densest quarter of the wood, and Winterborne walked contemplatively

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 leavetaking 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

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 surfacesa

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.

Winterborne 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 in to the bone at the ankles, his slight stoop, his habit

of getting lost in thought and arousing himself with an exclamation of "Hah!" 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 round pari passu with Melbury and his daughters

movement onward, assuming a mock manner, as though he were saying, "Ho, ho; you are only a timber

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 interrupted; the lichen

eat the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.

They dived amid beeches under which nothing grew, the younger boughs still retaining their hectic leaves,

that rustled in the breeze with a sound almost metallic, like the sheetiron 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 earno difficult matter, for on the line of their

course every woodpigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches

with wellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this noise he soon came to a stile.

Was it worth while to go farther? He examined the doughy soil at the foot of the stile, and saw among the

large soleandheel tracks an impression of a slighter kind from a boot that was obviously not local, for

Winterborne knew all the cobblers' patterns in that district, because they were very few to know. The

The character of the woodland now changed. The bases of the smaller trees were nibbled bare by rabbits, and

at divers points heaps of freshmade chips, and the newlycut stool of a tree, stared white through the

undergrowth. There had been a large fall of timber this year, which explained the meaning of some sounds

A voice was shouting intermittently in a sort of human bark, which reminded Giles that there was a sale of

trees and fagots that very day. Melbury would naturally be present. Thereupon Winterborne remembered that

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 timberdealers, yeomen, farmers,

villagers, and others; mostly woodland men, who on that account could afford to be curious in their

walkingsticks, 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 mould human beings into grotesque toys by

continued compression in infancy. Two women, wearing men's jackets on their gowns, conducted in the rear

of the halting procession a ponycart containing a tapped barrel of beer, from which they drew and

The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances by using his walkingstick 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, tending to

show that the eccentricity was a result of that absence of mind which is engendered by the press of affairs,

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 oldfashioned, 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

Winterborne went and stood close to them; the timbermerchant spoke, and continued his buying; Grace

merely smiled. To justify his presence there Winterborne began bidding for timber and fagots 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 offence was meant by the human invasion, came and

perched on the tip of the fagots that were being sold, and looked into the auctioneer's face, while waiting for

some chance crumb from the breadbasket. Standing a little behind Grace, Winterborne observed how one

flake would sail downward and settle on a curl of her hair, and how another would choose 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.

He regretted, with some causticity of humor, that her father should show such inequalities of temperament as

to keep Grace tightly on his arm today, when he had quite lately seemed anxious to recognize 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 the end of the auction, when Giles for the first time realized

what his purchases had been. Hundreds of fagots, 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 Creedle's use in baking and

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. Winterborne then discovered that he had been unwittingly

bidding against her father, and picking up his favorite lots in spite of him. With a very few words they left the

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

The interlocutors did not part till after a prolonged pause, during which much seemed to be said. When

Melbury and Grace resumed their walk it was with something of a lighter tread than before.

Winterborne 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 tonight. 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 today," said Giles. "I don't know what I was doing. I have come to say that

"Oh, never mindnever mind," replied the timbermerchant, with a slight wave of his hand, "I have so

much else to think of that I nearly had forgot it. Just now, too, there are matters of a different kind from trade

As the timbermerchant spoke, as it were, down to him from a higher moral plane than his own, Giles turned

"Grace is going to the House tomorrow," she said, quietly. "She is looking out her things now. I dare say she

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

Winterborne felt surprise, pleasure, and also a little apprehension at the news. He repeated Mrs. Melbury's

"Yes," said paternal 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. 'Twas wonderful how she took to Grace in

a few minutes; that freemasonry of education made 'em close at once. Naturally enough she was amazed that

such an articleha, ha! could come out of my house. At last it led on to Mis'ess 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

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

"Thanksmy best thanks....But I think, since it is all right between us about the biddings, that I'll not

On leaving the house he looked up at the bedroom again. Grace, surrounded by a sufficient number of

candles to answer all purposes of selfcriticism, was standing before a chevalglass that her father had lately

bought expressly 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.

The inspiriting appointment which had led Grace Melbury to indulge in a sixcandle 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

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 manorhouse; 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 battlemented

parapet; but the gray lead roofs were quite visible behind it, with their gutters, laps, rolls, and skylights,

The front of the house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation of Elizabethan windows, mullioned and

hooded, worked in rich snuffcolored freestone from local quarries. The ashlar of the walls, where not

overgrown with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of every shade, intensifying its luxuriance

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 heavyarmed ivy was necessary, and a continual lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice

built in times when human constitutions were dampproof, when shelter from the boisterous was all that men

thought of in choosing a dwellingplace, the insidious being beneath their notice; and its hollow site 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 lifeif they did not suffer too much from the relaxing atmosphereand

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 her

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

"Ah! you have noticed those," she said, seeing that Grace's eyes were attracted by some curious objects

against the walls. "They are mantraps. My husband was a connoisseur in mantraps and springguns and

such articles, collecting them from all his neighbors. He knew the histories of all thesewhich 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 the charge in 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, "Mantraps are of rather

Grace was bound to smile; but that side of womanliness was one which her inexperience had no great zest in

"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 torturesome 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

"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 deemed likely to

interest her, some tapestries, woodcarvings, ivories, miniatures, and so onalways with a mien of

listlessness which might either have been constitutional, or partly owing to the situation of the placethey

"Will you pour it out, please? Do," she said, leaning back in her chair, and placing her hand above her

forehead, while her almond eyesthose long eyes so common to the angelic legions of early Italian

artbecame longer, and her voice more languishing. She showed that obliquemannered softness which is

perhaps most frequent in women of darker complexion and more lymphatic temperament than Mrs.

Charmond's was; who lingeringly smile their meanings to men rather than speak them, who inveigle rather

"I am the most inactive woman when I am here," she said. "I think sometimes I was born to live and do

nothing, nothing, nothing but float about, as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams. But that cannot be really

"I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertionit 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 in 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 of 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 at different places in the south of Europe I feel a crowd of ideas

and fancies thronging upon me continually, but to unfold writingmaterials, take up a cold steel pen, and put

these impressions down systematically on cold, smooth paperthat I cannot do. So I have thought that if I

always could 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

"You are so accomplished, I hear; I should be quite honored by such intellectual company."

"Oh no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock; but they are not carried on by me."

"There is a surgeon lately come, and I have heard that he reads a great dealI see his light sometimes

"Oh yesa doctorI believe I was told of him. It is a strange place for him to settle in."

"It is a convenient centre for a practice, they say. But he does not confine his studies to medicine, it seems.

"Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, the Fitzpierses of BuckburyFitzpiersnot a great

"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. Charmond 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 weltburgerliche nature had grown tired of caring about a peculiarity that made her a contrast to

her neighbors. "It is of rather more importance to know what the man is himself than what his family is," she

"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 manif he is cleverin 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

"I do. But it is home. It has its advantages and its disadvantages." Grace was thinking less of the solitude than

They chatted on for some time, Grace being set quite at her ease by her entertainer. Mrs. Charmond was far

too wellpractised 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 that

young girl's eyes. So, being violently possessed with her idea of 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 faithful reflector; but Grace's countenance had the effect of making Mrs.

Charmond 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. Charmond fell into a meditation, and replied abstractedly to a 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.

Often during the previous night, after his call on the Melburys, Winterborne's thoughts 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 of 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

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

He thought and thought, and at last decided that as good a way as any would be to give a Christmas party,

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. Winterborne?" she said. "I've been waiting there hours and hours, and at last I

What he had forgotten was that there was a thousand young fir trees to be planted in a neighboring 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

Hence Winterborne found delight in the work even when, as at present, he contracted to do it 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

"You've a cold in the head, Marty," he said, as they walked. "That comes of cutting off your hair."

"I suppose it do. Yes; I've three headaches going on in my head at the same time."

"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

The holes were already dug, and they set to work. Winterborne's fingers were endowed with a gentle

conjuror's touch in spreading the roots of each little tree, resulting in a sort of caress, under which the delicate

fibres all laid themselves out in their proper directions for growth. He put most of these roots towards the

southwest; for, he said, in forty years' time, when some great gale is blowing from that quarter, the trees will

"How they sigh directly we put 'em upright, though while they are lying down they don't sigh at all," said

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 till the grown tree should be felled probably long after the two

"It seems to me," the girl continued, "as if they sigh because they are very sorry to begin life in earnestjust

"Just as we be?" He looked critically 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 a great part of the day,

almost without another word. Winterborne's mind ran on his contemplated eveningparty, 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. Winterborne, 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."

"Marty, I tell you to go home," said he, peremptorily. "I can manage to keep the rest of them upright with a

She went away without saying any more. When she had gone down the orchard a little distance she looked

"Marty, it was for your 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 hollybushes 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 eyeglass. Seeing that Winterborne was noticing him,

he let his 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, Winterborne pushed

through the hollies, and emerged close beside the interesting object of their contemplation.

"I heard the bushes move long before I saw you," she began. "I said first, 'it is some terrible beast;' next, 'it is

He regarded her with a slight smile, weighing, not her speech, but the question whether he should tell her that

"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 exaltation, which saw no environing details nor his own occupation; nothing more

"How can you think so much of that class of people? Well, I beg pardon; I didn't mean to speak so freely.

"Exceedingly. I had not been inside the walls since I was a child, when it used to be let to strangers, before

Mrs. Charmond's late husband bought the property. She is 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

"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 is 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 won't keep you standing here. Hoi,

Robert!" he cried to a swaying collection of clothes in the distance, which was the figure of Creedle his man.

"Well, the reason is this," continued she, as they went on together" Mrs. Charmond has a delightful side to

her character a desire to record her impressions of travel, like Alexandre Dumas, and Mery, and Sterne,

and others. But she cannot find energy enough to do it herself." And Grace proceeded to explain Mrs.

Charmond's proposal at large. "My notion is that Mery's style will suit her best, because he writes in that soft,

"Indeed!" said Winterborne, with mock awe. "Suppose you talk over my head a little longer, Miss Grace

"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

"It is well enough in one sense, but it will take yon away," said he, mollified.

Winterborne 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 matters of her converse and

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 today 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 contented with

him, a yeoman, now immersed in treeplanting, even though he planted them well. "And yet she's a

truehearted girl," he said, thinking of her words about Hintock. "I must bring matters to a point, and there's

When he reached the plantation he found that Marty had come back, and dismissing Creedle, he went on

"Suppose, Marty," he said, after a while, looking at her extended arm, upon which old scratches from briers

showed 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 warmingup thing, and likely

"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 Winterborne, not to her, though he spoke the words quite loudly. And as the day was

nearly ended, he added, "Here, Marty, I'll send up a man to plant the rest to morrow. I've other things to

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 foundery 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

"It will be fine tomorrow," said Marty, observing them with the vermilion light of the sun in the pupils of

her eyes, "for they are acroupied down nearly at the end of the bough. 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. Winterborne? and so

Before taking a single step in the preparations, Winterborne, with no great hopes, went across that evening to

the timbermerchant's 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 wintergreens, 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 some one at the larger village, but he readily

Giles, in his selfdeprecatory 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 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

When Winterborne was gone the timbermerchant 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

The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones, and the path, and the front of the building. Suddenly Mr.

Melbury paused, turned ill upon the grass, and approached a particular headstone, where he read, "In memory

of John Winterborne," with the subjoined date and age. It was the grave of Giles's father.

The timbermerchant laid his hand upon the stone, and was humanized. "Jack, my wronged friend!" he said.

When he reached home that evening, he said to Grace and Mrs. Melbury, who were working at a little table

"Giles wants us to go down and spend an hour with him the day after tomorrow; and I'm thinking, that as 'tis

They assented without demur, and accordingly the timbermerchant sent Giles the next morning an answer in

Winterborne, 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 despatch than usual of the

timbermerchant'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

At this hour stir and bustle pervaded the interior of Winterborne's domicile from cellar to appleloft. 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

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. Winterborne was standing before the brick oven in his

shirtsleeves, tossing in thorn sprays, and stirring about the blazing mass with a longhandled,

threepronged Beelzebub kind of fork, the heat shining out upon his streaming face and making his eyes like

furnaces, the thorns crackling and sputtering; while Creedle, 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 applepie with a rollingpin. 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, a row of the latter standing upside down on the hob to

Looking up from the rollingpin, Creedle saw passing the window first the timbermerchant, in his

secondbest 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. Charmond's. The eyes of the three had

been attracted to the proceedings within by the fierce illumination which the oven threw out upon the

"Nohey?" said Giles, looking round aghast; while the boy in the background waved a reeking candlestick

in his delight. As there was no help for it, Winterborne went to meet them in the doorway.

"My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake in the time," said the timbermerchant's wife, her face

"But this means a regular randyvoo!" said Mr. Melbury, accusingly, glancing round and pointing towards the

"I told three of 'em they might drop in if they'd nothing else to do," Giles mildly admitted.

"Now, why the name didn't ye tell us 'twas 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

"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

"'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 on to the bakehouse, man. Now we are here we'll help ye get ready for the rest. Here,

mis'ess, take off your things, and help him out in his baking, or he won't get 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 Winterborne's awkwardly built premises, where the aforesaid birds were

"I don't know about that," said her father. "'Tisn't quite so much in your line as it is in your motherlaw's and

"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 on the preparations. A kindly pity of his

household management, which Winterborne saw in her eyes whenever he caught them, depressed him much

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 bruckle het, maister, I'm much afeared! Who'd ha' thought they'd ha' come so soon?"

The bitter placidity of Winterborne's look adumbrated the misgivings he did not care to express. "Have you

"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 says that a stick of celery that isn't scrubbed with the scrubbingbrush is not clean."

"Very well, very well! I'll attend to it. You go and get 'em comfortable indoors."

He hastened to the garden, and soon returned, tossing the stalks to Creedle, who was still in a tragic mood. "If

ye'd ha' married, d'ye see, maister," he said, "this caddle couldn't have happened to us."

Everything being at last under way, the oven set, and all done that could insure the supper turning up ready at

some time or other, Giles and his friends entered the parlor, 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 Winterborne'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

"No; but I like it; it reminds me so pleasantly that everything here in dear old Hintock is just as it used to be.

"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 furniturepolish, and refrained from rubbing it dry in order not to diminish the mirrorlike effect that

the mixture produced as laid on. Giles apologized and called Creedle; but he felt that the Fates were against

Suppertime came, and with it the hotbaked 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

"I s'pose the time when you learned all these knowing things, Mr. Creedle, was when you was in the militia?"

"Well, yes. I seed the world at that time somewhat, certainly, and many ways of strange dashing 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 maister. Not that I should call'n maister by rights, for his father growed up side by side with me, as if one

"Oh yes. Ancient days, when there was battles and famines and hangfairs and other pomps, seem to me as

yesterday. Ah, many's the patriarch I've seed come and go in this parish! There, he's calling for more plates.

Lord, why can't 'em turn their plates bottom upward 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 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 threelegged pot that contained it, and tilting the contents into a dish,

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 I do it when they baint here, maister," mildly expostulated Creedle, in an aside audible to all the

"Well, yesbut" replied Giles. He went over to Grace, and hoped none of it had gone into her eye.

The timbermerchant said, quickly, "Oh, it is nothing! She must bear these little mishaps." But there could be

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 hollowturner. 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 hollowturner monopolizing the new packs for an

interminable game, in which a lump of chalk was incessantly useda 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 Gliles'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 impecunious dethroned 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 Bawtree and the hollowturner from the back of the room:

accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk on the table; then an exclamation, an argument, a dealing of

The timbermerchant showed his feelings by talking with a satisfied sense of weight in his words, and by

praising the party in a patronizing tone, when Winterborne expressed his fear that he and his were not

"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 Winterborne was talking to Melbury by the fire, it was the timbermerchant who stood

with his back to the mantle in a proprietary attitude, from which post of vantage he critically regarded Giles's

person, rather as a superficies 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 all was over. As for her, she was thinking, as she watched the gyrations, of a

very different measure that she had been accustomed to tread with a bevy of sylphlike creatures in muslin,

in the musicroom of a large house, most of whom were now moving in scenes widely removed from this,

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 'em? 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

cardplayers 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

"Certainly he is, said Grace, quickly, and in such a tone as to show that he stood no lower, if no higher, in her

When they were opposite an opening through which, by day, the doctor's house could be seen, they observed

"One would think that, as he seems to have nothing to do about here by day, he could at least afford to go to

Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief to the contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after the scenes of the

evening. "It is natural enough," he replied. "What can a man of that sort find to interest him in Hintock? I

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 boardingschool and letting her travel, and what not, to make her a good

bargain for Giles, I should be really spoiling her for him. Ah, 'tis a thousand pities! But he ought to have

At this moment the two exclusive, chalkmark men, having at last really finished their play, could be heard

coming along in the rear, vociferously singing a song to marchtime, and keeping vigorous step to the same

The timbermerchant 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 GraceGiles 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,

"Ay, ay, Gileswhat do I call ye? Maister, I would say. But 'tis well to think the day IS done, when 'tis

Winterborne had abstractedly taken the poker, and with a wrinkled forehead was ploughing abroad the

woodembers on the broad hearth, till it was like a vast scorching Sahara, with redhot bowlders lying about

"The victuals did; that I know. And the drink did; that I steadfastly believe, from the holler sound of the

barrels. Good, honest drink 'twere, the headiest mead I ever brewed; and the best wine that berries could rise

to; and the briskest Hornerand Cleeves cider ever wrung down, leaving out the spice and sperrits I put into

it, while that eggflip would ha' passed through muslin, so little curdled 'twere. 'Twas good enough to make

any king's heart merryay, to make his whole carcass smile. Still, I don't deny I'm afeared some things

didn't go well with He and his." Creedle nodded in a direction which signified where the Melburys lived.

"If so, 'twere doomed to be so. Not but what that snail might as well have come upon anybody else's plate as

"Well, maister, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when I brought it out; and so it must have

"Well, 'twas 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 always will lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing way."

"Oh no. He was well boiled. I warrant 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 'em myselfthem small

ones, for they were born on cabbage, and they've lived on cabbage, so they must be made of cabbage. But

she, the closemouthed little lady, she didn't say a word about it; though 'twould have made good small

conversation as to the nater of such creatures; especially as wit ran short among us sometimes."

"Oh yes'tis all over!" murmured Giles to himself, shaking his head over the glooming plain of embers, and

lining his forehead more than ever. "Do you know, Robert," he said, "that she's 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 hobandnob elsewhere. They shouldn't have schooled her so

monstrous high, or else bachelor men shouldn't give randys, or if they do give 'em, only to their own race."

"'Tis a pitya thousand pities!" her father kept saying next morning at breakfast, Grace being still in her

But how could he, with any selfrespect, obstruct Winterborne's suit at this stage, and nullify a scheme he

had labored to promotewas, indeed, mechanically promoting at this moment? A crisis was approaching,

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 Winterborne, indefinitely

occupied as woodsman, cidermerchant, applefarmer, and what not, even were she willing to marry him

"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 ye, 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

"Yes, I believe ye. That's just it. I KNOW Grace will gradually sink down to our level again, and catch our

manners and way 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 livedfit to ornament a palace

wi'that I've taken so much trouble to lift up. Fancy her white hands getting redder every day, and her

tongue losing its pretty upcountry curl in talking, and her bounding walk becoming the regular Hintock shail

When Grace came downstairs he complained of her lying in bed so late; not so much moved by a particular

The corners of her pretty mouth dropped a little down. "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 it is not that; it is something else!" Instead

He was sorry. The petulance that relatives show towards each other is in truth directed against that intangible

Causality 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 in flocks of twenties and thirties were walking about,

watched by a comfortable family of sparrows perched in a line along the stringcourse of the chimney,

"Come in to breakfast, my girl," he said. "And as to Giles, use your own mind. Whatever pleases you will

"I am promised to him, father; and I cannot help thinking that in honor I ought to marry him, whenever I do

He had a strong suspicion that somewhere in the bottom of her 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 sha'n't lose you yet. Come in to

She said nothing; but he who knew her was aware that she meant by her silence to reproach him with drawing

"She thought Tuesday, but would send the day before to let me know if it suited her." And with this subject

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

Her father reasoned thereon. Immediately after his daughter's two indubitable successes with Mrs.

Charmondthe interview in the wood and a visit to the Houseshe had attended Winterborne's party. No

doubt the outandout joviality of that gathering had made it a topic in the neighborhood, and that every one

present as guests had been widely spoken ofGrace, with her exceptional qualities, above all. What, then, so

natural as that Mrs. Charmond should have heard the village news, and become quite disappointed in her

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

So it was settled in his mind that her sudden mingling with the villagers at the unlucky Winterborne'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 isand a

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

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,

Winterborne assured her that there was no doubt of it. "I took care of that. She's fiveandtwenty, and very

"Well, get off and come in," said Melbury, brusquely; and Giles dismounted accordingly.

This event was the concrete result of Winterborne'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 neighboring parson 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

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

matterthat of entertaining a tender pity for the object of her own unnecessary coldness. The imperturbable

poise which marked Winterborne 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

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.

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 them quickly goodmorning, and bolted

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 which we have for years been

separated insensibly passes off with renewed intercourse, and tones itself down into simple identity with the

Thus Mr. Melbury 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 nether chamber of his mind, that something would

happen, before the balance of her feeling had quite turned in Winterborne's favor, to relieve his conscience

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 the comradeship which Grace had shown with

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

It was a day of rather bright weather for the season. Miss Melbury went out for a morning walk, and her

everregardful 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

ivyleaf 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 reenter 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, "They are hunting

Farther up they saw in the middistance the hounds running hither and thither, 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 puzzleheadedness as to the whereabouts of the

intended victim. In a minute a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians, panting with acteonic excitement, and

Grace being a few steps in advance, he addressed her, asking if she had seen the fox.

"Then why the d 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 ye 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 cultivatedhow could he expect ye

to know what tomboy fieldfolk are in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come from trimming swedes

or mangoldsjoking with the rough workfolk and all thatI 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 neighborhood of what a woman

can be? Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it? 'Twas because I was in your company. If a blackcoated squire

"I tell you it is that! I've noticed, and I've noticed it many times, that a woman takes her color from the man

she's walking with. The woman who looks an unquestionable lady when she's with a polishedup fellow,

looks a mere tawdry imitation article when she's hobbing and nobbing with a homely blade. You sha'n't be

treated like that for long, or at least your children sha'n't. You shall have somebody to walk with you who

"But, my dear father," she said, much distressed, "I don't mind at all. I don't wish for more honor than I

"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

Winterborne, but she was conscious of more and more uneasiness at the possibility of being the social hope

"You would like to have more honor, 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

She looked calmly at him. "And how about Mr. Winterborne?" she asked. "I mention it, father, not as a

The timbermerchant's eyes fell for a moment. "I don't knowI don't know," he said. "'Tis a trying strait.

That evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartment behind the large parlor. 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

"Sit down, Grace, and keep me company," he said. "You may amuse yourself by looking over these." He

"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

"'Tis so, then. Now here are papers of another sort. They are for different sums in the threepercents. Now

these are Port Breedy Harbor bonds. We have a great stake in that harbor, you know, because I send off

"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

"It does not. Come to that, I have titledeeds myself. There, that piece of parchment represents houses in

"Yes, but" She hesitated, looked at the fire, and went on in a low voice: "If what has been arranged about

"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 knickknacks, and made you stay to tea so nicely in

"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 that going there with her 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 ye, 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 'em 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

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 position 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

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 checkbook and reading the counterfoils. 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

"I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn," she said, looking up sorrily.

"I didn't want you to look at those; I merely meant to give you an idea of my investment transactions. But if

"A what? Oh, a dictionary word. Well, as that's in your line I don't forbid it, even if it tells against me," he

A few minutes later Grammer 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, Maister

Melbury. Yes, she's going off to foreign parts tomorrow, for the rest of the winter months; and bechok'd if

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 ye!"

"Now," he went on, emphatically, "'tis Winterborne's affair has done this. Oh yes, 'tis. So let me say one

"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

She sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with Giles, complicated by a sense of the intractability of

At that same hour, and almost at that same minute, there was a conversation about Winterborne in progress in

the village street, opposite Mr. Melbury's gates, where Timothy Tangs the elder and Robert Creedle had

The sawyer was asking Creedle if he had heard what was all over the parish, the skin of his face being drawn

two ways on the mattertowards brightness in respect of it as news, and towards concern in respect of it as

"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,

"Can I be a prophet in Israel?" said Creedle. "Won't it! I was only shaping of such a thing yesterday in my

poor, longseeing 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. Winterborne's houses hang. If so be South die, and so make his decease,

thereupon the law is that the houses fall without the least chance of absolution into HER hands at the House. I

The news was true. The lifethe one fragile lifethat had been used as a measuringtape 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

Winterborne, and half a dozen others that had been in the possession of various Hintock village families for

the previous hundred years, and were now Winterborne's, would fall in and become part of the encompassing

Yet a short two months earlier Marty's father, aged fiftyfive 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.

Winterborne walked up and down his garden next day thinking of the contingency. The sense that the paths

he was pacing, the cabbage plots, the appletrees, his dwelling, cidercellar, wringhouse, stables, and

weathercock, were all slipping away over his head and beneath his feet, as if they were painted on a

magiclantern 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

"Father is still so 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 will blow down and kill us. Can you come and

He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him up stairs. 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, neighbor Winterborne," he said. "I wouldn't have minded if my life had only been my own to lose; I

don't vallie it in much of itself, and can let it go if 'tis 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 towards ye to go off at fiftyfive! I

could bear up, I know I could, if it were not for the treeyes, the tree, 'tis that's killing me. There he stands,

threatening my life every minute that the wind do blow. He'll come down upon us and squat us dead; and

"Never you mind methat'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 twothirds 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

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

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 hook 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

didn't. And at last it got too big, and now 'tis my enemy, and will be the death o' 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 Winterborne and Marty, soothingly. But they thought it possible that it might hasten him into

"I tell you what," added Winterborne, "I'll climb up this afternoon and shroud off the lower boughs, and then

"She won't allow ita 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, shrouding is not

He went out, and when afternoon came he returned, took a billhook from the woodman's shed, and with a

ladder climbed into the lower part of the tree, where he began lopping off"shrouding," as they called it at

Hintockthe 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

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 skyey field of his operations.

A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterborne, 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 yearslong 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

She looked up again. She was near enough to see the expression of his face, and the nails in his soles,

silverbright with constant walking. But she did not reply; and dropping her glance again, went on.

Winterborne'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

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 darkgray spot on the lightgray sky: he would have been altogether out of notice but for the stroke 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: plainness 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

He was so high amid the fog that he did not hear. "Mr. Winterborne!" she cried again, and this time he

"My silence just now was not accident," she said, in an unequal voice. "My father says it is best not to think

too much of that engagement, or understanding between us, that you know of. I, too, think that upon the

"Very well," he answered, as if without surprise, in a voice which barely reached down the tree. "I have

She added, with emotion in her tone, "For myself, I would have married yousome dayI think. But I give

He made no reply, but sat back upon a bough, placed 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 has told him such a

thing cannot be, the probabilities are that something might have been done by the appearance of Winterborne

on the ground beside Grace. But he continued motionless and silent in that gloomy Niflheim or fogland

The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South's window made rays on the fog, but did not

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, then to heave a sigh; a movement was audible, and Winterborne 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 in the 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

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

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

offside of the leader to the lowest on the left or nearside of the shafthorse. Melbury was among the last to

retain horsebells in that neighborhood; for, living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yet remained as narrow

as before the days of turnpike roads, these soundsignals 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 carters 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,

Winterborne set out, as he often did, to accompany the team as far as the corner, where it would turn into a

So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations of the roadside cottages by the weight of their progress, the

sixteen bells chiming 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

Then occurred one of the very incidents against which the bells were an endeavor to guard. Suddenly there

beamed into their eyes, quite close to them, the two lamps of a carriage, shorn of rays by the fog. Its approach

had been quite unheard, by reason of their own noise. The carriage was a covered one, while behind it could

Winterborne went to the head of the team, and heard the coachman telling the carter that he must turn back.

"It is much easier for you to turn than for us," said Winterborne. "We've five tons of timber on these wheels if

Winterborne admitted the strength of the argument. "But even with that," he said, "you can back better than

"Well, our time's precious," said the coachman, haughtily. "You are only going to some trumpery little village

The argument continued in these terms till a voice from the interior of the carriage inquired what was the

She was briefly informed of the timber people's obstinacy; and then Giles could hear her telling the footman

The message was brought, and Winterborne 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

In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages were compelled to back till they reached one of the sidings

or turnouts 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, lent a particularly

triumphant tone to the team's progressa tone which, in point of fact, did not at all attach to its conductor's

Giles walked behind the timber, and just as he had got past the yet stationary carriages he heard a soft voice

say, "Who is that rude man? Not Melbury?" The sex of the speaker was so prominent in the voice that

"No, ma'am. A younger man, in a smaller way of business in Little Hintock. Winterborne is his name."

Thus they parted company. "Why, Mr. Winterborne," said the wagoner, when they were out of hearing, "that

was SheMrs. Charmond! Who'd ha' thought it? What in the world can a woman that does nothing be

cockwatching out here at this time o' day for? Oh, going to Italyyes to be sure, I heard she was going

Winterborne 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

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. Charmond's carriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the

Mrs. Charmond 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. Charmond's slight in her generous

admiration. "Her hair so becomes her worn that way. I have never seen any more beautiful!"

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 Winterborne 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

The encounter with the carriages having sprung upon Winterborne'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 copyholds for

lifeleases. 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 up stairs, 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 hidingplace among rural lifeholders for such

documents. Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked them over. They 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 copyholds and other rights, in consideration of having the dilapidated houses rebuilt

by 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 Winterborne had never seen before. It

bore a remote date, the handwriting being that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature the landholder's. It

was to the effect that at any time before the last of the stated lives should drop, Mr. Giles Winterborne,

senior, 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

Winterborne's consent to demolish one of the houses and relinquish its site, which stood at an awkward

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 his project, as it surely was, the elder Winterborne having been a man who took much

Since one of the Souths 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, to learn the result

Marty met him at the door. "Well, Marty," he said; and was surprised to read in her face that the case was not

"I am sorry for your labor," she said. "It is 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

"It quite terrified him when he first saw what you had done to it this morning," she added. "He declares it will

"I didn't send for him Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that father was ill, and told him to attend him at

"That was very good of her. And he says it ought to be cut down. We mustn't cut it down without her

He went upstairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now gaunt tree as if his gaze were frozen on to its

trunk. Unluckily the tree waved afresh by this time, a wind having sprung up and blown the fog away, and his

They heard footstepsa man's, but of a lighter type than usual. "There is Doctor Fitzpiers again," she said,

Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sickchamber just as a doctor is more or less wont to do on such occasions, and

preeminently 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 them 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

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 of susceptivityit 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,

His face was rather soft than stern, charming than grand, pale than flushed; his noseif a sketch of his

features be de rigueur for a person of his pretensionswas artistically beautiful enough to have been worth

doing in marble by any sculptor not overbusy, and was hence devoid of those knotty irregularities which

often mean power; while the doublecyma 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

macaronian 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

"This is an extraordinary case," he said at last to Winterborne, 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

They accordingly descended, and the doctor continued, "The tree must be cut down, or I won't answer for his

"'Tis Mrs. Charmond's tree, and I suppose we must get permission?" said Giles. "If so, as she is gone away, I

"Ohnever mind whose tree it iswhat's a tree beside a life! Cut it down. I have not the honor of knowing

"'Tis timber," rejoined Giles, more scrupulous than he would have been had not his own interests stood so

closely involved. "They'll never fell a stick about here without it being marked first, either by her or the

"Then we'll inaugurate a new era forthwith. How long has he complained of the tree?" asked the doctor of

"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

They could hear South's voice upstairs "Oh, he's rocking this way; he must come! And then my poor life,

"That's how he goes on," she added. "And he'll never look anywhere else but out of the window, and scarcely

"Down with it, then, and hang Mrs. Charmond," said Mr. Fitzpiers. "The best plan will be to wait till the

evening, when it is dark, or early in the morning before he is 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

The doctor then departed, and they waited till the evening. When it was dusk, and the curtains drawn,

Winterborne directed a couple of woodmen to bring a crosscutsaw, 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 birthyear 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

As soon as it was broad daylight the doctor came, and Winterborne 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 Winterborne's

The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and drew back the printed cotton curtains. "'Tis gone, see," said Mr.

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

Greatly alarmed, they put him on the bed. As soon as he came a little out of his fit, he gasped, "Oh, it is

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.

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 Winterborne's he was the more grieved in

that this catastrophe had so closely followed the somewhat harsh dismissal of Giles as the betrothed of his

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

he came into those houses not to spend too much money on lifehold 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."

"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 sonin law, that can never be thought of more."

And yet at that very moment the impracticability to which poor Winterborne'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

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 capricegood or

illof the woman he had met the day before in such an unfortunate way, whether he was to possess his

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

"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

"What a misfortune! Why was this neglected? Well, the best thing you can do is to write and tell her all about

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 wellnigh 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 those

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

farther upon the face of his daughter, lying in her little bed in the stillness of a repose almost as dignified as

that of her companionthe repose of a guileless soul that had nothing more left on earth to lose, except a life

South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterborne watched for a reply from Mrs. Charmond. Melbury

was very sanguine as to its tenor; but Winterborne had not told him of the encounter with her carriage, when,

if ever he had 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 sparhouse; and

Winterborne, 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 Winterborne himself. This anxiety led her into the sparhouse on

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 had Winterborne gone to that corner of the ride, and looked up its long straight slope through

the wet grays 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 Winterborne saw a letter in it. He took it into the sparhouse before he broke the seal, and those

The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself, but her agent at Sherton. Winterborne glanced it over and

"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.

Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently to himself, "Then let her pull 'em down, and be dd to

Creedle looked at him with a face of seven sorrows, saying, "Ah, 'twas that sperrit that lost 'em for ye,

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 are 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 Winterborne and his neighbors after his stroke of illluck. He held

Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more of the matter than any one else, except his daughter. Had

Winterborne been going on in the old fashion, Grace's father could 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 past 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

His manner was that of a man who abandoned all claims. "I am glad to meet ye, Mr. Melbury," he said, in a

low voice, whose quality he endeavored 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 likeif you don't objectto give her to Miss

Mr. Melbury was rather affected at this. "You sha'n't hurt your pocket like that on our account, Giles. Grace

shall have the horse, but I'll pay you what you gave for her, and any expense you may have been put to for

He would not hear of any other terms, and thus it was arranged. They were now opposite Melbury's house,

and the timbermerchant pressed Winterborne to enter, Grace being out of the way.

"Pull round the settle, Giles," said the timbermerchant, as soon as they were within. "I should like to have a

Thereupon he put the case to Winterborne 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 Winterborne could marry his

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

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 rosetree. 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

"O Giles, you've lost your dwellingplace, 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

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; he crept

up to the house, thrust the 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 honorable of Giles, very honorable," he kept saying to himself. "I shall not forget him. Now to keep

It happened that Grace went out for an early ramble that morning, passing through the door and gate while

her father was in the sparhouse. To go in her customary direction she could not avoid passing Winterborne'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 Creedle

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 Winterborne would observe her action, she quickly went up to the

wall, rubbed out "lose" and inserted "keep" in its stead. Then she made the best of her way home without

There could not be the least doubt that gentle Grace was warming to more sympathy with, and interest in,

Giles Winterborne than ever she had done while 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 Winterborne 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 her 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

"Nonsense," he said, sharply. "You don't know what you are talking about. Look here."

She read it, and said no more. Could he have seen her write on the wall? She did not know. Fate, it seemed,

It was a few hours after this that Winterborne, 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

"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

"Having prophesied one thing, why did you alter it to another? Your predictions can't be worth much."

She went, and read that, in spite of losing his dwellingplace, he would KEEP his Grace. Marty came back

"You'd no business to rub it out. I didn't tell you to. I meant to let it stay a little longer."

As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected, Winterborne said no more, and

From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, Winterborne, though not absolutely out of his house

as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabouta feat not particularly difficult of

performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige. Grace, thinking that Winterborne

saw her write, made no further sign, and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was

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 timbermerchant's. The latter had, without 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. Charmond. Though the Melburys

themselves were unaware of the fact, there was every reason to believeat least so the parson said that the

owners of that little manor had been Melbury's own ancestors, the family name occurring in numerous

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

The cottage and its garden were so regular in their arrangement that they might have been laid out by a Dutch

designer of the time of William and Mary. In a low, dense hedge, cut to wedgeshape, 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 currant; next of raspberry;

next of strawberry; 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 foresttrees, reaching up to the crest of the hill.

Opposite the garden door and visible from the parlor window was a swinggate leading into a field, across

which there ran a foot path. The swinggate had just been repainted, and on one fine afternoon, before the

paint was dry, and while gnats were still dying thereon, the surgeon was standing in his sittingroom

abstractedly looking out at the different pedestrians who passed and repassed along that route. Being of a

philosophical stamp, he perceived that the chararter of each of these travellers exhibited itself in a somewhat

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 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

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 parent's death and Winterborne's

losses. She walked and thought, and 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

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 a tip of her glove

was to Fitzpiers almost like letting her proceed to tragical 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

He steadily watched her till she had 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 their crude rusticity; the contrast offered by this suggested that she

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 muchat any rate an inmate, and this probability was sufficient to set a mild

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 fits, 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. Charmond that day, and she

had walked to the brow of a hill whence the house could be seen, returning by another route.

Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of the glen, overlooking the manorhouse. The shutters were shut, and

only one chimney smoked. The mere aspect of the place was enough to inform him that Mrs. Charmond had

gone away and that nobody else was staying there. Fitzpiers felt a vague disappointment that the young lady

was not Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard so much; and without pausing longer to gaze at a carcass

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 post, shutter hook, or garden

paling of the domicile under visitation, or giving pennies to little boys to hold the animal during his

staypennies which were well earned when the cases to be attended were of a certain cheerful kind that

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 birth 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 reins, 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 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 Winterborne, walking leisurely along, as if he had no object in life. Winterborne

was a better class of companion than the doctor usually could get, and he at once pulled up and asked him if

Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness, but said that he had no objection, and accordingly

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 bough

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

"Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhooda very attractive girlwith a little white boa round her

Winterborne of course knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had caught the doctor peering at, was

represented by these accessaries. With a wary grimness, partly in his character, partly induced by the

circumstances, he evaded an answer by saying, "I saw a young lady talking to Mrs. Charmond the other day;

Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterborne had not seen him looking over the hedge. "It might have

been," he said. "She is quite a gentlewomanthe one I mean. She cannot be a permanent resident in Hintock

"Oh noyou mistake. She was a different sort of girl altogether." As Giles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him

"'She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, A power, that from its objects scarcely drew One impulse

of her beingin 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

The consummate charm of the lines seemed to Winterborne, though he divined that they were a quotation, to

"You seem to be mightily in love with her, sir," he said, with a sensation of heartsickness, and more than

"Oh noI am not that, Winterborne; people living insulated, as I do by the solitude of this place, get charged

with emotive fluid like a Leydenjar with electric, for want of some conductor at hand to disperse it. Human

love is a subjective thingthe essence itself of man, as that great thinker Spinoza the philosopher saysipsa

hominis essentiait 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

"Well, it is what we call being in love down in these parts, whether or no," said Winterborne.

"You are right enough if you admit that I am in love with something in my own head, and no thing in itself

"Is it part of a country doctor's duties to learn that view of things, may I ask, sir?" said Winterborne, adopting

the Socratic {Greek word: irony} with such wellassumed simplicity that Fitzpiers answered, readily,

"Oh no. The real truth is, Winterborne, that medical practice in places like this is a very ruleofthumb

matter; a bottle of bitter stuff for this and that old womanthe bitterer the better compounded from a few

simple stereotyped prescriptions; occasional attendance at births, where mere presence is almost sufficient, so

healthy and strong are the people; and a lance for an abscess now and then. Investigation and experiment

cannot be carried on without more appliances than one has herethough 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

"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, begad, 'twould 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

They had reached the top of Hintock Lane or Street, if it could be called such where threequarters 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. Winterborne 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 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

"In the most natural way in the world. It is her home. Mr. Melbury is her father."

Winterborne laughed coldly. "Won't money do anything," he said, "if you've promising material to work

upon? Why shouldn't a Hintock 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

"And you think an inch or two less of her now." There was a little tremor in Winterborne's voice as he spoke.

"Well," said the doctor, with recovered warmth, "I am not so sure that I think less of her. At first it was a sort

From this ambiguous expression of the reticent woodlander's, Dr. Fitzpiers inferred that Giles disliked Miss

Melbury because of some haughtiness in her bearing towards him, and had, on that account, withheld her

Grace's exhibition of herself, in the act of pullingto the windowcurtains, had been the result of an

unfortunate incident in the house that daynothing 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

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 Grammer of the yard and sparhouse. Ill as she was, on one point

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 am come, Grammer, as you wish. Do let us send for the

"Can't abear it! No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because 'ch have something on my mind. Dear Miss

"The ten pounds he offered me for my head, because I've 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 ye 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....'Ch have been going to ask him again to let me off, but I hadn't the face."

"I've spent some of the moneymore'n two pounds o't. It do wherrit me terribly; and I shall die o' the

thought of that paper I signed with my holy cross, as South died of his trouble."

"'Ch have done it once already, miss. But he laughed cruel like. 'Yours is such a fine brain, Grammer, 'er said,

'that science couldn't afford to lose you. Besides, you've taken my money.'...Don't let your father know of

Grammer rolled her head negatively upon 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,' er woll say. 'What difference is it to you what becomes of ye when the

breath's out of your body?' Oh, it do trouble me! If you only knew how he do chevy me round the chimmer in

my dreams, you'd pity me. How I could do it I can't think! But 'ch was always so rackless!...If I only had

"Ay; but he 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.

"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

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

"Ay, one can joke when one is well, even in old age; but in sickness one's gayety falters to grief; and that

Grace's eyes had tears in them. "I don't like to go to him on such an errand, Grammer," she said, brokenly.

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

Her own wish that nothing should be known of this strange and grewsome proceeding, no less than Grammer

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 gardenplots, 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 Grammer, 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 their meeting, there

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 w as 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 wide

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 ardor without the possibility of

a subject that he had proposed to Grammer Oliver the terms she had mentioned to her mistress.

As may be inferred from 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 inquirer 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,

But whether he meditated the Muses or the philosophers, the loneliness of Hintock 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 Winterborne, Melbury, and Grace; but not to the doctor's. They are old associationan almost exhaustive

biographical or 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 gray 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 brake; 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 lack memories it will ultimately pall upon

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

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

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

Manorhouse, 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's a very sweet, nice, exceptional girl."

The next morning he breakfasted alone, as usual. It was snowing with a fineflaked desultoriness just

sufficient to make the woodland gray, without ever achieving whiteness. There was not a single letter for

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 vigor, to pursue some engrossing subject or other till the small

hours, had hitherto been his practice. But today he could not settle into his chair. That selfcontained

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 halfsnowy, halfrainy 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 snowwater, 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

He wondered how long Miss Melbury was going to stay in Hintock. The season was unpropitious for

accidental encounters with her outofdoors, and except by accident he saw not how they were to become

acquainted. One thing was clearany acquaintance with her could only, with a 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

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

It was at this time that Grace approached the house. Her knock, always soft in virtue of her nature, was softer

today 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 in 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 reenter 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 criticise at 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 bellpull. 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, when there he

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 that 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 now she had allowed her mission to be stultified by a momentary

In the mean time her departure from the room, stealthy as it had been, had roused 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 boxedged gravelpath which led to the bottom, he

saw the garden door gently open, and through it enter 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

"I beg pardon, Miss Melbury," he said. "I saw you from the window, and fancied you might imagine that I

"I was coming to speak one word to 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

"I have merely a request or petition to make," she said. "My father's servant is illa woman you knowand

"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

mindthat unfortunate arrangement she made with you, that you might have her bodyafter death."

"And SO disturbed by her rash compact! I have brought the money backwill you please return to her the

agreement she signed?" Grace held out to him a couple of fivepound notes which she had kept ready tucked

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; the rain

increased. It ran off the porch and dripped on the creepers, and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace's

"The rain is wetting your dress; please do come in," he said. "It really makes my heart ache to let you stay

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 distressful resignation sat on her as she glided past him into the roombrushing his coat

He followed her, shut the doorwhich she somehow had hoped he would leave openand 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

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

"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

"Yes, that may be, since strangeness is not in the nature of a thing, but in its relation to something

He went to his desk, and searching a while found a paper, which be unfolded and brought to her. A thick

cross appeared in ink at the bottomevidently from the hand of Grammer. Grace put the paper in her pocket

As Fitzpiers did not take up 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 dreamedwhat do you think?that you stood in the room."

"You may imagine," Fitzpiers continued, now persuaded that it had, indeed, been a dream, "that I should not

"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

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 rodomontade. A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth, with the evil consequence,

if perceived, that the substance is estimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected.

Grace, however, was no specialist in men'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.

"I have to confess that I have been in the room once before," faltered she. "The woman showed me in, and

"I saw your eyes open in the glass, but as they were closed when I looked round upon you, I thought you

Foreknowledge to the distance of a year or so in either of them might have spoiled the effect of that pretty

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

"Grammer's a nervous disease, toohow singular!" he answered, accompanying her to the door. "One

He had thrown open the door on the other side of the passage, and she saw a microscope on the table of the

She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle of light patterned all over with a cellular tissue of some

She started back, not with aversion, but with wonder as to how it should have got there. Fitzpiers laughed.

"Here am I," he said, "endeavoring 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 contrast between them;

"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 selfforgetful 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

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 ownnotwithstanding that the factors of his life had worked out

a sorry product for thousandshe 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'scommoner in dreamers of more advanced age than in men of his yearswas 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 will be the light of my life while I am at Hintock; and the

special beauty of the situation is that our attitude and relations to each other will 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

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

objective spirit rather than corporeal presence, Grace Melbury would serve to keep his soul alive, and to

His first notionacquired from the mere sight of her without conversethat of an idle 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, in the wood, coming and going to and from church, or in

Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then realized 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 treetwigs 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

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

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 around 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

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 possibly might 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 Timothys, and

Robert Creedle, who probably had been "lent" by Winterborne; 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 incrusted 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 axeman came and cut a ring round it, and the two Timothys finished the work with the crosscutsaw.

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 at peeling the upper parts, and there she stood

encaged amid the 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 proceedbranches

which, in their lifetime, had swayed high above the bulk of the wood, and caught the latest and earliest rays

"No, sir," she said, holding up the toola horse's legbone fitted into a handle and filed to an edge"'tis

only that they've 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. Fitzpiers 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 farther

into the world than where he was? The secret of quiet happiness lay in limiting the ideas and aspirations;

these men's thoughts were conterminous with the margin of the Hintock woodlands, and why should not his

be likewise limiteda 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

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

The timbermerchant 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 barkripping 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

When Melbury stepped up close to the shelter, he for the first time perceived that the doctor was present, and

"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 are 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

Grace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers's propinquity. She was thinking of something which had

little connection with the scene before herthinking of her friend, lost as soon as found, Mrs. Charmond; of

her capricious conduct, and of the contrasting scenes she was possibly 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

Melbury told ancient timberstories as he sat, relating them directly to Fitzpiers, and obliquely to the men,

who had heard them often before. Marty, who poured out tea, was just saying, "I think I'll take out a cup to

Miss Grace," when they heard a clashing of the gigharness, and turning round Melbury saw that the horse

had become restless, and 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 ground, and

"Oh no, not much," she managed to say. "There was no danger unless he had run under the trees where the

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 usualthat 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 gayly

to Fitzpiers as she walked with him towards the group, "There's destiny in it, you see. I was doomed to join in

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 barkrippers sundry narratives of their fathers', their grandfathers', and their

own adventures in these woods; of the mysterious sights they had seenonly 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 exorcised 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 Newyear's Day, old style; hence the local saying, "On Newyear's tide, a cock's

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

As the doctor had helped her out of it he appeared to think that he had excellent reasons for helping her in,

Melbury mounted on the other side, and they drove on out of the grove, their wheels silently crushing

delicatepatterned mosses, hyacinths, primroses, lordsandladies, 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 the cider country, which met the woodland district on the axis of this hill. Over the

vale the air was blue as sapphiresuch a blue as outside that applevalley 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

"All that blooth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands. If no blight happens before the setting the

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 labor 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

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

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 the

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 light thus obtained she for the first time saw

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

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

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

"Oh no, I am sure it doesn't," said Grace in haste, quickly assuming an erect posture. "Pray don't say it any

"I hope there was not much money in the purse," said Fitzpiers, rising to his feet more slowly, and brushing

"Scarcely any. I cared most about the purse itself, because it was given me. Indeed, money is of little more

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

"I don't know if you would call him that," said Grace, with simplicity. "The admirer is a superficial,

"You unconsciously practise them, Miss Melbury, which is better. According to Schleiermacher they are

Selfcontrol, Perseverance, Wisdom, and Love; and his is the best list that I know."

"I am afraid poor" She was going to say that she feared Winterbornethe giver of the purse years

beforehad not much perseverance, though he had all the other three; but she determined to go no further in

These halfrevelations 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 her lover's regard.

"Miss Melbury," he said, suddenly, "I divine that this virtuous man you mention has been refused by you?"

"I do not inquire without good reason. God forbid that I should kneel in another's place at any shrine unfairly.

"II can't say anything about that!" she cried, quickly. "Because when a man has been refused you feel pity

This increasing complication added still more value to Grace in the surgeon's eyes: it rendered her adorable.

"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,

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 have

been following they pigeons, and didn't see you. And here's Mr. Winterborne!" she continued, shyly, as she

"Marty," Grace interrupted. "I want you to walk home with me will you? Come along." And without

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 Fitzpiersnothing but copse wood, between

which the primroses could be discerned in pale bunches. "I didn't know Mr. Winterborne was there," said

The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their substance, and the woodland seemed to change from an open

filigree to a solid 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 seedplots when it rained, pitting their surface all over as with pockmarks,

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 nightjar, 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,

Such an appearance it had on Midsummer 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 hollyleaves 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 hamlet, it became

apparent that the margin of the wood which approached the timbermerchant's premises was not to be left to

Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices, was looking over his garden gatewhere he now looked more

frequently than into his booksfancying 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 substancewhich he

had hitherto deemed an impossibilityhe 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 groupsome steadily walking,

some in a mood of wild gayety. 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 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

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

In the mean time 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

Passing Winterborne's house, they heard a noise of hammering. Marty explained it. This 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

When they had proceeded a little farther 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 hollytree; 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

"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 Winterborne."

Marty returned no comment; and at that minute the girls, some of whom were from Great Hintock, were seen

"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 holedigging

tomorrow at twelve, and hearing our husbands' trades. It is too much like having dealings with the Evil One

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

blackart to be practised on this occasion was one connected with the sowing of hempseed, a handful of

which was carried by each girl. At the moment of their advance they looked back, and discerned 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 girlsa bouncing maiden, plighted to young Timothy Tangsasked her if she

would join in. 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.

Grammer whispered again to Marty: "Why didn't ye go and try your luck with the rest of the maids?"

"Why, half the parish is herethe silly hussies should have kept it quiet. I see Mr. Winterborne through the

leaves, just come up with Robert Creedle. Marty, we ought to act the part o' 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

"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 in the leafy defile along which Grace

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 notthat Grace was rapidly fascinating the surgeon. She therefore drew near to

"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 is like the rest of the girls."

Fitzpiers did not require to be told twice. He went across to Winterborne and stood beside him. Each knew

the probable purpose of the other in standing there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers scorning to look upon

Winterborne as a rival, and Winterborne adhering to the offhand manner of indifference which had grown

Neither Grammer nor Marty South had seen the surgeon's manoeuvre, and, still to help Winterborne, as she

supposed, the old woman suggested to the woodgirl 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,

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 the 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 handpost to guide her; then, passing on, she flew round the fatal bush where the

undergrowth narrowed to a gorge. Marty arrived at her heels just in time to see the result. Fitzpiers had

quickly stepped forward in front of Winterborne, 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

"You are in my arms, dearest," said Fitzpiers, "and I am going to claim you, and keep you there all our two

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 brakes, 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?"

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 enoughnew relations between them had begun.

The case of the other girls was different, as has 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, Winterborne having gone away. On a sudden another girl

came bounding down the same descent that had been followed by Gracea fineframed young woman with

naked arms. Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she said, with playful effrontery, "May'st kiss me if 'canst catch

Fitzpiers recognized her as Suke Damson, a hoydenish damsel of the hamlet, who was plainly mistaking him

for her lover. He was impulsively disposed to profit by her error, and as soon as she began racing away he

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 onea meadow, where the halfmade hay lay about in heaps, in the

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, when 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 her hiding place, and by snatches of a local ballad in the smallest voice she

Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its mildness, stooped and imprinted the purposed

Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suke looked very beautiful, the scratches and

blemishes incidental to her outdoor occupation being invisible under these pale rays. While they remain

silent the coarse whir of the eternal nightjar 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 hayfield stretched away

When the general stampede occurred Winterborne had also been looking on, and encountering one of the

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

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 eveningdress, carrying on one arm a light overcoat and also his hat, so awkwardly arranged as possibly to

have suggested the "hourglass" to his timid observersif 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 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

He paused, and looked round, as if he had forgotten where he was; not observing Giles, who was of the color

of his environment. The latter advanced into the light. The gentleman held up his hand and came towards

"I have 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.

"I don't want the turnpikeroad," said the gentleman, impatiently. "I came from that. I want Hintock House.

"Well, yes, a sort of path. But it is hard to find from this point. I'll show you the way, sir, with great

"Thanks, my good friend. The truth is that I decided to walk across the country after dinner from the hotel at

Sherton, where I am staying for a day or two. But I did not know it was so far."

They walked on together. As there was no path, Giles occasionally stepped in front and bent aside the

underboughs 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

So they went on, the leafshadows running in their usual quick succession over the forms of the pedestrians,

"Not much farther," said Winterborne. "The plantation runs up into a corner here, close behind the house." He

added with hesitation, "You know, I suppose, sir, that Mrs. Charmond is not at home?"

"You mistake," said the other, quickly. "Mrs. Charmond has been away for some time, but she's at home

"Oh, indeed, sir. You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French gentleman, perhaps?"

Giles did not fill the pause which ensued, and the gentleman, who seemed of an emotional nature, unable to

"I am an Italianized American, a South Carolinian by birth," he said. "I left my native country on the failure

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

His companion expressed his astonishment. "I thought it between nine and ten at latest! Dear medear 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

into his pocket, said, awkwardly, "I offered it because I want you to utter no word about this meeting with

Winterborne 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

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 his 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

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

The sunny, leafy week which followed the tender doings of Midsummer Eve brought a visitor to Fitzpiers's

door; a voice that he knew sounded in the passage. Mr. Melbury had called. At first he had a particular

objection to enter the parlor, because his boots were dusty, but as the surgeon insisted he waived the point

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

dewon Midsummer Eve in particular she went out in thin slippers to watch some vagary of the Hintock

maidsand she's got a cough, a distinct hemming and hacking, that makes me uneasy. Now, I have decided

The timbermerchant had happened to call at a moment when Fitzpiers was at the springtide 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 the manoeuvre for which

the hour and the moonlight and the occasion had been the only excuse. Now she was to be sent away.

Ambition? it could be postponed. Family? culture and reciprocity of tastes had taken the place of family

"How strange, how very strange it is," he said, "that you should have come to me about her just now. I have

"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

Melbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air of halfmisgiving at his own rashness that

"You havegot to know her?" said Melbury, a spell of dead silence having preceded his utterance, during

"And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with a view to marriageof course that is

"Yes," said the young man. "I mean, get acquainted with her, with a view to being her accepted lover; and if

The timbermerchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated; his hand trembled as he laid by his

walkingstick. "This takes me unawares," said he, his voice wellnigh 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 that 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 was why I educated her. I said to myself, 'I'll do it, cost what it may;' though her motherlaw

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 good material to work on, such doings would be waste and vanity,' I said. 'But where you have that

"I am glad you don't object," said Fitzpiers, almost wishing that Grace had not been quite so cheap for him.

"If she is willing I don't object, certainly. Indeed," added the honest man, "it would be deceit if I were to

pretend to feel anything else than highly honored 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 huntsmanfellow little thought

"Oh yes. But, name it allabout her cough, and her going away. I had quite forgot that that was what I came

"I assure you," said the surgeon, "that her cough can only be the result of a slight cold, and it is not necessary

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

The proposal pleased Melbury much. There could be hardly 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 homealong. I am much obliged to ye. As you will see her often,

"I can assure you it is nothing," said Fitzpiers, who had seen Grace much oftener already than her father knew

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

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 in a certain sense 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

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

"What maggot has the gaffer got in his head now?" said Tangs the elder. "Sommit to do with that chiel of his!

When you've got a maid of yer own, John Upjohn, that costs ye what she costs him, that will take the squeak

out of your Sunday shoes, John! But you'll never be tall enough to accomplish such as she; and 'tis a lucky

thing for ye, John, as things be. Well, be ought to have a dozenthat would bring him to reason. I see 'em

walking together last Sunday, and when they came to a puddle he lifted her over like a halfpenny doll. He

Meanwhile Melbury had entered the house with the look of a man who sees a vision before him. His wife was

"Lucewe've done it!" he said. "Yesthe thing is as I expected. The spell, that I foresaw might be worked,

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.

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?" said she, 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

"No, noof course you don't know what I mean, or you 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 ye. Why, you've flung your

"'Twasn't necessary that you should, 'Tis voluntary that rules in these things....Well, he has behaved very

honorably, and asked my consent. You'll know what to do when he gets here, I dare say. I needn't tell you to

Grace looked out of the window and at the fireplace with no animation in her face. "Why is it settled

offhand in this way?" said she, coquettishly. "You'll wait till you hear what I think of him, I suppose?"

"You will be restored to the society you've been taken away from," continued her father; "for I don't suppose

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

A premonition that she could not resist him if he came strangely moved her. "Of course, father, you

She could not explain the subtleties of her feeling as he could state his opinion, even 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 biassed her doings until the influence was over, when she felt something of the

nature of regret for the mood she had experiencedstill more if she reflected on the silent, almost sarcastic,

criticism apparent in Winterborne's air towards hercould 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 hera rare instance, for the girls were respecters of persons, and many cooled down towards the

timberdealer's daughter when she was out of sight. Thus the receipt of it pleased her, and she afterwards

In the evening her father, who knew that the note had come, said, "Why be ye not sitting down to answer

"Oh, you know best," he said. Nevertheless, he went about his business doubting if she were right in not

replying; possibly she might be so mismanaging matters as to risk the loss of an alliance which would bring

Melbury's respect for Fitzpiers was based less on his professional position, which was not much, than on the

standing of his family in the county in bygone days. That implicit faith in members of longestablished

families, as such, irrespective of their personal condition or character, which is still found among

oldfashioned people in the rural districts reached its full intensity in Melbury. His daughter's suitor 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 still she's young, and

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 appletrees 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

applecrop 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 there 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

"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

"Oh yesas yeomen, copyholders, and such like. But think how much better this will be for 'ee. 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 dashing 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 'twouldn't lower ye at all. Don't think such men

as neighbor Giles your equal. He and I shall be good friends enough, but he's not for the like of you. He's

lived our rough and homely life here, and his wife's life must be rough and homely likewise."

So much 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 into the aforesaid vale where stood the village of

Buckbury Fitzpiers. Leaving her father's man at the inn with the 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 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

treatad so grossly, she thought, and for the first time the family of Fitzpiers assumed in her imagination the

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

In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful consciousness of hazard in the air, she

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 Herophilusof 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 as complete a conversation as he could wish with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed, no

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 parlor was as the sweeping of the

parlor at the Interpreter's which wellnigh 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 timberyard, stared at the

interior of the room, jerked out "ay, ay," and retreated again. Between four and five Fitzpiers arrived, hitching

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

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 she raised in his heart there hung the sense that he was casting a die by impulse which he

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 parlor 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 Grammer 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 parlor conversation.

Whenever the chat over the tea sank into pleasant desultoriness Mr. Melbury broke in with speeches of

labored precision on very remote topics, as if he feared to let Fitzpiers's mind dwell critically on the subject

nearest 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, largeeyed, tightlipped, 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

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 matteroffact way, "Of course,

Grace; go to the door with Mr. Fitzpiers." Accordingly Grace went, both her parents remaining in the room.

When the young pair were in the great brickfloored hall the lover took the girl's hand in his, drew it under

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 action 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

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 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 the current, and to yield to the immense influence which Fitzpiers exercised over her

Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she loved him as yet in the ordinary sense,

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 Housestill deserted, and still blankly confronting with its sightless

shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes. Grace was tired, and they approached the wall, and sat

together on one of the stone sillsstill warm with the sun that had been pouring its rays upon them all the

"This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest," said her betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking

"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

"Who is?oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond. Do you know, dear, that at one time I thought you lived here."

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 the horrid little church here, with

"No. Not at a church at all. At a registry office. It is a quieter, snugger, and more convenient place in every

"Oh," said she, with real distress. "How can I be married except at church, and with all my dear friends round

"You see, dear, a noisy bellringing marriage at church has this objection in our case: it would be a thing of

report a long way round. Now I would gently, as gently as possible, indicate to you how inadvisable such

publicity would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase the practice that I contemplate purchasing at

Budmouth hardly more than twenty miles off. Forgive my saying that it will be far better if nobody there

knows where you come from, nor anything about your parents. Your beauty and knowledge and manners will

"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

"Well, wellI didn't mean to. But I have mentioned as much to your father, who has made no objection; and

She gave way, deeming the point one on which she ought to allow sentiment to give way to policyif there

were indeed policy in his plan. But she was indefinably depressed as they walked homeward.

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,

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 approach 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 roofholes, sat on the floor of her room in the dim light, and byandby

peeped out behind the windowcurtains. It was even now day outofdoors, 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 any of the outhouses as yet. The tree trunks, the road, the outbuildings, the garden,

every object wore that 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 appletrees behind, high up the

slope, and backed by the plantation on the crest, was the house yet occupied by her future husband, the

roughcast front showing whitely through its creepers. The windowshutters 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 skirt of a

long loose garment. A gray arm, stretching from within the porch, adjusted the shawl over the woman's

The woman went quickly down the boxedged path between the raspberries and currants, and as she walked

her welldeveloped form and gait betrayed her individuality. It was Suke Damson, the affianced one of

simple young Tim Tangs. At the bottom of the garden she entered the shelter of the tall hedge, and only the

Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized, in the gray arm stretching from the porch, the sleeve of a

dressinggown 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 sun 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

When attired 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, "Morning t'ye, Gracie. I congratulate ye. It is only a month today to the time!"

She did not answer, but, without lifting her dress, waded between the dewy rows of tall potatogreen into the

"I have 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 Winterborne 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

"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' honor and the seemliness of things. That time has

come. I won't say to ye, you SHALL marry him. But I will say that if you 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 ye; that's where the secret lies, I'll

"Well, make fools of us all; make us laughingstocks; break it off; have your own way."

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

"No, it is not; though for that matter you encouraged him once," she said, troubled to the verge of despair. "It

"Ay, ay; you are jealous. The old story. Don't tell me. Now do you bide here. I'll send Fitzpiers to you. I saw

He went off hastily out of the gardengate and down the lane. But she would not stay where she was; and

edging through a slit in the gardenfence, 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 sylphlike,

greenish white creature, as toned by the sunlight and leafage. She heard a footfall crushing dead leaves

behind her, and found herself reconnoitered by Fitzpiers himself, approaching gay and fresh as the morning

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 wild wood 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. Ha! ha! ha!

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," said she, 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 wrongeh?" he asked, eying her narrowly, and bending to kiss her. She shrank away,

She made no answer beyond, "Mr. Fitzpiers, I have had no breakfast, I must go in."

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 byandby. I

By a sort of divination his conjecture went straight to the fact. "Nor I," said he, lightly. "Indeed, I rose late

today. I have had a broken night, or rather morning. A girl of the villageI don't know her namecame

and rang at my bell as soon as it was lightbetween four and five, I should think it wasperfectly

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 dressinggown and went down. The poor thing begged me with tears in her

eyes to take out her tormentor, if I dragged her head off. Down she sat and out it camea lovely molar, not a

speck upon it; and off she went with it in her handkerchief, much contented, though it would have done good

It was all so plausibleso completely explained. knowing nothing of the incident in the wood on old

Midsummereve, 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 is made

"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 you still mean to take one another for good and all; and

on the strength o't you shall have another couple of hundred paid down. I swear it by the name."

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'll go, and

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 loverlike anxiety to possess her, the few golden hundreds of the timber dealer,

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

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 gardengates 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 creek of an embayed 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 Sandbourne 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 ardor, 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 hollowturner, Bawtree, Suke Damson, and others, looked

knowing, and made remarks to each other as they watched its entrance. Melbury stood at the door of the

timbershed 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 exaltation at the proof that thus far, at any rate, no disappointment had supervened. While Mrs.

Dollery remainedwhich was rather long, from her sense of the importance of her errandhe 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 findhis wife and daughter in a flutter of excitement over the

weddinggown, just arrived from the leading dressmaker of Sandbourne wateringplace aforesaid.

During these weeks Giles Winterborne 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 resta few pieces endeared by associations, or

necessary to his occupationin the house of a friendly neighbor, 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 cidermaking season came round, his apparatus being stored

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

Everything had been clear then, in imagination; now something was undefined. She had little carking

anxieties; a curious fatefulness seemed to rule her, and she experienced a mournful want of some one to

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 she came out of church, imagine the jangle of the three thintoned Hintock bells. The

dialogues seemed to grow louder, and the ding dingdong of those three crazed bells more persistent. She

The chief hotel at ShertonAbbas was an old stonefronted 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 sittingroom 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

"When the fair apples, red as evening sky, Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground, When juicy pears, and

The landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part of the identical stretch of country which

In this room sat she who had been the maiden Grace Melbury till the finger of fate touched her and turned her

to 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

In the yard, between Grace and the orchards, there progressed a scene natural to the locality at this time of the

year. An apple mill and press had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing fruit from

divers points in mawnbaskets, 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 shirtsleeves rolled up

beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained while he rammed the pomace into the bags of horsehair.

Fragments of applerind had alighted upon the brim of his hatprobably from the bursting of a bagwhile

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 cidermaking apparatus and wringhouse 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 cidermaker. His press and mill were fixed to

wheels instead of being set up in a ciderhouse; 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

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 streakedjacks, codlins, costards,

Grace watched the headman with interest. The slightest sigh escaped her. Perhaps she thought of the

daynot 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 yetdays of childhoodwhen 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

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 Winterborne 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 Creedle, 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 ciderpress.

"Ah, maister'tis my thoughts'tis my thoughts!...Yes, ye've lost a hundred load o' timber well seasoned;

ye've lost five hundred pound in good money; ye've lost the stonewindered house that's big enough to hold a

dozen families; ye've lost your share of half a dozen good wagons and their horsesall lost!through your

"Good God, Creedle, you'll 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 performedfor 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 momentmoving in a plane so far removed from her own of late that she could

scarcely believe she had ever found congruity therein. "NoI 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 abovedescribed pride of lifeeasily to be

understood, and possibly excused, in a young, inexperienced woman who thought she had married wellshe

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. Winterborne! What, have you forgotten

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

She flushed, and was struck dumb for some moments; but she forgave his unreasoning anger, knowing so

well in what it 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

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 onethat which could

regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and her privilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He

"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, accurst, 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 contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all. As it was, on

closing the window an indescribable, some might have said dangerous, pity quavered 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 that we know," she replied, looking into the court.

Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not recognize anybody.

"Why, Mr. Winterbornethere he is, cidermaking. He combines that with his other business, you know."

She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is true 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 belonged to a different

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 YOUyou are refined and educated into something quite different," he said, selfassuringly.

"I don't quite like to think that," she murmured with soft regret. "And I think you underestimate Giles

Winterborne. 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. That is, no doubt, my fault, and a great blemish in me. But I hope you

Fitzpiers said that he would endeavor 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 cidermakers in the yard having ceased their labors 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

"You don't say a word, Edgar," she observed. "Aren't you glad to get back? I am."

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 wing 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 timberdealer

that there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival, that not the smallest detail remained

undone. To make it all complete a groundfloor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent

outer door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate was screwedfor mere ornament, such a sign being quite

superfluous where everybody knew the latitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round.

Melbury and his wife welcomed the 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 it was too soon for any sort of meal, they only having dined

shortly before leaving ShertonAbbas. He would walk across to his old lodging, to learn how his locum

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 soninlawship to Melbury. He went on to his former residence. His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers

She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable a tenant as the surgeon had proved to be duling

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

"It is what people say about your hasty marrying, Dr. Fitzpiers. Whereas they won't believe you know such

clever doctrines in physic as they once supposed of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury's family,

"They are kindly welcome to their opinion," said Fitzpiers, not allowing himself to recognize that he winced.

"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 Ellisthat's her

maidtold her you was on your weddingtower with Mr. Melbury's daughter; and she said, 'He ought to

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 drawingroom 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 diningroom, but no

supper was laid. He went to the top of the stairs, and heard a chorus of voices in the timbermerchant's parlor

Descending, and looking into the room from the doorway, he found quite a large gathering of neighbors and

other acquaintances, praising and congratulating Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return, among them being the

dairyman, Farmer Bawtree, and the masterblacksmith from Great Hintock; also the cooper, the

hollowturner, 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

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 were come, we could do no less than ask them to supper; and then Grace proposed that we

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

"Certainly notcertainly 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 wideelbowed 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 that, after all, the

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. These 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 he must think of moving homeward. At the words Melbury rose as alertly

"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

She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste for those oldfashioned 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

"But you joined in with all those people in my absence, without knowing whether I should approve or

She, sighing: "YesI see I ought to have waited; though they came unexpectedly, and I thought I had acted

Thus the discussion ended, and the next day Fitzpiers went on his old rounds as usual. But it was easy for so

supersubtle 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 woodlandlers 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 hatbrims, 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 this marriage, Fitzpiers was believed in no more as a superior

hedged by his own divinity; while as doctor he began to be rated no higher than old Jones, whom they had so

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

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

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.

Charmond 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."

"Goodnight," said Grace, as soon as he was ready. "I shall be asleep, probably, when you return."

"Goodnight, "he replied, inattentively, and went downstairs. It was the first time since their marriage that

Winterborne'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 his slight business connection with

Melbury, on whose premises Giles kept his cidermaking 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 site, 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 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 chimneycorner, in which he had roasted apples and

potatoes in his boyhood, cast his bullets, and burned his initials on articles that did and did not belong to him.

The appletrees still remained to show where the garden had been, the oldest of them even now retaining the

crippled slant to northeast given them by the great November gale of 1824, which carried a brig bodily over

the Chesil Bank. They were at present bent to 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

It was on the evening under notice that, half sitting, half leaning against one of these inclined trunks,

Winterborne 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 chimneys had formerly raised their

outlines. The house had jutted awkwardly into the road, and the opening caused by its absence was very

In the silence the trot of horses and the spin of carriagewheels 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 drivingseat of a

phaeton, a groom being just visible behind. Presently there was a slight scrape, then a scream. Winterborne

went across to the spot, and found the phaeton 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. Charmond's, and

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, Mrs. Charmond 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

"Drive homedrive home!" cried the lady, impatiently; and they started on their way. They had not,

however, gone many paces when, the air being still, Winterborne heard her say "Stop; tell that man to call the

doctorMr. Fitzpiersand send him on to the House. I find I am hurt more seriously than I thought."

Winterborne 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

Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw open for the first time. Contrary to his

expectation there was visible no 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

dressinggown formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her hairplaits; 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 a 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?

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'll do my best to justify your good opinion," said the young man, bowing. "And none the less that I am

"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

"Oh, I forgot," she returned. "Look here." And she showed him a little scrape on her armthe full round arm

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 rightI

am learning. Take one of these; and here's a light." She threw a matchbox across.

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 first we

met!" she resumed, in a voice which she mainly endeavored to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and

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

"And the young lady who wore a long tail of rarecolored hairah, I see it before my eyes!who lost her

gloves on the Great Terracewho was going back in the dusk to find themto whom I said, 'I'll go for

them,' and you said, 'Oh, they are not worth coming all the 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: there they laythe little

"Never mind. I was young then, and I kissed them. I wondered how I could make the most of my trouvaille,

and decided that I would call at your hotel with them that afternoon. It rained, and I waited till next day. I

"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.

"Good Heaven!" said Fitzpiers, musingly. "How the time comes back to me! The evening, the morning, the

dew, the spot. When I found that you really were 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 youI flung myself on the grass, andbeing not much

more than a boymy eyes were literally blinded with tears. Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I

"But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not a fullblown loveit was the

merest budred, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion in posse, a giant in embryo. It never

"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

"I beg your pardon," said she, 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 emotion do outgrow

them; I believe that the older such people get the worse they are. Possibly at ninety or a hundred they may

"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

"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 the 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

"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 the crops they think I am a blasphemer."

"You don't wish me to stay any longer?" he inquired, when he found that she remained musing.

"Then fear no more. But goodnight. Come tomorrow and see if I am going on right. This renewal of

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 the 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 here 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

The intersection of his temporal orbit with Mrs. Charmond's 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 wayfrom the Hintock House point of

view rather than from his own and the Melburys'. The household had all gone to bed, and as he went

upstairs he heard the snore of the timbermerchant 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

Fitzpiers had so entirely lost sight of Mrs. Charmond as a patient that he was not on the instant ready with a

"Oh no," he said. "There are no bones broken, but she is shaken. I am going again tomorrow."

"WellI think she didI don't quite remember; but I am under the impression that she spoke of you."

"Oh yesyou may depend upon that!" replied he, warmly, though scarcely thinking of what he was saving,

The doctor's professional visit to Hintock House was promptly repeated the next day and the next. He always

found Mrs. Charmond reclining on a sofa, and behaving generally as 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

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 goldbeater's skin, so that it

might catch the eyes of the servants, and make his presence appear decidedly necessary, in case there should

He was peeling off the bit of plaster on her arm, under which the scrape had turned the color of an unripe

blackberry previous to vanishing altogether. "Wait a moment, thenI'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 I put it on," said

"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 encounterhers showing

themselves as deep and mysterious as interstellar space. She turned her face away suddenly. "Ah! none of

that! none of thatI cannot coquet with you!" she cried. "Don't suppose I consent to for one moment. Our

poor, brief, youthful hour of lovemaking was too long ago to bear continuing now. It is as well that we

"Coquet! Nor I with you. As it was when I found the historic gloves, so it is now. I might have been and may

be foolish; but I am no trifler. I naturally cannot forget that 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

"Then the fire would have burned higher and higher. What would have immediately followed I know not; but

"Wellthat'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 sank 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

"You are rightthink 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

"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

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 for

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

"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 is 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.

"But no, I have not actually bought the practice as yet, though I am indeed in treaty for it. And, my dear

friend, if I continue to feel about the business as I feel at this momentperhaps I may conclude never to go

"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 mean strengthstrange, smouldering, erratic passions, kept down like a stifled

conflagration, but bursting out now here, now therethe only certain element in their direction being its

unexpectedness. If one word could have expressed her it would have been Inconsequence. 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 dependants generally, they managed to get along under her government rather

Now, with regard to the doctor's notion of leaving Hintock, he had advanced furthur towards completing the

purchase of the Budmouth surgeon's goodwill than he had admitted to Mrs. Charmond. The whole matter

hung upon what he might do in the ensuing twentyfour 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 clematishere

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

grasseach had been endowed and quickened with a subtle charm since he had discovered the person and

history, and, above all, mood of 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 purposed change, towards which every step had been taken but the last. But could

he find it in his heartas he found it clearly enough in his conscienceto go away?

He drew a troubled breath, and went indoors. Here he rapidly penned a 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 mailcart on another turnpikeroad, and so got the letter off.

The man returned, met Fitzpiers in the lane, and told him the thing was done. Fitzpiers went back to his house

musing. Why had he carried out this impulsetaken 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. 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

"My father has told me that you have sent off one of the men with a late 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 ask, and that the tedious question had

"I have altered my mind," said he. "They want too muchseven hundred and fifty is too large a sumand

in short, I have declined to go further. We must wait for another opportunity. I fear I am not a good

businessman." He spoke the last words with a momentary faltering 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 hereabout

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 windowpanes 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 rind below being

coated with a lichenous wash as green as emerald. They were stouttrunked 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

She was in a little boudoir or writingroom on the first floor, and Fitzpiers was much surprised to find that

the windowcurtains were closed and a redshaded lamp and candles burning, though out ofdoors it was

broad daylight. Moreover, a large fire was burning in the grate, though it was not cold.

She sat in an easychair, 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 windowglass; 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 borrowrest? Answer that, Dr.

"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 societyhow severe they are, and cold and inexorableghastly towards

those who are made of wax and not of stone. Oh, I am afraid of them; a stab for this error, and a stab for

thatcorrectives and regulations framed that society may tend to perfectionan end which I don't care for

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 so 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. Theredon't be angry with me;" and she jumped up, pressed his hand, and looked

"Donewe have done nothing. Perhaps we have thought the more. However, it is all vexation. I am going

away to Middleton Abbey, near Shottsford, 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 forever, with

"Oh yes; but only to Middleton Abbey for a month or two. Yet perhaps I shall gain strength

thereparticularly strength of mindI 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 friendsshe and I. Oh, how this

shutting up of one's self does lead to indulgence in idle sentiments. I shall not wish you to give your

attendance to me after today. But I am glad that you are not going awayif your remaining does not injure

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

leadjust 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

"I returned for a moment to tell you that the evening is going to be fine. The sun is shining; so do open your

He drew back the windowcurtains, whereupon the red glow of the lamp and the two candleflames became

almost invisible with the flood of late autumn sunlight that poured in. "Shall I come round to you?" he asked,

He stood a moment irresolute, and regretted that he had killed the rosy, passionate lamplight by opening the

"Very well," she answered, stretching one hand round to him, and patting her eyes with a handkerchief held

"No, no." A gentle reasonableness came into her tone as she added, "It must not be, you know. It won't do."

In the evening, with listless adroitness, she encouraged the maid who dressed her for dinner to speak of Dr.

"Mrs. Fitzpiers was once supposed to favor Mr. Winterborne," said the young woman.

"The houses were held on lives, and the lives dropped, and your agent wouldn't renew them, though it is said

that Mr. Winterborne had a very good claim. That's as I've heard it, ma'am, and it was through it that the

Being just then distracted by a dozen emotions, Mrs. Charmond sunk into a mood of dismal selfreproach.

"In refusing that poor man his reasonable request," she said to herself, "I foredoomed my rejuvenated

girlhood's romance. Who would 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

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,

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 diningroom; and even here, before the

servants, her shoulders suddenly shook as the scene returned upon her; and the tears of her hilarity mingled

She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of champagne, and a little more still after those, and

A week had passed, and Mrs. Charmond had left Hintock House. Middleton Abbey, the place of her sojourn,

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 Winterborne 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 Hart, extending beneath the eye 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.

It had seemed to her that he was looking much to the right of that cradle and tomb of his ancestral dignity; but

she 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 lightgray mare which Winterborne 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

"Yes," he replied, "but not to drive. I am riding her. I practise crossing a horse as often as I can now, for I find

He had, in fact, taken these riding exercises for about a week, only since Mrs. Charmond's absence, his

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

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. In 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

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 inferencestrange 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 antenuptial 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 strangenessthe mystery of his past, of

his knowledge, of his professional skill, of his beliefs. When this structure of ideals was demolished by the

intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely human as the Hintock people themselves, a new

foundation was in demand for an enduring and stanch affectiona sympathetic interdependence, wherein

mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive alliance. Fitzpiers had furnished none of that

singleminded confidence and truth out of which alone such a second union could spring; hence it was with a

"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's 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 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 wearyeyed.

"Why do you go tonight?" 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 bridletrack to the

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 soon as he got out from the shade of the hill.

Notwithstanding this untoward proceeding she was determined to be loyal if he proved true; and the

determination to love one's best will carry a heart a long way towards making that best an evergrowing

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 Winterborne 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

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 applecrops, berries, and foliage, the whole intensified by

the gilding of the declining sun. The earth this year had been prodigally 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 her own situation, and

she wondered if there were one world in the universe where the fruit had no worm, and marriage no sorrow.

Herr Tannhauser still moved on, his plodding steed rendering him distinctly visible yet. Could she have heard

"...Towards the loadstar 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 upon the fruity district of loamy clay, the character and

herbage of the two formations being so distinct that the calcareous 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 nowa

Wouvermans eccentricity reduced to microscopic dimensions. Upon this high ground he gradually

Thus she had beheld the 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 newfound 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 they were Giles Winterborne, with his two horses

and ciderapparatus, 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 pomaceshovels, which had been converted to steel

mirrors by the action of the malic acid. She opened the gate when he came close, and the panting horses

"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

The vehicles passed through, the gate slammed, and Winterborne walked by her side in the rear of the

He looked and smelt like Autumn's very brother, his face being sunburnt to wheatcolor, his eyes blue as

cornflowers, his boots and leggings dyed with fruitstains, 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 revelled 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,

Nature was bountiful, she thought. No sooner had she been starved off by Edgar Fitzpiers than another being,

impersonating bare and undiluted manliness, had arisen 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

"At Calfhay Cross. I come from Middleton Abbey; I have been making there for the last week."

Grace waited an interval before she went on: "Did Mr. Fitzpiers take the way to Middleton?"

"Yes...I met him on Darling." As she did not reply, he added, with a gentler inflection, "You know why the

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, loganstones, stalactites and stalagmite of topaz. Deeper than this

their gaze passed thin flakes of incandescence, till it plunged into a bottomless medium of soft green fire.

Her abandonment to the luscious time after her sense of illusage, her revolt for the nonce against social law,

her passionate desire for primitive life, may have showed in her face. Winterborne was looking at her, his

eyes lingering on a flower that she wore in her bosom. Almost with the abstraction of a somnambulist he

She drew back. "What are you doing, Giles Winterborne!" 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. "AhI was not

"It would not have occurred to me if I had not seen something like it done elsewhereat Middleton lately,"

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....Gilestell me

all you know about thatplease do, Giles! But noI won't hear it. Let the subject cease. And as you are my

They reached a place where their ways divided. Winterborne continued along the highway which kept outside

She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by nutbushes, 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 Suke Damson was visibleher gown

tucked up high through her pockethole, 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 Tangs standing near her

Crack, crack went Suke'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, Susan'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.

Grace, not to be daunted, continued: "Take care of your teeth, Suke. That accounts for the toothache."

"I don't know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head, thank the Lord" (crack).

"See for yourself, ma'am." She parted her red lips, and exhibited the whole double row, full up and

"So much the better for your stomach," said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an altered voice. And turning away quickly,

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 Sukethe 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

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 the 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 lower 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

"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

Her sleep that night was nervous. The wing allotted to her and her husband had never seemed so lonely. At

last she got up, put on her dressinggown, and went downstairs. Her father, who slept lightly, heard her

"Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a case at Owlscombe in White Hart Vale."

"But how's that? I saw the woman's husband at Great Hintock just afore bedtime; and she was going on well,

"Then he's detained somewhere else," said Grace. "Never mind me; he will soon be home. I expect him about

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

windowblind. 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 sheepfair. Peeping out, she saw them

bustling about, the hollowturner among the rest; he was loading his wareswoodenbowls, dishes, spigots,

spoons, cheesevats, funnels, and so onupon one of her father's wagons, who carried them to the fair for

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. Charmond 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

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 is not come," she said. "And I have reason to know that he's 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."

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 into the turnpikeroad, and partly up the hill whence she had watched Fitzpiers the

night before across the Great White Hart or Blackmoor Valley. They halted beneath a halfdead oak, hollow,

and disfigured with white tumors, its roots spreading out like accipitrine claws grasping the ground. A chilly

wind circled round them, upon whose currents the seeds of a neighboring lime tree, supported

parachutewise 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.

"It is no use standing here," said her father. "He may come home fifty ways...why, look here!here be

Darling's tracksturned homeward and nearly blown dry and hard! He must have come in hours ago without

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

"Oh no, ma'am. All's well that ends well," said old Timothy Tangs. "I've heard of such things beforeamong

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 month, and the

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. Whatam I in the saddle?"

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 had 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 drowze off walking

home from randies where 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 drownded, or

a splintered, or a hanged up to a tree like Absalomalso a handsome gentleman like yerself, as the prophets

"True," murmured old Timothy. "From the soul of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in

"Or leastwise you might ha' been awownded into tatters a'most, and no doctor to jine your few limbs

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 nowonly 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?

Melbury had indeed pounced upon the image that filled Fitzpiers's halfawakened soulwherein 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 wringing questions 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

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 queenbee after leading off to an independent home, had hovered again into the parent hive. But

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

Winterborne, 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. Charmond'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 beingsversed in the world's ways, armed with every apparatus for victory? In such an

encounter the homely timberdealer felt as inferior as a bowandarrow savage before the precise weapons

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

dulness of his eye, and from his face, different points of which had independent motions, twitchings, and

Her father turned away. He could hardly bear to see his whilom truthful girl brought to the humiliation of

That night carking care 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 donewhat 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 ye 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 him. 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 yet quite well, and doesn't care to

He did not heed. "Grace used to be so busy every day, with fixing a curtain here and driving a tintack there;

"Do you know anything of Mrs. Charmond's past history? Perhaps that would throw some light upon things.

Pefore she came here as the wife of old Charmond four or five years ago, not a soul seems to have heard

aught of her. Why not make inquiries? And then do ye wait and see more; there'll be plenty of opportnnity.

Time enough to cry when you know 'tis a crying matter; and 'tis bad to meet troubles halfway."

There was some goodsense in the notion of seeing further. Melbury resolved to inquire and wait, hoping

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 furtive for the time as the ingenuous countryman who finds that his ingenuousness has

been abused. Melbury's heretofore confidential candor towards his gentlemanly soninlaw was displaced by

a feline stealth that did injnry 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

Mrs. Charmond had returned. But Hintock House scarcely gave forth signs of life, so quietly had she

reentered 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 churchgoer, tell

his wife that he was going to walk in the wood. Melbury entered the building and sat down in his pew; the

The service proceeded, and the jealons 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 up 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 passionand women of the world do

not change color for nothingwas a threatening development. The mere presence of Fitzpiers in the

building, after his statement, was wellnigh conclusive as far as he was concerned; but Melbury resolved yet to

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 smart 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 colors that had hung overhead were now crowded together in a degraded mass underfoot,

where the fallen myriads got redder and hornier, and curled themselves up to rot. The only suspicious features

in Mrs. Charmond'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 autnmn's habits lay in his abandonment of night study his lamp

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 Charmond was under some one's influence Melbury soon had opportunity

Winter had come on. Owls began to be noisy in the mornings and evenings, and flocks of woodpigeons

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 of their existence. Felice almost

simultaneously trotted down the lane towards the timberdealer, in a little basketcarriage which she

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 still 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 month, 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?"

"Then go your way, and let me go mine." She snatched away her hand, touched the pony with the whip, and

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 ofprobably 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

tearfullyfor he was meek as a child in matters concerning his daughtercontinued his way towards

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

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 colorless.

"My good Heaven!" he said, as he stood in his dressinggown. "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 were 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,

"'Love's but the frailty of the mind When 'tis not with ambition joined; A sickly flame which if not fed,

Ah, old author of 'The Way of the World,' you knewyou knew!" Grace moved. He thought she had heard

some part of his soliloquy. He was sorrythough 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 prospectsif

blighted they werewas 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 discoveryone which to a girl of honest nature was almost appalling. She had looked into

her heart, and found that her early interest in Giles Winterborne had become revitalized into 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 socalled 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: honesty, goodness, manliness, tenderness,

devotion, for her only existed in their purity now in the breasts of unvarnished men; and here was one who

There was, further, that neverceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a man whom she had wrongeda man

who had been unfortunate in his worldly transactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like

It was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband's murmurs, that had bred the abstraction

When her father approached the house after witnessing the interview between Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond,

Grace was looking out of her sittingroom window, as if she had nothing to do, or think of, or care for. He

"Waiting for your dear husband?" he inquired, speaking with the sarcasm of pitiful affection.

Melbury came quite close. "Grace, what's the use of talking like that, when you knowHere, come down

He unfastened the door in the ivylaced 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 Charmond unguibus et rostro, and accused her even in exaggerated shape of

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 is wrong conduct in you. You

Melbury wanted to ask her a dozen questionsdid she not feel jealous? was she not indignant? but a natural

delicacy restrained him. "You are very tame and letalone, I am bound to say," he remarked, pointedly.

He glanced at her, and there returned upon his mind the scene of her offering to wed Winterborne instead of

Fitzpiers in the last days before her marriage; and he asked himself if it could be the fact that she loved

Winterborne, now that she had lost him, more than she had ever done when she was comparatively free to

He recalled his mind from the retrospective pain to the practical matter before them. "I would have you go to

"Wellif I must speak plain, dear Graceto ask her, 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

Grace's face had heated at her father's words, and the very rustle of her skirts upon the boxedging bespoke

hauteur. "I shall not think of going to her, fatherof course I could not!" she answered.

"Whydon't 'ee want to be happier than you be at present?" said Melbury, more moved on her account than

"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 youngyou don't know what the present state of things may lead to. Just

see the harm done a'ready! Your husband would have gone away to Budmouth to a bigger practice if it had

not been for this. Although it has gone such a little way, it is poisoning your future even now. Mrs. Charmond

is thoughtlessly bad, not bad by calculation; and just a word to her now might save 'ee 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

"You ought to care. You have got into 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

"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 genteel life, and I want to be no better than she."

"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 be saw that she was not far

Melbury was much grieved. "What, and would you like to have grown up as we be here in

Hintockknowing 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 wood 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 thought 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 for Winterborne, and given her to him according to his original plan; but he was not prepared

for her deprecation of those attainments whose completion had been a labor of years, and a severe tax upon

"Very well," he said, with much heaviness of spirit. "If you don't like to go to her I don'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

drinkinghorn 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.

As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom of the woodmen's homeward journey,

the Hintocks Great and Little began to have ears for a rumor of the events out of which had grown the

timberdealer'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 wellworn

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 rencounters accidental and contrived, stealthy

correspondence, sudden misgivings on one side, sudden 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 doappeal to Mrs. Charmond himself, since Grace

would not? He bethought himself of Winterborne, and resolved to consult him, feeling the strong need of

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

speciousness where all had seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid to form a conjecture on the weather, or the

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 color, and the trees rose before him as haggard, gray

phantoms, whose days of substantiality were passed. Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he believed

him to be occupying a lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. Charmond's estate, though still within the

circuit of the woodland. The timbermerchant'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

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 Winterborne 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 neighborhood. 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

The hazeltree did not belie its name today. The whole of the copsewood 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 Cain, 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 Winterborne 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 Winterborne could seem so thriving

after being deprived of Grace. Melbury was not without emotion at the meeting; for Grace's affairs had

Winterborne explained just as briefly, without raising his eyes from his occupation of chopping a bough that

"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

"Ah, Gilesyou should have been my partner. You should have been my soninlaw," the old man said at

Winterborne 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 timberdealer. "Is she ill?" he said,

"No, no." Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and then, as though he could not bring himself

Winterborne told one of his men to pack up the tools for the night and walked after Melbury.

"Heaven forbid that I should seem too inquisitive, sir," he said, "especially since we don't stand as we used to

"No," said Melbury"no." He stopped, and struck the smooth trunk of a young ashtree 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

"Now," said Winterborne, "don't be in a hurry to go home. I've put some cider down to warm in my shelter

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 cidermug from the ashes and they drank

"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 Winterborne, as with great relief, the story of how he won away Giles's father's chosen

oneby nothing worse than a lover's cajoleries, it is true, but by means which, except in love, would

certainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explained how he had always intended to make

reparation to Winterborne the father by giving Grace to Winterborne the son, till the devil tempted him in the

"How highly I thought of that man, to be sure! Who'd have supposed he'd have been so weak and

wrongheaded as this! You ought to have had her, Giles, and there's an end on't."

Winterborne 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 endeavored to

"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

"Nonsenseyou 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. She'd fain be like Marty Souththink o' that! That's the top of her ambition! Perhaps she's

right. Giles, she loved youunder the rind; and, what's more, she loves ye stillworse luck for the poor

If Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly stirring up he might have held his peace.

Winterborne was silent a long time. The darkness had closed in round them, and the monotonous drip of the

"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 ye," said the other, obstinately. "However, all that's vain talking now. What I come

to ask you about is a more practical matterhow to make the best of things as they are. I am thinking of a

desperate stepof calling on the woman Charmond. I am going to appeal to her, since Grace will not. 'Tis

she who holds the balance in her handsnot he. While she's got the will to lead him astray he will

followpoor, unpractical, loftynotioned dreamerand how long she'll do it depends upon her whim. Did

"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 has not loved and loved where she has not married.

"Mr. Charmond 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, yesI know all about that; but the other I did not know. I fear it bodes no good. For how can I go and

appeal to the forbearance of a woman in this matter who has made crossloves and crooked entanglements

her trade for years? I thank ye, Giles, for finding it out; but it makes my plan the harder that she should have

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 Winterborne, but he was manly, and it was not in his heart to let her be

"She is 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."

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 soninlaw 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 a 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 Winterborne 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 opinion that it would be best to put off your visit for

But Melbury would not even stop to hear him. His mind was made up, the appeal was to be made; and

Winterborne stood and watched him sadly till he entered the second plantation and disappeared.

Melbury rang at the tradesmen's door of the manorhouse, 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 neighborly way that, between themselves, she was in bed

"Never mind," said Melbury, retreating into the court, "I'll stand about here." Charged so fully with his

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 waitingroom, from which he got glimpses of the kitchen corridor, and of the

whitecapped maids flitting jauntily hither and thither. 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 marvelled

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 walkingstick, 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 travelled with him like an envelope. Through this vision the incidents of the moment but gleamed

confusedly here and there, as an outer landscape through the highcolored 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 up to tell her

At last the bell rang: Mrs. Charmond could see him. She was not in her private sittingroom 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 trente ans, 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 rumor of her own weaknesses; she was at this moment living

in a fool's paradise in respect of that rumor, though not in respect of the weaknesses themselves, which, if the

"Do sit down, Mr. Melbury. You have felled all the trees that were to be purchased by you this season, except

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

"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. Charmond, I have called upon a more serious matterat least to methan

treethrowing. And whatever mistakes I make in my manner of speaking upon it to you, madam, do me the

Mrs. Charmond 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

"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 as 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 was 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 my dead 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 herone her 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 wellborn gentleman I had

calculated on so surely was not stanch 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 demandsto utter no threats; I have

come simply as a father in great grief about this 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 so doing; your

course is far higher than the courses of a simple professional man, and the gratitude you would win from me

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

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

showed 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 unexpectedyou obtain admission to my presence by

"As God's in heaven, ma'am, that's not true. I made no pretence; and I thought in reason you would know

"Tell you, ma'amnot I. What the gossip is, no matter. What really is, you know. Set facts right, and the

scandal will right of itself. But pardon meI speak roughly; and I came to speak 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 ye. But you were within your right as the

superior, no doubt. But if you would consider her position nowsurely, surely, you would do her no harm!"

"Certainly I would do her no harmI" 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

As soon as he was out of the room she went to a corner and there sat and writhed under an emotion in which

Mrs. Charmond'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, lunchtime came, and then the early afternoon,

almost without her consciousness. Then "a strange gentleman who says it is not necessary to give his name,"

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 outofdoors, taking a path which led her up the

slopes to the nearest spur of the wood. She disliked the woods, but they had the advantage of being a place in

There was agitation today in the lives of all whom these matters concerned. It was not till the Hintock

dinnertimeone 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

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 Winterborne and his men were

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

Winterborne 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

woodcutting 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

At a little distance, on the edge of the clearing, Marty South was shaping spargads to take home for

manufacture during the evenings. While Winterborne 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 a

black hat, having a white veil tied picturesquely round it. She spoke to Marty, who turned and courtesied, and

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 moodsa 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 billhook with never more assiduity, till Mrs. Charmond

"Oh," said Mrs. Charmond, with something like a start; for she had not recognized Grace at that distance.

A redness stole into Marty's face as she mentioned Giles's name, which Mrs. Charmond did not fail to notice

informed her of the state of the girl's heart. "Are you engaged to him?" she asked, softly.

But Marty could not possibly explain the complications of her thoughts on this matterwhich 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 Winterborne's society by the neglect of her

husband. Mrs. Charmond, 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

Full of the new feeling, she bade the girl goodafternoon, and went on over the stumps of hazel to where

Grace and Winterborne were standing. They saw her approach, and Winterborne said, "She is 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

"DearMrs. Fitzpiers," said Felice Charmond, with some inward turmoil which stopped her speech. "I have

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

"I want to talk with you," said Mrs. Charmond, imploringly, for the gaze of the young woman had chilled her

Sick with distaste, Grace nevertheless complied, as by clockwork and they moved evenly side by side into the

deeper recesses of the woods. They went farther, much farther than Mrs. Charmond had meant to go; but she

"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "AndI 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."

"Truetrue," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat what we both know to be in our minds

"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband" The moment that the speaker's tongue touched the 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.

"Why," cried Grace, "I thought till now that you had only been cruelly flirting with my husband, to amuse

your idle momentsa 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 love him desperately, and I

"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 sssuffer most!"

Mrs. Charmond was now as much agitated as Grace. "I ought not to 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 try 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 kindnessmy making somewhat more of him than one usually does of one's

doctor. I was lonely; I talkedwell, 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's affectation," said Grace, shaking her head. "It is no useyou 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 insincereif you will have the wordI mean I HAVE coquetted, and do NOT love him!"

But Grace clung to her position like a limpet. "You may have trifled with others, but him you love as you

"Oh, wellI won't argue," said Mrs. Charmond, laughing faintly. "And you come to reproach me for it,

"No," said Grace, magnanimously. "You may go on loving him if you likeI don't mind at all. You'll find it,

let me tell you, a bitterer business for yourself than for me in the end. He'll get tired of you soon, as tired as

can beyou don't know him so well as Iand then you may wish you had never seen him!"

Mrs. Charmond had grown quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was extraordinary that Grace, whom

almost every one would have characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her interlocutor.

"You exaggeratecruel, silly young woman," she reiterated, writhing with little agonies. "It is nothing but

playful friendshipnothing! It will be proved by my future conduct. I shall at once refuse to see him

"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 manthe plaything

of a finished 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.

"I cannot attempt to reply to your raving 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 you had each judged me more respectfully, and left me alone. As it is I wish never to see or speak to

Grace bowed, and Mrs. Charmond 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 their long argument they had walked onward and zigzagged about without regarding

direction or distance. All sound 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 wood 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 vaguethat 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

Denser grew the darkness, more developed the windvoices, and still no recognizable spot or outlet of any

kind appeared, nor any sound of the Hintocks 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 nightrambler, even if a poacher, would not injure

her, and that he might possibly be some one sent to search for her. She accordingly shouted a rather timid

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 visavis the outline and white veil of her whom she had parted from an hour and a

"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

Grace reflected. "Perhaps, as it is dry under foot, 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

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,

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. Charmond'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. Charmond said, "I am so wretched!" in a heavy, emotional

"You are frightened," said Grace, kindly. "But there is nothing to fear; I know these woods well."

Mrs. Charmond embraced Grace more and more tightly, and the younger woman could feel her neighbor's

breathings 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 confessionI must

make it!" she whispered, brokenly, the instinct to indulge in warmth of sentiment which had led this woman

of passions 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 deprivationthat he had only been my

pastime. That was untrueit was said to deceive you. I could not do it without much pain; and, what is more

"I knew I was right!" said Grace, exaltedly. "But that should not deter you," she presently added, in a moral

"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

"But surely you are the superior in station and in every way, and the cut must come from you."

"Tchut! Must I tell verbatim, you simple child? Oh, I suppose I must! I shall eat away my heart if I do not let

out all, after meeting you like this and finding how guileless you are." She thereupon whispered a few words

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, thunderstruck at a revelation transcending her utmost suspicion. "Can it

She turned as if to hasten away. But Felice Charmond's sobs came to her ear: deep darkness circled her about,

the funereal trees rocked and chanted their diriges 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.

"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

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

"Here I turn back," said Grace, in the same passionless voice. "You are quite near home."

"I have told you something in a moment of irresistible desire to unburden my soul which all but a fool would

have kept silent as the grave," she said. "I cannot help it now. Is it to be a secretor do you mean war?"

"A secret, certainly," said Grace, mournfully. "How can you expect war from such a helpless, wretched being

"Pray don't distress yourself," she said, with exquisitely fine scorn. "You may keep himfor me." Had she

been wounded instead of mortified she could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers's hold upon her heart was

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 afterwards 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

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. Charmond wore her hair. It was poor Marty's only card, and she played it,

knowing nothing of fashion, and thinking her revelation a fatal one for a lover.

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 ShertonAbbas 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 impress 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 patients up to Fitzpiers's very door. Fitzpiers knew only too well the latest and greatest cause

of his unpopularity; and yet, so illogical is man, the second branch of his sadness grew out of a remedial

measure proposed for the firsta letter from Felice Charmond imploring him not to see her again. To bring

about their severance still more effectually, she added, she had decided during his absence upon almost

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 treecutting, 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 phasestarved and bent to a mere bowed skeleton, which glided along behind the bare twigs in

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 on a visit to an acquaintance at ShottsfordForum three days earlier; that

tidings had on this morning reached her father of her being very unwell there, in consequence of which he

Fitzpiers went upstairs again, and the little drawingroom, now lighted by a solitary candle, was not

rendered more cheerful by the entrance of Grammer Oliver with an apronful of wood, which she threw on the

hearth while she raked out the grate and rattled about the fireirons, 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, fastsinking moon, and at the tall stalk of smoke rising from the top of Suke

Damson's chimney, signifying that the young woman had just lit her fire to prepare supper.

He became conscious of a discussion in progress on the opposite side of the court. Somebody had looked

over the wall to talk to the sawyers, and was telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs.

"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 lasthev made up her mind quite suddenlikeand it is thoughted

she'll 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 reproached her own soul. She's the wrong sort of woman for Hintockhardly knowing a

beech from a woakthat 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 is 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 too 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 this 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 stabledoor 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.

This letter contained, in fact, Marty's declaration that she was the original owner of Mrs. Charmond'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

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

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,

In the mean time Melbury had returned from ShottsfordForum. The great court or quadrangle of the

timbermerchant's house, divided from the shady lane by an ivycovered 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 fatherinlaw, ambling slowly and silently along under the trees, though his horse too was a gray

Melbury looked gloomy. "She is 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 till after much persuading. I was then sorry that I rode over instead of driving; but I

have hired a nice comfortable carriagethe easiestgoing I could getand 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 her husband has come back."

"Yes," said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband had hired a carriage all the way from

"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

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 Shottsford road to meet his ailing wife, he should be

doing despite to her by going elsewhere. The old man went outofdoors again; and his horse being hardly

unsaddled as yet, he told Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he again mounted, and rode off at the heels of

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 tonight by some means,

rough or fair: in his view there could come of his interference nothing worse than what existed at present.

He had entered by the bridlegate 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

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, and did

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

drawingroom; 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 beams flashed mockingly on the somewhat showy

Versaillese 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 oldEnglish gloom of the place.

Disappointed in his hope of confronting his soninlaw here, he went on to the diningroom; this was

without light or fire, and pervaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had not dined there that

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 suspicion were justified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into the

house might end in confounding its inhabitant at the expense of his daughter's dignity and his own. Any ill

result would be pretty sure to hit Grace hardest in the longrun. 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 drawingroom 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 outa man and a

womanin whom he recognized the lady of the house and his son inlaw. In a moment they had

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. Charmond turned to hasten back immediately that Fitzpiers had left her side, and he was speedily

Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had reentered the drawingroom, and then followed after Fitzpiers,

thinking that he would allow the latter to mount and ride ahead a little way before overtaking him and giving

him a piece of his mind. His soninlaw might possibly see the second horse near his own; but that would do

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 byandby 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 the small gate in the corner of the park, he met a laborer, who, in reply

to Melbury's inquiry if he had seen any person on a gray 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 ownan oversight easily explicable, in a man ever unwitting in horseflesh, 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 grayer horse by day. He hastened back, and did what seemed best in the

Melbury had just entered the wood, and was winding along the cart way which led through it, channelled

deep in the leafmould with large ruts that were formed by the timberwagons in fetching the spoil of the

plantations, when all at once he descried in front, at a point where the road took a turning round a large

chestnut tree, the form of his own horse Blossom, at which Melbury quickened Darling's pace, thinking to

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 timbermerchant dismounted as soon as

he reached the chestnut, and after feeling about for a minute or two discovered Fitzpiers lying on the ground.

"Herehelp!" cried the latter as soon as he felt Melbury's touch; "I have been thrown off, but there's not

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 soninlaw. 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

Melbury was a traveller of the oldfashioned sort; having just come from ShottsfordForum, 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

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, straightbacked, and high in the withers, was

The mare paced along with firm and cautious tread through the copse where Winterborne had worked, and

into the heavier soil where the oaks grew; past Great Willy, the largest oak in the wood, and thence towards

Nellcombe Bottom, intensely dark now with overgrowth, and popularly supposed to be haunted by the spirits

By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength. But 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 fatherinlaw 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

"I've come all the way from London today," said Fitzpiers. "Ah, that's the place to meet your equals. I live at

Hintockworse, at Little Hintockand I am quite lost there. There's not a man within ten miles of Hintock

who can comprehend me. I tell you, Farmer What'syourname, 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 that up there's nobody can match me in the whole county of Wessex as a scientist. Yet

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

old man to keep a hold on the reins. "People don't appreciate me here!" the surgeon exclaimed; lowering his

voice, he added, softly and slowly, "except oneexcept 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 tightrather like the eagle's, you know, that ate out the liver of ProPrethe 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,

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,

"You hurt me a little, farmerthough 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 names, 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 ambitiona chance I have never had yet, and now never, never shall have,

Melbury, his heart throbbing against the other's backbone, and his brain on fire with indignation, ventured to

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 armnot that I complain of your armI thank you for helping me. Well,

where are we? Not nearly home yet?...Home, say I. 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

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 is no chance for

me now in this world, and it makes me recklessreckless! Unless, indeed, anything should happen to the

other one. She is amiable enough; but if anything should happen to herand I hear she is illwell, if it

These were the last words that Fitzpiers uttered in his seat in front of the timbermerchant. Unable longer to

master himself, Melbury, the skin of his face compressed, whipped away his spare arm from Fitzpiers's waist,

"You heartless villainafter all that we have done for ye!" 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 farther and

"God forgive me!" Melbury murmured, repenting of what he had done. "He tried me too sorely; and now

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 of 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

He had not ridden far when he discerned his own gray 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, endeavored to find some trace 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 him. He stood still listening and looking round. The

breeze was oozing through the network of boughs as 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,

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

harnessmender's 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

The boy suddenly became aware of a horse trotting rather friskily along the track behind him, and not

knowing whether to expect friend or foe, prudence 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 as keen as telescopes, to his great relief recognized the

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 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

eying the collar under the treequite invisible to Fitzpiersexercised none of the patience of the older

horse, but shied sufficiently to unseat so secondrate 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

Hintockwhich 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,

ShottsfordForum, 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. Charmond's rumored sorrows and plans of

So the young wife sat by the fire, waiting silently. She had left Hintock in a turmoil of feeling after the

revelation of Mrs. Charmond, 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

"I have something to tellsome 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 Nellcombe Bottom, where 'tis 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

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

therein 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

doora 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 Suke 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 MelburyI 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 MelburyMrs.

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 Suke Damson 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 of half a minute or so, till Suke said, "Why don't ye speak? Is he here? Is he dead? If

Before Grace had answered somebody else came to the door belowa footfall light as a roe's. 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 a lady

"I could make nobody hear downstairs," said Felice Charmond, with lips whose dryness could almost be

heard, and panting, as she stood like one ready to sink on the floor with distress. "What isthe mattertell

me the worst! Can he live?" She looked at Grace imploringly, without perceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed

Mrs. Charmond's little feet were covered with 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 hekilled?"

"She won't tell ushe's dyinghe's in that room!" burst out Suke, regardless of consequences, as she heard

the distant movements of Mrs. Melbury and Grammer in the bedroom at the end of the passage.

"Where?" said Mrs. Charmond; and on Suke 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

"You shall know all I knowyou have a perfect right to knowwho can have a better than either of you?"

said Grace, with a delicate sting which was lost upon Felice Charmond 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 muchin common humanity. You probably pray the samefor other reasons."

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

In their gestures and faces there were anxieties, affection, agony of heart, all for a man who had wronged

themhad 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 fellowwomen. She turned to the balustrade, bent

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

"WhoEdgar?" said Melbury, abruptly. "Matter? Nothing. What, my dear, and have you got home safe?

"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

have led it home for safety. So he 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

Bienaime had silently disappeared. They had, in all probability, heard the words of her father, and departed

Presently her parents came up to Grace, and busied themselves to see that she was comfortable. Perceiving

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 again came in to see her. "Do not stay up," she said, as soon as he entered. "I am not

"I have had a bitter quarrel with him; and on that account I hardly think he will return tonight."

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 divide you from

He was inclined to say moreto 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.

The household went to bed, and a silence fell upon the dwelling, broken only by the occasional skirr of a

halter in Melbury's 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

"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

been transformed into their corresponding emotions by a show of the least reciprocity in Fitzpiers. There was,

in truth, a lovebird yearning to fly from her heart; and it wanted a lodging badly.

But no husband came. The fact was that Melbury had 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 thicket he dropped

blood as he went; that he had not proceeded fifty yards before he showed signs of being dizzy, and, raising

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 drawingroom 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. Suke Damson 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 drawingroom 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

Everything in her drawingroom was just as she had left itthe 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 threequarters 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, roundeyed,

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 mindhelped perhaps by the anticlimax of learning that her lover was

unharmed after all her fright about himgrew wondrously strong in wise resolve. For the moment she was in

a mood, in the words of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, "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 knickknacks scattered about the room, to feel that preparations

While moving here and there she fancied that she heard a slight noise outofdoors, 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 the windowshutter, 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

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

What she saw outside might have struck terror into a heart stouter than a helpless woman's at midnight. In the

centre of the lowest pane of the window, close to the glass, was a human face, which she barely recognized as

the face of Fitzpiers. It was surrounded with the darkness of the night without, corpselike in its pallor, and

covered with blood. As disclosed in the square area of the pane it met her frightened eyes like a replica of the

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.

"Rather muchbut don't be frightened," he answered in a difficult whisper, and turning himself to obtain an

She ran across into the diningroom, and brought a bottle and glass, from which he eagerly drank. He could

"I am half dead," said Fitzpiers. "But perhaps I shall get over it....It is chiefly loss of blood."

"Felicemy fatherinlaw!...I have crawled to you more than a mile on my hands and kneesGod, I

thought I should never have got here!...I have come to youbecause you are the only friendI have in the

world now....I can never go back to Hintockneverto the roof of the Melburys! Not poppy nor

"Yesbut wait a momentit 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 halfpence 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 knowand after this I would not care to recover it if I

By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where were now 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

She got him some wine from the diningroom, which strengthened him much. Then she managed to remove

his boots, and, as he could now keep himself upright by leaning upon her on one side and a walkingstick on

the other, they went thus in 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 a door. Within was a lumberroom, containing abandoned furniture of all

descriptions, built up in piles which obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks and

lairs 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 tastes of a young wife, had caused them to be

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, and 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 its every movement with such lovingkindness as only a fond

"What I fancy I said to Melbury must have been enough to enrage any man, if uttered in 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

She fetched writing materials, and held up the blottingbook as a support to his hand, while he penned a brief

"The animosity shown towards me by your father," he wrote, in this coldest 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,

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 would see him again. He offered to read

the 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 Shottsford or PortBredy, or still better, Budmouthit will divert all suspicion from this house

"I will drive to one or other of the places myselfanything to keep it unknown," she murmured, her voice

weighted with vague foreboding, now that the excitement of helping him had passed away.

Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one thing more to he done. "In creeping over the fence on to the lawn," he

said, "I made the rail bloody, and it shows rather much on the white paintI could see it in the dark. At all

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 in the darkness at

her approach, and a ray from the enshrouded lantern fell upon the bloodjust where he had told her it would

be found. she shuddered. It was almost too much to bear in one daybut with a shaking hand she sponged

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

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 its 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

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 turnpikeroad. The mysterious personage was so disguised that his

own wife would hardly have known him. Felice Charmond was a practised hand at makeups, as well she

might be; and she had done her utmost in padding and painting Fitzpiers with the old materials of her art in

In the highway he was met by a covered carriage, which conveyed him to ShertonAbbas, 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 longdeferred

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

farther on in 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

Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther 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 Beaucock 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 Beaucock had fallen into the mire. He was invited out a good deal, sang

songs at agricultural meetings and burgesses' dinners; in sum, victualled himself with spirits more frequently

than was good for the clever brains or body either. He lost his 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 feesmostly carrying on his profession on publichouse settles, in

whose recesses he might often have been overheard making countrypeople's wills for half a crown; calling

with a learned voice for penandink 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

It was he who had called Melbury by name. "You look very down, Mr. Melburyvery, if I may say as

much," he observed, when the timbermerchant turned. "But I knowI know. A very sad case very. I was

bred to the law, as you know, and am professionally no stranger to such matters. Well, Mrs. Fitzpiers has her

"Under the new law, sir. A new court was established last year, and under the new statute, twenty and

twentyone Vic., cap. eightyfive, 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 insideI was just going to have

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 Beaucocknay, would have been quite

uninfluenced by such a character on any other matter in the worldsuch 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

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

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 dupery, 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 Winterborne, who found his face shining as if he had, like the Lawgiver, conversed with

He relinquished his horse, and took Winterborne by the arm to a heap of rendlewoodas barked oak was

"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

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 yetif you want her."

His feelings had gathered volume as he said this, and the articulate sound of the old idea drowned his sight in

"Are you sureabout this new law?" asked Winterborne, 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 into his mind 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'm not going to let the matter rest

doubtful for a single day," he continued. "I am going to London. Beaucock will go with me, and we shall get

the best advice as soon as we possibly can. Beaucock is a thorough lawyernothing the matter with him but

a fiery palate. I knew him as the stay and refuge of Sherton in knots of law at one time."

Winterborne'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 solidgoing fellow;" he maintained his abeyant mood, not from want

"But," continued the timbermerchant, 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 the words, as if he had too long forgotten her

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 Winterborne. He felt shy of entering Grace's presence as her reconstituted lover

which was how her father's manner would be sure to present him before definite information as to her

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

seriousa feverish, nervous attack the result of recent events, was what she was suffering from, and she

Winterborne, 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

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

The timbermerchant 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

illfortune, into Grace's presence. It had doubtless lain in the wood ever since his fall from the horse, but it

looked so clean and uninjuredthe summer weather and leafy shelter having much favored its

preservationthat Grace could not believe it had remained so long concealed. A very little of fact was

enough to set her fevered fancy at work at this juncture; 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

It was the beginning of June, and the 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

"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 everpresent terror it was indispensable to remove from

Without saying a word to anybody in the house, or to the disquieted Winterborne 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

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

"Oh yes, yes!" said Grace, with feeble impatience. She tore the envelope, unfolded the sheet, and read; when

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

loverwhich he trusted was the case, since it was his own deep wishshe would be in a position to do so.

In this Melbury had not written beyond his belief. But he very much stretched the facts in adding that the

legal formalities for dissolving her union were practically settled. The truth was that on the arrival of the

doctor's letter poor Melbury had been 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 a 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

"And you'd better write also to the gentleman," suggested Beaucock, 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 Winterborne, 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

The nervous, impatient Melbury was much pleased with the idea of "starting them at once," as he called it. To

put his longdelayed 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 Winterborne, 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

At these warm words Winterborne was not less dazed than he was moved in heart. The novelty of the avowal

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 yethe was now asked by that jealously guarding father of hers to take

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

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 at all within the bounds of

probability that a woman who, over and above her own attainments, had been accustomed to those of a

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 ceorl, Giles Winterborne, 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

Winterborne was far too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecture that the timbermerchant, 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 ardor 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

Perhaps Winterborne was not quite so ardent as heretofore. There is 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 now 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

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 elasticnerved daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeon

Jones had surmised. It had soothed her perturbed spirit better than all the opiates in the pharmacopoeia. She

had slept unbrokenly a whole night and a day. The "new law" was to her a mysterious, beneficent, godlike

entity, lately descended upon earth, that would make her as she once had 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

She saw nothing of Winterborne 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 corporeity. He rose upon her memory as the fruitgod and the woodgod in

alternation; sometimes leafy, and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of

the plantations; sometimes ciderstained, and with applepips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on

his return from cidermaking 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 good girls are wont to do, she remembered what he had written about her giving

a hint to Winterborne lest there should be risk in delay, and her feelings were not averse to such a step, so far

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 on other errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sherton; but it crossed

her mind that Winterborne 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 slowly 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 appletree 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 fastidiousness 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

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

When a few words had been spoken, she said, archly, "I have nothing to do. Perhaps you are deeply

"I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I am sorry to say."

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 the deserted girlwifewithout obtrusiveness, and without

They walked about the Abbey aisles, 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

He remembered it perfectly, and remarked, "You were a proud miss then, and as dainty as you were high.

Grace slowly shook her head. "Affliction has taken all that out of me," she answered, impressively. "Perhaps

I am 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?"

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 selfpossession

"He said I was to sound you with a view towhat you will understand, if you care to," continued

Winterborne, in a low voice. Having been put on this track by herself, he was not disposed to abandon it in a

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

"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 their 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 with his cider apparatus; and that interview had been of too

Winterborne had advanced, too. He could criticise 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 were

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

Touched by the genuine lovingkindness which had lain at the foundation of these words, and much moved,

Winterborne turned his face aside, as he took her by the hand. He was grieved that he had criticised her.

"You are very good, dear Grace," he said, in a low voice. "You are better, much better, than you used to be."

He could not very well tell her how, and said, with an evasive smile, "You are prettier;" which was not what

he really had meant. He then remained still holding her right hand in his own right, 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 presentand far enough to satisfy my poor father that we

are the same as ever. You see, Giles, my case is not settled yet, and ifOh, suppose I NEVER get

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

"Ohthat all is sure enough. The case is so clearnothing could be clearer. But the legal part is not yet

"Oh noof course not," she said, sunk in meek thought. "But father said it was ALMOSTdid he not? Do

"Nothingexcept the general fact that it enables illassorted husbands and wives to part in a way they could

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

"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 meour being so long together, I meanif

anybody 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 documentsor whatever it may behave not been signed; so that Iam still as

married as everor almost. My dear father has forgotten himself. Not that I feel morally bound to any one

else, after what has taken placeno woman of spirit couldnow, too, that several months have passed. But

"Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds us that life is short. I myself feel that it is; that is why I wished 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 said. If one of us were to die before the formal signing and sealing

that is to release you have been doneif 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 my God that I

had spoken out my whole heart given her one poor little kiss when I had the chance to give it! But I never

did, although she had promised to be mine some 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!

Butought I to allow you?oh, it is too quicksurely!" Her eyes filled with tears of bewildered, alarmed

Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further against her better judgment. "YesI suppose it

is," he said, repentantly. "I'll wait till all is settled. What did your father say in that last letter?"

He meant about his progress with the petition; but she, mistaking him, frankly spoke of the personal part. "He

"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 today. Come, let us go now." She gently slid her hand from his, and went in front

"I was thinking of getting some dinner," said Winterborne, changing to the prosaic, as they walked. "And

Grace was almost without a friend in the world outside her father's house; her life with Fitzpiers had brought

her no society; had sometimes, indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration than any she had ever

known before. Hence it was a treat to her to find herself again the object of thoughtful care. But she

questioned if to go publicly to dine with Giles Winterborne 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

"Oh yescome to me there. It will not be like going together. I shall want you to find my father's man and

He waited on some ten minutes or a 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 Tunsa

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 had been elegant enough for her; and as soon as he entered it, and saw her

Grace was seated in the only diningroom that the simple old hostelry could boast of, which was also a

general parlor on marketdays; a long, low apartment, with a sanded floor herring boned with a broom; a

wide, redcurtained 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

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

wellscrubbed settle, opposite the narrow table with its knives and steel forks, tin pepperboxes, 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 a 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 abovementioned hotel for the luxurious style in which he used to

put her up there whenever they drove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment, that she had been quite

comfortable under those debtimpending conditions, while she felt humiliated by her present situation, which

He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position, and all his pleasure was gone. It was the same

But he did not know that this recrudescence was only the casual result of Grace's apprenticeship to what she

was determined to learn in spite of ita 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

"Now," he said, with great sad eyes, "you have not finished at 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

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 yousay that when you know better? You EVER will

"Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you felt out of place at The Three Tuns?"

"And yet I have felt at home there these twenty years. Your husband used always to take you to the Earl of

"Yes," she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the street of a markettown 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. Winterborne hailed him, and she was powerless

then to prolong the discourse. She entered the vehicle sadly, and the horse trotted away.

All night did Winterborne 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

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 had 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 with not 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 heras 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

"This is a wearisome 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 overearly. For when I consider the past I do

think God will forgive me and you for being a little forward. I have another reason for this, my dear. I feel

myself going rapidly downhill, and late affairs have still further helped me that way. And until this thing is

"I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen tomorrow. Possibly, therefore, I shall return in the evening

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 missor rather madamcompletely, 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

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 of

Oh, how she longed to make it up with him! Her father coming in the eveningwhich meant, she supposed,

that all formalities would be in train, her marriage virtually annulled, and she be free to be won againhow

It was a fair green evening in June. She was seated in the garden, in the rustic chair which stood under the

laurelbushes made of peeled oakbranches that came to Melbury's premises as refuse after barkingtime.

The mass of fulljuiced 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

callto 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 postoffice for anything that had arrived by the

afternoon post, of which there was no delivery at Hintock. She pondered on what the letter might

containparticularly whether it were a second refresher for Winterborne from her father, like her own of the

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 orchardif that could be called a hedge which, owing to the

drippings 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 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 longsuffering devotion of Giles might suddenly endmight 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 into the orchard, and clambered through the gap

after Giles, just as he was diminishing to a faun like figure under the green canopy and over the brown floor.

Grace had been wrongvery far wrongin 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 Beaucock 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 timbermerchant'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 sum,

that Fitzpiers's conduct had not been sufficiently cruel to Grace to enable her to snap the bond. She was

Winterborne quite forgot his superficial differences with the poor girl under the warm rush of deep and

To renounce her foreverthat 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

It was at this moment that, hearing some one coming behind him, he turned and saw her hastening on

between the thickets. 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

"Oh yes," he said, in unprepared, extemporized tones, for her unexpected presence caught him without the

slightest plan of behavior in the conjuncture. His manner made her think that she had been too chiding in her

"I have had another letter from my father," she hastened to continue. "He thinks he may come home this

evening. Andin view of his hopesit will grieve him if there is any little difference between us, Giles."

"There is none," he said, sadly regarding her from the face downward as he pondered how to lay the cruel

"StillI fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being uncomfortable at the inn."

"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 appertained to her. "Don't you think you will ever be happy, Giles?"

He did not reply for some instants. "When the sun shines on the north front of Sherton Abbeythat's when

"Butthen that means that there is something more than my offending you in not liking The Three Tuns. If

it is because I did not like to let you kiss me in the Abbeywell, you know, Giles, that 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 reasonthe sole one. But I do not want to be hardGod knows I do not,"

she said, her voice fluctuating. "And perhapsas I am on the verge of freedom I am not right, after all, in

"Oh God!" said Winterborne within himself. His head was turned askance as 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 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 purest household laws, as Giles's, which can

"You mean that it must BE settled, since my father is coming home?" she said, gladly.

Winterborne, though fighting valiantly against himself all this whilethough he would have protected

Grace's good repute as the apple of his eyewas a man; and, as Desdemona said, men are not gods. In face

of the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened schoolgirl simplicity about the laws and

ordinances, he betrayed a man's weakness. Since it was sosince it had come to this, that Grace, deeming

herself free to do it, was virtually asking him to demonstrate that he loved hersince he could demonstrate it

only too trulysince life was short and love was stronghe gave way to the temptation, notwithstanding

that he perfectly well knew her to be wedded irrevocably to Fitzpiers. Indeed, he cared for nothing past or

future, simply accepting the present and what it brought, desiring once in his life to clasp in his arms her he

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

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 toand then to leave me so long in so vague a state that I do not know what to do, and perhaps do

Winterborne felt like a very Cain, over and above his previous sorrow. How 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

Even in the hour of Melbury's greatest assurance Winterborne had harbored 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

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 and infirmities increase, that

he will wish to see us a little advanced 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 that it must be done. "We may have

been wrong," he began, almost fearfully, "in supposing that it can all be carried out while we stay here at

Hintock. I am not sure but that people may have to appear in a public court even under the new Act; and if

Her cheeks became slowly bloodless. "Oh, Giles," she said, grasping his arm, "you have heard something!

Whatcannot my father conclude it there and now? Surely he has done it? Oh, Giles, Giles, don't deceive

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 as husky as that of the leaves underfoot. "Your father will soon

Inexpressibly dear as she was to him, he offered her his arm with the most reserved air, as he added,

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,

For a moment they did not heed, and the voice repeated, more loudly and hoarsely,

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

moreI have been surprisedI have been cruelly deceivedGiles, don't say anything to me; but go away!"

He was evidently not aware that Winterborne 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

When Melbury had recovered a little he said, "You are now, as ever, Fitzpiers's wife. I was deluded. He has

"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

"No," said she. "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 lovemaking 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

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

This pensive intramural existence of the selfconstituted 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 Winterborne had been rarefied by the shock which followed its avowal into an ethereal

As for Giles, he was lyingor rather sittingill 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 his simple wants as usual with his own hands. So matters stood when the limpid inertion of

Grace's poollike existence was disturbed as by a geyser. 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, and had been led to think that they 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 a day he

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 the other entered the

harbor; returning thus with him to his continental dwellingplace, which he did not name. He had no

The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for long hours by the fireless summer

chimneycorner, as if he thought it were winter, the pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted,

"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 wants you to come to him,

I am not sure that I'll oppose him in wishing it," muttered Melbury. "I'd stint myself to keep you both in a

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 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 every one 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 Sherton entered the house with the news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his

way home to Hintock. He had been seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex Hotel.

"Now," said Melbury, "we must make the best of what has been a very bad matter. The man is repenting; the

partner of his 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 you 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,

"Why not?" said he, a little of his former doggedness returning. He was, in truth, disposed to somewhat more

leniency towards her husband just now than he had shown formerly, from a conviction that he had treated

him overroughly in his anger. "Surely it is the most respectable thing to do?" he continued. "I don't like this

state that you are inneither 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 intolerable 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

"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 halfhour;

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 distressed, and to

The window was open. On this quiet, late summer evening, whatever sound arose in so secluded a

districtthe chirp of a bird, a call from a voice, the turning of a wheelextended over bush and tree to

unwonted 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 in to her, accompanied by the trot of a horse on the

turnpikeroad. 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 proceededthe hilltop over which

travellers passed on their way hitherward from Sherton Abbasthe 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 side, soon to turn into the lane leading out of the highway, and then into the "drong" which led

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 the dressingtable, scribbled in pencil

on one of them, "I am gone to visit one of my schoolfriends," gathered a few toilet necessaries 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 gardenpath, through the gap in the hedge, and into the mossy carttrack under the trees which led into

The leaves overhead were now in their latter greenso opaque, that it was darker at some of the densest

spots than in winter time, scarce a crevice existing by which a ray 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 evemore spectral far

than in the leafless season, when 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 wherein leaves had accumulated, and stepping upon

soundless moss and grasstufts. 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

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 perishedstarved

for want of 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

She had walked between three and four miles when that prescriptive comfort and relief to wanderers in

woodsa distant lightbroke 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

The house was a square cot of one story only, sloping up on all sides to a chimney in the midst. It had

formerly been the home of a charcoalburner, 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

The room within was kitchen, parlor, 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 on the hearth, in front of which revolved the skinned carcass of a rabbit, suspended by a string from a

nail. Leaning with one arm on the mantleshelf stood Winterborne, his eyes on the roasting animal, his face

so rapt that speculation could build nothing on it concerning his thoughts, more than that they were not with

the scene before him. She thought his features had changed a little since she saw them last. The firelight did

Grace's throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the result so nearly as she had hoped. She went to the door

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 he 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 this stress there was the fond fact that they had met again. Thus they stood,

"No, no, Giles!" she answered, hurriedly, stepping yet farther back from the door. "I am passing byand I

have called on youI won't enter. Will you help me? I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout way to

Sherton, and so to Exbury. I have a school fellow therebut 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

becauseI have no other help here. Three months ago you were my lover; now you are only my friend. The

law has stepped in, and forbidden what we thought of. It must not be. But we can act honestly, and yet you

She could get no further. Covering her eyes with one hand, by an effort of repression she wept a silent trickle,

without a sigh or sob. Winterborne took her other hand. "What has happened?" he said.

There was a stillness as of death, till Winterborne asked, "You mean this, Gracethat I am to help you to get

"Yes," said she. "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 his treacheryif it could be called suchearlier 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

He unhooked a darklantern from a nail under the eaves and she did not notice how his hand shook with the

slight strain, or dream that in making this offer he was taxing a convalescence which could ill afford such

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.

Winterborne stopped. "Grace," he said, preserving a strictly business manner which belied him, "you cannot

"TrueWHY?" she replied, mournfully, at the end of a silence. "What is reputation to me?"

"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 near by where I can stay very

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 will find everything about the hut that is necessary."

"But, Gilesyour supper," she exclaimed. "An outhouse would do for meanythingtill tomorrow at

He signified a negative. "I tell you to go inyou 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

Even in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at his scrupulousness, as she took the doorkey.

"Do you feel better?" he went on. "If so, and you wish to give me some of your supper, please do. If not, it is

The grateful sense of his kindness stirred her to action, though she only knew half 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

"I don't like to treat you so hardly," she murmured, with deep regret in her words as she heard the rain

"Quite. Have you found everything you want? I am afraid it is rather rough accommodation."

"Can I notice 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 defenceless 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 hands,

saying, "Now I'll push the shutter to, and you will find an iron pin on the inside, which you must fix into the

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 thatched 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

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 the dear friendhe would not use a warmer namewho had come to him

He had not ventured to ask her 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 conjuncture. 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 her 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 this 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 feeblenesshe 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

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 windowsill he placed water, wood, and other necessaries, writing with a piece of chalk beside them, "It

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 his

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

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 Winterborne,

she concluded that he had gone away to his daily work, and forgotten that he had promised to accompany her

to Sherton; 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

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 livingroom,

she could see various small members of the animal community that lived unmolested therecreatures of

hair, fluff, and scale, the toothed kind and the billed kind; underground creatures, jointed and

ringedcircumambulating the hut, under the impression that, Giles having gone away, nobody was there;

and eying it inquisitively with a view to winterquarters. Watching these neighbors, who knew neither law

nor sin, distracted her a little from her trouble; and she managed to while away some portion of the afternoon

by putting Giles's home in order and making little improvements which she deemed that he would value

Once or twice she fancied that she heard a faint noise amid the trees, resembling a cough; but as it never

At last the daylight lessened, and she made up a larger fire for the evenings were chilly. As soon as it was too

darkwhich was comparatively earlyto 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 out her hand 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 has 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?

"Anybody would have done it for you," replied Winterborne, with as much matteroffact as he could

"I have 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 will go away. At any rate, in two or three days I could do

anything to assistsuch as make inquiries, or go a great way towards ShertonAbbas with you; for the cider

season will soon be coming on, and I want to run down to 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 overmuch melancholy in

From long acquaintance they could read each other's heartsymptoms 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

"Oh no, dear, dear friend," answered Grace, with a heaving bosom. "Don't think that that is what I regret.

What I regret is my enforced treatment of youdislodging you, excluding you from your own house. Why

should I not speak out? You know what I feel for youwhat 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

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 her life in general. The only infringementif infringement it could be

calledof his predetermined bearing towards her was an involuntary pressing of her hand to his lips when

she put it through the casement to bid him goodnight. He knew she was weeping, though he could not see

She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the cottage. But it would only be for a day

"Oh, Giles," said she, "I knowI know! ButI 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,

"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 meantwell, 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

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 cost her so much pain. Then the window was

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 herselfa vacuous

duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and clear intentions was not there.

Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swayed 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

At last Grace could hardly endure the idea of such a 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 selfsacrifice;

she should not have accepted it of him. And then, 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 facewhat 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 ripe autumn'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

Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterborne 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

"My own, own, true l, my dear kind friend!" she cried to herself. "Oh, it shall not beit 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 here, 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

A tattoo on the window, caused by the treedroppings blowing against it, brought her indecision to a close.

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,

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

"Giles, Giles!" she cried, with the full strength of her voice, and without any of the shamefacedness that had

characterized her first cry. "Oh, come income in! Where are you? I have been wicked. 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

A reply! It was a reply! Through the darkness and wind a voice reached her, floating upon the weather as

"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. Goodnight! goodnight!"

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

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 had remembered that he had not come to arouse

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.

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 her in such a reconnoitre paralyzed her wish. The solitude was further

accentuated today by the stopping of the clock for want of winding, and the fall into the chimneycorner 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 sunrays that would be worth

She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see little. In front lay the brown leaves of last year,

and upon them some yellowishgreen ones of this season that had been prematurely blown down by the gale.

Above stretched an old beech, with vast armpits, and great pocketholes 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

their 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 the 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 setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Farther on were other tufts of moss in islands

divided by the shed leavesvariety upon variety, dark green and pale green; mosslike little firtrees, like

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 wellnigh 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 trunks shine, and throwing splotches

of such ruddiness on the leaves beneath the beech that they were turned to gory hues. When night at last

arrived, and with it the 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 twentyfour 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,

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 Winterborne's, he must be near her; why, then,

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

They 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 Winterborne's. Yet who could be his listener, so mute and patient; for though he

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 alwaystoo, too correct! Cruel propriety is killing the

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 in 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

Upon the straw within, Winterborne lay in his clothes, just as she had seen him during the whole of her stay

Both his clothes and the 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

But she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that the first thing to be thought of was to get

How Grace performed that labor she never could have exactly explained. But by dint of clasping her arms

round 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 her hands, dragged him along the path

It was somewhat singular that Giles in his semiconscious state acquiesced unresistingly in all that she did.

But he never for a moment recognized hercontinuing 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

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

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 strange 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

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 energies, 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,

There was one such man, and only one, within accessible distance; a man who, if it were possible to save

Winterborne's life, had the brain most likely to do it. If human pressure could bring him, that man ought to be

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, Winterborne fell into a fitful sleep, and it seemed to afford her an

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, and placed it so that the light did not fall upon his eyes, she

The spirit of Winterborne 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

One speciality of Fitzpiers's was respected by Grace as much as everhis professional skill. In this she was

right. Had his persistence equalled 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

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

Winterborne's residence a pervasive lightness had hung in 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, corpseeyed

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

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

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 nightbell 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,

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

"Doctor," she said, in as unusual a tone as she could command, "a man is dangerously ill in Onechimney

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.

Grace remained no longer. She passed out of the white gate without slamming it, and hastened on her way

back. Her husband, then, had reentered 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

Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to leave the house. The state of his mind, over and above his professional

zeal, 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 this comer to be

she. It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's repentant humor 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

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 which the strangeness of her departure would have made natural. A few months before this time a

performance by Grace of onetenth 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 domicilation there. The two men had not

met face to face, but Mrs. Melbury had proposed herself as an intermediary, who made the surgeon's

reentrance 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 bassstring 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

She reentered 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

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 selfrespect than she had thought of caring. This mood continued till she heard quick,

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 selfeffacing 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 thought of the man, which only returned in the form of a subconsciousness that did

"Grace!" said Fitzpiers, in an indescribable whispermore than invocating, if not quite deprecatory.

He was arrested by the spectacle, not so much in its intrinsic characterthough that was striking enough to a

man who called himself the husband of the sufferer's friend and nursebut 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

Fitzpiers aroused himself, came a little nearer, and examined Winterborne 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

"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 seeming to end his interest,

"Not well, I suspect. This seems like a secondary attack, which has followed some previous illnesspossibly

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 it lasted she never turned 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

Winterborne 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 ceased; then there was an interval of somnolent

painlessness and soft breathing, at the end of which Winterborne passed quietly away.

Grace was wild with sorrowwith all that had befallen herwith the cruelties that had attacked herwith

"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 vagabonda brutenot 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

He watched her a while, and then glanced round the chamber where his eyes fell upon a few dressing

"Graceif 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 elsewhereI 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 a 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

Triumph at any price is sweet to men and womenespecially the latter. It was her first and last opportunity

of 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

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 selfcontrol closed his mouth together as a vice. His

determination was fairly successful, though she saw how very much greater than she had expected her

"Would it startle you to hear," he said, as if he hardly had breath to utter the words, "that she who was to me

He went on without heeding the insinuation: "And I came back to try to make it up with youbut"

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

"Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as possible." He drew a small phial from

"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 upon 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?"

Fitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of his feet was soon immersed in the silence that prevaded 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 featherbed, 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 the change in his aspect; the extremely intellectual look that had

always been in his face was wrought to a finer phase by thinness, and a careworn dignity had been

superadded. She returned to Winterborne'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.

"Yes. I have heard," said Marty, whose demeanor had lost all its girlishness under the stroke that seemed

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 have come to help you, ma'am. He never cared for me, and he

"I come this way sometimes. I have got to go to the farther side of the wood this time of the year, and am

obliged to get there before four o'clock in the morning, to begin heating the oven for the early baking. I have

"No. I knew you lived in the hut, that he had gied it up to ye, and lodged out himself."

"No. It was not there, Marty. Would it had been! It would have savedsaved" To check her tears she

turned, and seeing a book on the windowbench, took it up. "Look, Marty, this is a Psalter. He was not an

outwardly religious man, but he was pure and perfect in his heart. Shall we read a psalm over him?"

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."

Grace could not resist the argument, influenced as she was by the sense of making amends for having

neglected him 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 now 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.

"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, and 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 himwhat you

She sat down, her face buried in her hands, and Marty went, and after a short absence returned. Then Grace

"I do. Forgive me, Grace, for suspecting ye of worse than rashnessI ought to know ye better. Are you

The unwonted, perplexing, agitating relations in which she had stood to Winterborne quite latelybrought

about by Melbury's own contrivancecould 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 'em 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 he had not died, though I know there's

no deliberate harm in ye. 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.

"If you don't on your own account, cannot you wish to on mine and hers? Nobody except our household

knows that you have left home. Then why should you, by a piece of perverseness, bring down my gray hairs

"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?"

"We met him on our way here, and he told us so," said Mrs. Melbury. "He had said something like it before.

"He declared to her when he came to our house that he would wait for time and devotion to bring about his

"Yes. That he would not intrude upon you, Grace, till you gave him absolute permission," Mrs. Melbury

This antecedent considerateness in 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 Winterborne 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 rule my mourning nohow as a man should, Mr. Melbury," he said. "I ha'n't seen him

since Thursday se'night, and have wondered for days and days where he's been keeping. There was I

expecting him to come and tell me to wash out the ciderbarrels against the making, and here was he Well,

I've knowed him from tablehigh; I knowed his fatherused to bide about upon two sticks in the sun afore

he died!and now I've seen the end of the family, which we can ill afford to lose, wi' such a scanty lot of

good folk in Hintock as we've got. And now Robert Creedle will be nailed up in parish boards 'a b'lieve; and

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 wood seemed to be a house of death, pervaded by loss to its uttermost length and

breadth. Winterborne was gone, and the copses seemed to show the want of him; those young trees, so many

of which he had planted, and of which he had spoken so truly when he 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

"One thing made it tolerable to us that your husband should come back to the house," said Melbury at

"Did he tell you how she died? It was no such death as Giles's. She was shotby 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 Charmondonce a good friend to mebut no friend to you."

"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 will be in the Sherton 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

"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. Charmond'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

Melbury did not know enough to give the gist of the incident, which was that Marty South'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 the 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

Melbury and his daughter drew near their 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 chutchutchut, and

stamped 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

Mrs. Melbury, who 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 them into Melbury's

wing of the house, and sat down listlessly in the parlor, while her stepmother went to Fitzpiers.

The prompt obedience to her wishes which the surgeon showed did honor to him, if anything could. Before

Mrs. Melbury had returned to the room Grace, who was sitting on the parlor windowbench, 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

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 them, 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 were really going to join him

who had gone before, Grammer Oliver came to her bedside. "I don't know whe'r this is meant for you to take,

ma'am," she said, "but I have found it on the table. It was left by Marty, I think, when she came this

Grace turned her hot eyes upon what Grammer held up. It was the phial 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 a victim to

the malady which had pulled down Winterborne. 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

The effect, though not miraculous, was remarkable. In less than an hour she felt calmer, cooler, better able to

reflectless inclined to fret and chafe and wear herself away. She took a few drops more. From that time the

"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

As soon as she had quite recovered from this foiled attack upon her life, Grace went to Marty South's cottage.

Great Hintock 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'sthat 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

They stood by the grave together, and though the sun had gone down, they could see over the woodland for

miles, and down to the vale in which he had been accustomed to descend every year, with his portable mill

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 them, there was

Grace was abased when, by degrees, she found that she had never understood Giles as Marty had done. Marty

South alone, of all the women in Hintock and the world, had approximated to Winterborne's level of

intelligent intercourse with nature. In that respect she had formed the complement to him in the other sex, had

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; had been able to read its hieroglyphs 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 the years, mentally collected those remoter signs and symbols which, seen in few, were of runic obscurity,

but all together made an alphabet. From the light lashing 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 seasons were seen by them from the

"He ought to have married YOU, Marty, and nobody else in the world!" said Grace, with conviction, after

Marty shook her head. "In all our outdoor days and years together, ma'am," she replied, "the one thing he

"Yet you and he could speak in a tongue that nobody else knewnot even my father, though he came nearest

She could indulge in mournful fancies like this to Marty; but the hard core to her griefwhich Marty's had

notremained. Had she been sure that Giles's death resulted entirely from his exposure, it would have driven

her wellnigh to insanity; but there was always that bare possibility that his exposure had only precipitated

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

Winterborne 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 she did not care to show. She never

doubted that Fitzpiers would believe her if she made a clean confession of the actual situation; but to

volunteer the correction would seem like signalling for a truce, and that, in her present frame of mind, was

It will probably not appear a surprising statement, after what has been already declared of Fitzpiers, that the

man whom Grace's fidelity could not keep faithful was stung into passionate throbs of interest concerning her

He declared to himself that he had never known her dangerously full compass if she were capable of such a

reprisal; and, melancholy as it may be to admit the fact, his own humiliation and regret engendered a

He passed a month or two of great misery at Exbury, the place to which he had retiredquite as much

misery indeed as Grace, could she have known of 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

Fitzpiers's mental sufferings and suspense led him at last to take a melancholy journey to the neighborhood 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

She was polishing tools, and though he had not wished to show himself, he could not resist speaking in to her

"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 billhook which she could only have used with both hands. The

spade, though not a new one, had been so completely burnished that it was bright as silver.

Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne's, and he put the question to her.

She replied in the affirmative. "I am going to keep 'em," she said, "but I can't get his applemill and press. I

"Then I will buy it for you," said Fitzpiers. "That will be making you a return for a kindness you did me." His

glance fell upon the girl's rarecolored hair, which had grown again. "Oh, Marty, those locks of yoursand

that letter! But it was a kindness to send it, nevertheless," he added, musingly.

After this there was confidence between themsuch 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 ciderpress. She would travel with it in the autumn season, as he had done, she said. She

"Ah! there was one nearer to him than you," said Fitzpiers, referring to Winterborne. "One who lived where

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 visit to her should be kept secret, and went home thoughtful,

feeling that in more that 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 hope for in that kind from

the future, there was nothing to be done yet, while Giles Winterborne'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, if not

Weeks and months of mourning for Winterborne 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 this death how little acquirements and culture weigh beside sterling personal character. While

her simple sorrow for his loss took a softer edge with the lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her

Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and decay of the leaf. Discussion of the almost

contemporaneous death of Mrs. Charmond abroad had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a marvellous

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 letterthe 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 lifeinterest in the estate, which,

after her death, passed to a relative of her husband'sone who knew not Felice, one whose purpose seemed

On a certain day in Februarythe cheerful day of St. Valentine, in facta letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers,

which had been 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

"My last year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace and dearest wife that ever 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 the 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 never have estranged me from you. Is there any use in telling youno, there is notthat

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 a turtledove, how came I ever to possess you?

For the sake of being present in your mind on this lovers' 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 'tis 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

It was, oddly enough, the first occasion, or nearly the first on which Grace had ever received a loveletter

from him, his courtship having taken place under conditions which rendered letterwriting 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 afford her of setting her doubts at rest, one way or the other, on her actual share in

Winterborne's death. The relief of consulting a skilled mind, the one professional man who had seen Giles at

that 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,

Without consulting her father, or any one 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 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 socalled 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 wellknown 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 wellremembered 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

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 herself absolutely free

Moreover, a subtlist in emotions, he cultivated as under glasses 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

Approaching the hilltop with a mind strung to these notions, Fitzpiers discerned a gay procession of people

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 Suke Damson, who in her light gown looked a giantess; the small husband beside her he saw to be

Fitzpiers could not escape, for they had seen him; though of all the beauties of the world whom he did not

wish to meet Suke 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

"We be just walking round the parishes to show ourselves a bit," said Tim. "First we het across to

Delborough, then athwart to here, and from here we go to Rubdown and Millshot, and then round by the

Tim informed him that they were going to New Zealand. Not but that he would have been contented with

"Then goodby," said Fitzpiers; "I may not see you again." He shook hands with Tim and turned to the bride.

"Goodby, Suke," he said, taking her hand also. "I wish you and your husband prosperity in the country you

The weddingparty reformed and resumed march likewise. But in restoring his arm to Suke, Tim noticed

that her full and blooming countenance had undergone a change. "Holloa! me dearwhat's the matter?" said

"Nothing to speak o'," said she. But to give the lie to her assertion she was seized with lachrymose twitches,

"She's a little wee bit overcome, poor dear!" said the first bridesmaid, unfolding her handkerchief and wiping

"Wellhe's such a clever doctor, that 'tis a thousand pities we sha'n't see him any more! There'll be no such

clever doctor as he in New Zealand, if I should require one; and the thought o't got the better of 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 weddingparty at the groomsman's jokes

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

Fitzpiers continued to regard the nearing picture, till at length their glances met for a moment, when she

demurely sent off hers at a tangent and gave him the benefit of her threequarter face, while with courteous

completeness of conduct he lifted his hat in a large arc. Marty dropped behind; and when Fitzpiers held out

"I have agreed to be here mostly because I wanted to ask you something important," said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her

"I am most attentive," said her husband. "Shall we take to the wood for privacy?"

At any rate she would take his arm? This also was gravely negatived, the refusal being audible to Marty.

As they walked on she returned to her inquiry. "It is about a matter that may perhaps be unpleasant to you.

She then took him back to the time of poor Winterborne'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 hardships 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 of 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. Winterborne'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

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 today," said she, when he had reached

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 ever I 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 her character and goodness, as revealed by closer

observation. 'Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.'"

"Oh yesI meant it as a citation," blandly replied Fitzpiers. "Well, then, why not give me a very little bit of

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 Winterborne. "Don't ask it! My heart is in the grave with Giles," she replied, stanchly.

"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

"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 never 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 tarnishedto enter the

house of a man from whom I have had worse treatment than from any other man aliveall for you!"

This was undeniably true, and it had its weight with Grace, who began to look as if she thought she had been

"Before you go," he continued, "I want to know your pleasure about mewhat you wish me to do, or not to

"You are independent of me, and it seems a mockery to ask that. Far be it from me to advise. But I will think

"That's not a fair inquiry," said she, smiling despite her gravity. "I don't mind hearing itwhat you do really

"It is so easy for me to say, and 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 Graceyou will meet me

She eventually agreed to see him that day fortnight. Fitzpiers expostulated at the interval, but the

halfalarmed earnestness with which she entreated him not to come sooner made him say hastily that he

submitted to her willthat he would regard her as a friend only, anxious for his reform and wellbeing, till

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 wariness in a

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 their 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

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 is 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,

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 you would advise me not to communicate with him?" she

"I shall never advise ye again. You are your own mistressdo as you like. But my opinion is that if you don't

live with him, you had better live without him, and not go shillyshallying and playing bopeep. You sent him

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

Winterborne's grave with Marty, which was kept up with pious strictness, for the purpose of putting

One afternoon at sunset she was standing just outside her father's garden, which, like the rest of the Hintock

enclosures, abutted into 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

"It is a week before the time," said she, 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

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 mood; not yet to

His assertion had seemed to impress her somewhat. "I had no idea you came so often," she said. "How far do

"From Exbury. I always walk from ShertonAbbas, 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 oneas I MUST

call youI put it to you: will you see me a little oftener as the spring advances?"

Grace lapsed into unwonted 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

"It is the very thing I am doing. I was going to ask you to burn or, at least, get rid ofall my philosophical

literature. It is in the bookcases in your rooms. The fact is, I never cared much for abstruse studies."

"I am so glad to hear you say that. And those other booksthose piles of old playswhat good are they to a

"None whatever!" he replied, cheerfully. "Sell them at Sherton for what they will fetch."

"And those dreadful old French romances, with their horrid spellings of 'filz' and 'ung' and 'ilz' and 'mary' and

"Make a bonfire of 'em 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 am quite a practical man. I am in hopes of

having some good news to tell you soon, and then do you think you couldcome 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

Grace was silent a few instants. "I go with Marty to Giles's grave. We swore we would show him that

"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

His extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the question about smoking had been to effect 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 "frustrate ghost," "I don't like youto speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak

lightly. To be frank with youquite frankI think of him as my betrothed lover still. I cannot help it. So

Fitzpiers was now uneasy. "You say your betrothed lover still," he rejoined. "When, then, were you betrothed

Grace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on. "It was when I was under the impression

that my marriage with you was about to be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I encouraged him

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

"It is rough upon methat!" he said, bitterly. "Oh, GraceI did not know youtried to get rid of me! I

suppose it is of no use, but I ask, cannot you hope tofind 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 besides 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

"I wonder if you ever will?" He looked musingly into her indistinct face, as if he would read the future there.

"I don't know how to reply," she answered, her embarrassment proving her truth. "Will you promise to leave

"Certainly. Have I given any ground for you to doubt my first promise in that respect?"

"Then I think that you might get your heart out of that grave," said he, with playful sadness. "It has been there

With this Fitzpiers was compelled to be satisfied, and he asked her when she would meet him again.

"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."

She seemed almost inclined to give him the word; but exclaiming, "No, no; I cannot," slipped through the

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 his 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

The small garden of the cottage occupied by the Tangs family father, son, and now son's wifealigned

with the larger one of the timberdealer 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

wish to leave the now absorbing spot too quickly, after travelling so far to reach it; hoping always for a

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, emotionalalmost also an

artisticpleasure in being the yearning inamorato of a woman he once had deserted, would have seemed an

absurdity to the young sawyer. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated; therefore the question of affection as

between them was settled. But his Suke had, since that meeting on their marriageday, repentantly admitted,

to the urgency of his questioning, a good deal concerning her past levities. Putting all things together, he

could hardly avoid connecting Fitzpiers's mysterious visits to this spot with Suke'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

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 Suke'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 fatherfor old Tangs

would on no account leave Hintockand had it not been for Suke'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 eveningshe was very

restless; fitful in her actions, unable to remain seated, and in a marked degree depressed.

She sighed involuntarily. "I don't know but that I be," she answered. "'Tis natural, isn't it, when one is going

"I've seen things and I've heard things; and, Suke, I say 'twill be a good move for me to get 'ee away. I don't

Suke's face was not changed from its aspect of listless indifference by the words. She answered nothing; and

shortly after he went out for his customary pipe of tobacco at the top of the garden.

The restlessness of Suke had indeed owed its presence to the gentleman of Tim's suspicions, but in a

differentand it must be added in justice to hermore innocent sense than he supposed, judging from

former 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 favorite one of the seven for his journey. As she

was going next day to leave the country, Suke thought 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 sceneif he had not already gone

Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim lounging in the arbor of the opposite corner, though he was hidden

from her. He saw her stealthily climb into the hedge, and so ensconce herself there that nobody could have

He went across to the spot and stood behind her. Suke started, having in her blundering way forgotten that he

"So he's coming tonight," said Tim, laconically. "And we be always anxious to see our dears."

"He IS coming tonight," she replied, with defiance. "And we BE anxious for our dears."

"Then will you step indoors, where your dear will soon jine 'ee? We've to mouster by halfpast three

tomorrow, and if we don't get to bed by eight at latest our faces will be as long as clockcases all day."

She hesitated for a minute, but ultimately obeyed, going slowly down the garden to the house, where he heard

Tim was incensed beyond measure. His marriage had so far been a total failure, a source of bitter regret; and

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

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 roofeaves of the linhay were here within touch, and he thrust his arm up under them, feeling

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

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 mantrap would occupy a very respectable if not a very

It should rather, however, be said, the inventor of the particular form of mantrap 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 aspect 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 Englandin the rural districts more especiallyand onward down to the third decade

of the nineteenth century, this model had borne the palm, and had been most usually followed when the

There had been the toothless variety used by the softerhearted landlordsquite 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 middlenatured 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

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 treadingplace in the midst being about a foot square, while from beneath

extended in opposite directions the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of a stiffness to

There were men at this time still living at Hintock who remembered when the gin and others like it were in

use. Tim Tangs'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 wellnigh

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 ladsespecially those who had a dim sense of

becoming renowned poachers when they reached their primeto 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 has 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

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 of anybody. Then there shaped itself a spot out of the dim

middistance, between the masses of brushwood on either hand. And it enlarged, and Tim could hear the

brushing of feet over the tufts of sourgrass. The airy gait revealed Fitzpiers even before his exact outline

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 mantrap, very gentlythat the plate might not be

disturbed sufficiently to throw itto a space between a pair of young oaks which, rooted in contiguity, grew

apart upward, forming a Vshaped 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 the local and better word, "toiled" it.

Having completed these arrangements, Tim sprang through the adjoining hedge of his father's garden, ran

Obedient to his order, Suke 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

"Do 'ee get to sleep," said Tim. "How be you going to wake at halfpast 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

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 and 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 of her husband, and she was not prepared to go so 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

lawful 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 her thrall, he could not have exhibited a more sensitive care to

Impelled by a remembrance she took down a prayerbook and turned to the marriageservice. Reading it

slowly through, she became quite appalled at her recent offhandedness, when she rediscovered what awfully

She became lost in long ponderings on how far a person's conscience might be bound by vows made without

at the time a full recognition of their force. That particular sentence, beginning "Whom God hath joined

together," was a staggerer 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 Tangs retired to his own.

Two hundred yards to the right of the upper end of Tangs's garden Fitzpiers was still advancing, having now

nearly reached the summit of the woodclothed 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

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 halfminute before she could

But here a new circumstance came in; to escape the unpleasantness of being watched or listened to by

lurkersnaturally curious by reason of their strained relationsthey had arranged that their meeting for

tonight should be at the holmtree on the ridge above named. So soon, accordingly, as Fitzpiers reached the

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 scrimmages between sweethearts that still survived in Hintock from

oldEnglish 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 forward over the summit and down the embowered incline, till he

Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell. Stretching down 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

The mantrap was thrown; and between its jaws was part of a woman's clothinga patterned silk

skirtgripped with 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 gownsthe gown that she had worn

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

Of all the degrees and qualities of punishment that Fitzpiers had undergone since his sins against Grace first

"Oh, my ownmy darling! Oh, cruel Heavenit is too much, this!" he cried, writhing and rocking himself

The voice of his distress was sufficiently loud to be audible to any one 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,

She was in white up to the waist, and figured above. She was, in short, Grace, his wife, lacking the portion of

"Don't be grieved about medon't, dear Edgar!" she exclaimed, rushing up and bending over him. "I am not

hurt a bit! I was coming on 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

"You are not dead!you are not hurt! Thank Godthank God!" he said, almost sobbing in his delight and

relief from the horror of his apprehension. "Grace, my wife, my love, how is thiswhat has happened?"

"I was coming on to you," she said as distinctly as she could in the halfsmothered 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

swiftlyfortunately for myself. Just when I had passed between these trees I felt something clutch at my

dress from behind with a 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

"It was only your speed that saved you! One or both of your legs would have been broken if you had come at

"Or yours, if you had got here first," said she, beginning to realize the whole ghastliness of the possibility.

"Oh, Edgar, there has been an Eye watching over us tonight, and we should be thankful indeed!"

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

"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 awhile, and it was not until Grace said, "If I could only get my skirt out nobody would

By their united efforts, each standing on one of the springs of the trap, they pressed them 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 round 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

"Never mind, dearest. I could not very well have accepted the invitation. I shall never live here againas

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 permanent residence. My poor old greataunt 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

"Because I cannot tear myself away from here till I have your promise. Now, darling, you will accompany me

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 their desultory ramble, till she noticed they were in an encircled

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, which was just that

transient period in the May month when beechtrees have 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; and without further delay they set their faces towards Hintock. As they walked he

"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 that we have made it up. I wish I had not kept our

meetings so private, for it may vex him a little to know I have been seeing you. He is getting old and irritable,

"But, as I must stay at the Earl of Wessex tonight, for I cannot possibly catch the train, I think it would be

"But what will my father think has become of me? He does not know in the least where I amhe thinks I

"He will surely guesssomebody has seen me for certain. I'll go all the way back with you tomorrow."

"If you are so very particular about the publicity I will stay at the Three Tuns."

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 bide out like this! She surely said she was going into the garden to

Melbury searched the garden, the parsleybed, and the orchard, but could find no trace of her, and then he

made inquiries at the cottages of such of his workmen as had not gone to bed, avoiding Tangs's 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

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 hollowturner and the man who kept the ciderhouse as

They explored the precincts of the village, and in a short time lighted upon the mantrap. Its 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 of Delborough, who said

that he had seen a lady answering to the description her father gave of Grace, walking through the wood on a

Melbury, not suspecting the presence of Fitzpiers, coupled this account with the mantrap 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 ShertonAbbas, 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 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 were really 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

However, the identity of this woman with Grace was by no means certain; but they plodded along the street.

Percombe, the hair dresser, who had despoiled Marty of her tresses, was standing at his door, and they duly

"Ahhow's Little Hintock folk by now?" he said, before replying. "Never have I been over there since one

winter night some three year agoand then I lost myself finding it. How can ye live in such a oneeyed

place? Great Hintock is bad enoughhut Little Hintockthe bats and owls would drive me

melancholymad! It took two days to raise my sperrits to their true pitch again after that night I went there.

Mr. Melbury, sir, as a man's that put by money, why not retire and live here, and see something of the

The responses at last given by him to their queries guided them to the building that offered the best

accommodation in Sherton having been enlarged contemporaneously with the construction of the

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.

Of this, too, the household was ignorant, the hotel having been taken by brandnew 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.

"Oh, yesI didbut it is all right," said Grace, in a flurried whisper. "I am not alone here. I am here with

"Edgar! An accident! How does he come here? I thought he was two hundred mile off."

"Yes, so he isI 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

"Yes; my dress was. That's how it arose. Edgar is upstairs in his own sittingroom," she went on. "He would

"Oh, faith, I don't want to see him! I have seen him too often a'ready. I'll see him another time, perhaps, if 'tis

"He came to see me; he wanted to consult me about this large partnership I speak of, as it is very promising."

A pause ensued, during which the inquiring faces and whitybrown clothes of Melbury's companions

"H'mvery wellyou are your own mistress," he returned, in tones which seemed to assert otherwise.

"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, goodnight. I must get home

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 searchparty, too, had looked awkward there, having rushed to the task

of investigationsome in their shirt sleeves, others in their leather aprons, and all much stainedjust 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 mistakesome arrangement entered into between Mr. and

Mrs. Fitzpiers which I didn't quite understandan important practice in the Midland counties has come to

him, which made it necessary for her to join him tonightso she says. That's all it wasand I'm sorry I

"Well," said the hollowturner, "here be we six mile from home, and nighttime, and not a hoss or

fourfooted creeping thing to our name. I say, we'll have a mossel and a drop o' summat to strengthen our

nerves afore we vamp all the way back again? My throat's as dry as a kex. What d'ye say so's?"

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 Tuns 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 herringboned sand of the floor. Melbury himself, restless as usual, walked

"I'd gie her a good shaking if she were my maid; pretending to go out in the garden, and leading folk a

twelvemile traipse that have got to get up at five o'clock to morrow," said a barkripper; who, not working

"I don't speak so warm as that," said the hollowturner, "but if 'tis right for couples to make a country talk

about their separating, and excite the neighbors, and then make fools of 'em like this, why, I haven't stood

All his listeners knew that when he alluded to his footlathe in these enigmatic terms, the speaker meant to be

impressive; and Creedle chimed in with, "Ah, young women do wax wanton in these days! Why couldn't she

ha' bode with her father, and been faithful?" Poor Creedle was thinking of his old employer.

"But this deceiving of folks is nothing unusual in matrimony," said Farmer Bawtree. "I knowed a man and

wifefaith, I don't mind owning, as there's no strangers here, that the pair were my own relationsthey'd be

at it that hot one hour that you'd hear the poker and the tongs and the bellows and the warmingpan flee

across the house with the movements of their vengeance; and the next hour you'd hear 'em singing 'The

Spotted Cow' together as peaceable as two holy twins; yesand very good voices they had, and would strike

"And I knowed a woman, and the husband o' her went away for four andtwenty year," said the

barkripper. "And one night he came home when she was sitting by the fire, and thereupon he sat down

himself on the other side of the chimneycorner. 'Well,' says she, 'have ye got any news?' '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?' he says. 'No,' says she. And

there they sat, one on each side of that chimneycorner, and were found by their neighbors sound asleep in

"Well, I don't care who the man is," said Creedle, "they required a good deal to talk about, and that's true. It

"What women do know nowadays!" observed the hollowturner. "You can't deceive 'em as you could in my

"What they knowed then was not small," said John Upjohn. "Always a good deal more than the men! Why,

when I went courting my wife that is now, the skilfulness 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

"Well," continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, "she has. All women under the sun be prettier one side than

t'other. And, as I was saying, the pains she would take to make me walk on the pretty side were unending! I

warrant that whether we were going with the sun or against the sun, uphill or downhill, in wind or in lewth,

that wart of hers was always towards the 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 our courtship. No; I don't think the women have

"How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?" inquired a youththe same who had assisted

"YesI could. I could certainly. But 'tis quite unnecessary. They'll come to ye by nater, young man, too soon

"At present Mrs. Fitzpiers can lead the doctor as your mis'ess could lead you," the hollowturner remarked.

"She's got him quite tame. But how long 'twill last I can't say. I happened to be setting a wire on 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 feller at a distance, was enough to freeze yer blood. I should never have supposed it of such a

Melbury now returned to 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

"I think 'twas; 'a was always a lonely maid," said Upjohn. And they passed on homeward, and thought of the

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 fellowpilgrim 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 the way 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

Immediately they had dropped down the hill she entered the church yard, going to a secluded corner behind

the bushes, where rose the unadorned stone that marked the last bed of Giles Winterborne. As this solitary

and silent girl stood there in the moonlight, a straight slim figure, clothed in a plaitless 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 and herself had laid there the previous week, and put her fresh ones in their place.

"Now, my own, own love," she whispered, "you are mine, and on'y mine; for she has forgot 'ee at last,

although for her you died. But Iwhenever I get up I'll think of 'ee, and whenever I lie down I'll think of 'ee.

Whenever I plant the young larches I'll think that none can plant as you planted; and whenever I split a gad,

and whenever I turn the ciderwring, I'll say none could do it like you. If ever I forget your name, let me

forget home and Heaven!But no, no, my love, I never can forget 'ee; for you was a GOOD man, and did