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THE WOODLANDERS,

VOL. III.

THE WOODLANDERS

BY

THOMAS HARDY

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. Ill,

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK
1887

The Right of TranslatioJt and Reproductioti is Reserved.

Richard Clay and Sons,
london and bungay.

THE WOODLANDERS.

CHAPTER I.

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 travelHng
from Sherton Abbas to Hintock in a hired
carriage. In his eye there was a doubtful
light, and the lines of his refined face
showed a vague disquietude. He appeared
now like one of those w^ho strike the
beholder as having suffered wrong in being
born.

VOL. III. B

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

His position was in truth gloomy, and
to his impressible mind it seemed even
gloomier than it was. His practice had
been slowly dwindling of late, and now
threatened to die out altogether, the un-
daunted old Dr. Jones capturing patients up
to Fitzpiers's very door. Fitzpiers knew only
too well the latest and greatest cause ol
his unpopularity ; and yet, so illogical is
man, the second branch of his sadness grew
out of a remedial measure proposed for the
first — a letter from Felice Charmond im-
ploring him not to see her again. To
bring' about their severance still more

o

effectually, she added, she had decided
during his absence upon almost immediate
departure for the Continent.

The time w^as that dull interval in a
w^oodlander's life v/hich coincides with great
activity in the life of the woodland itself —
a period following the close of the winter

THE WOODLANDERS.

tree-cutting, and preceding the barking
season, when the saps are just beginning
to heave with the force of hydrauhc Hfts
inside all the trunks of the forest.

Winterborne's contract was completed,
and the plantations were deserted. It was
dusk : there were no leaves as yet : the
nightingales would not begin to sing for a
fortnight ; and the Mother of the Months
was in her most attenuated phase — starved
and bent to a mere bowed skeleton, which
glided along behind the bare twigs in
Fitzpiers's company.

When he reached home he went straight
up to his wife's sitting-room. He found it
deserted, and without a fire. He had
mentioned no day for his return : never-
theless he wondered why she was not
there w'aiting to receive him.

On descending to the other wing of the
house and inquiring of Mrs. ^^lelbury he

B 2

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

learnt with much surprise that Grace had
gone on a visit to an acquaintance at
Shottsford-Forum, three days earlier : that
tidings had on this morning reached her
father of her being very unwell there, in
consequence of which he had ridden over
to see her.

Fitzpiers went up stairs again, and the
little drawing-room, now lighted by a solitary
candle, w^as ■ not rendered more cheerful by
the entrance of Grammer Oliver with an
apron full of wood w^hich she threw on the
hearth while she raked out the grate and
rattled about the fire-irons, with a view to
making things comfortable. Fitzpiers con-
sidered that Grace ouo^ht to have let him
know her plans more accurately before
leaving home in a freak like this. He
went desultorily to the wnndow^, the blind
of wdiich had not been pulled down, and
looked out at the thin, fast-sinking moon,

THE WOOD LANDERS.

and at the tall stalk of smoke rising from
the top of Suke Damson's chimney, signify-
ing that the young woman had just lit her
fire to prepare supper.

He became conscious of a discussion in
progress on the opposite side ot the court.
Somebody had looked over the wall to
talk to the sawyers, and was telHng them
in a loud voice news in which the name
of Mrs. Charmond soon arrested his ears.

'' Grammer, don't make so much noise
with that grate," said the surgeon : at which
Grammer reared herself upon her knees and
held the fuel suspended in her hand, while
Fitzpiers half opened the window.

" She is off to foreio^n lands a^ain at last
— hev made up her mind quite sudden-like
— and 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

6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

She's the wrong sort of woman for HIntock
— hardlv knowino- a beech from a woak —
that I own. But I don't care who the man
is, she's been a very kind friend to me."

" Well — the day after to-morrow 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,
poor Felice !

How her 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
mast be in ! But for this mixing up of his
name w^ith hers, and her determination to
Sunder their too close acquaintance on that

THE WOODLANDERS.

account, she would probably have sent for
him professionally. She was now sitting
alone, sufiering, perhaps wishing she had not
forbidden him to come acyaln.

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 stable-door while Darllnor was belne
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 ?\Iarty
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 I'oad, holding up a letter.
Fitzplers took it without stopping, and asked
over his shoulder from whom it came.

Marty hesitated. " From me," she said
shyly, though with noticeable firmness.

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

This letter contained, in fact, Marty's
declaration that she was the original owner
of Mrs. Charmond's supplementary locks,
and inclosed a sample from the native stock,
which had grown considerably by this time.
It was her long contemplated apple of
discord, and much her hand trembled as she
handed the document up to him.

But It was Impossible on account of the
gloom for Fitzplers 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 pictur-
ing Its excellent weaning effect upon him.

He was not long in reaching the precincts
of the manor-house. He drew rein under
a group of dark oaks commanding a view of
the front, and reflected a while. His entry
would not be altogether unnatural in the cir-

THE WOODLAXDERS.

cumstances of her possible Indisposition ; but
upon the whole he thought it best to avoid
riding up to the door. By silently approach-
ing he could retreat unobserved in the event
of her not belns: alone. He dismounted,
hitched Darllno- to a strav bouofh haneine a
little below the q^eneral browsing line of the
trees, and proceeded to the door on foot.

In the meantime ^lelbury had returned
from Shottsford-Forum. The great court or
quadrangle of the timber-merchant's house,
divided from the shady lane by an ivy-
covered wall, was entered bv two white o-ates,
one standing near each extremity of the wall.
It had so happened that at the m.oment 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. Fitz-
piers being in front of ^^lelbury was seen bv

the latter, but the surgeon, never turning
his head, did not observe his father-in-law.

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

ambling up slowly and silently under the
trees, though his horse too was a grey one.

"How is Grace?" said his wife, as soon
as he entered.

Melbury looked gloomy. " She 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
staying away in a strange place any longer,
and I beQ-ored her to let me ofet 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 carriage — the easiest-going
I could get — and she'll be here in a couple of
hours or less : I rode on ahead to tell you to
get her room ready ; but I see her husband
has come back."

" Yes," said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed
her concern that her husband had hired a
carriage all the way from Shottsford. " What
it will cost ! " she said.

THE \V0013 LANDERS.

" 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 ]^Irs.
Charmond. and the disclosure that had been
whispered in her startled ear.

"Since Edred is coroe," he continued, "he
might have waited in till I got back, to ask
me how she was, if only for a compliment.
I saw him go out : where is he gone ? "

Mrs. IMelbury 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 ^exasper-
ating to him that just at this moment, when
there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay
in doors, or at any rate to ride along the

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

Shottsford road to meet his aillne wife, he
should be doing despite to her by going
elsewhere. The old man went out of doors
again ; and, his horse being hardly unsaddled
as yet, he told Upjohn to re-tighten the
girths ; he again mounted, and rode off at the
heels of the sureeon.

By the time that Melbury reached the park
he was prepared to go any lengths in com-
bating this rank and reckless errantry of his
daughter's husband. He would fetch home
Edred Fitzpiers to-night by some means,
rough or fair : in his view there could come
of his interference nothing worse than w^hat
existed at present. And yet to every bad
there is a worse.

He had entered by the bridle-gate which
admitted to the park on this side, and
cantered over the soft turf almost in the
tracks of Fitzpiers's horse, till he reached
the clump of trees under which his pre-

THE WOODLAXDERS.

cursor had halted. The whitish object that
was Indistinctly visible here in the gloom of
the boughs he found to be Darling, as left
by Fitzplers.

'' D him! why did he not ride up

to the house in an honest w^ay ? " said
Melbury.

He profited by FItzpiers's example : dis-
mounting, 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 not hesitate to gently
open the front door without ringing.

The large square hall, with its oak floor,
staircase, and wainscot, was lighted by a dim
lamp hanging from a beam. Not a soul was
visible. He went into the corridor and
listened at a door which he knew to be that
of the drawing-room ; there was no sound,
and on turning the handle he found the room

14 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

empty. A fire burning low in the grate was
the sole light of the apartment : its beams
flashed mockingly on the somewhat showy
Yersaillese furniture and gilding here, in
style as unlike that of the structural parts of
the building as it was possible to be, and
probably introduced by Felice to counteract
the fine old English gloom of the place.
Disappointed in his hope of confronting his
son-in-law here, he went on to the dining-
room, which was without light or fire, and per-
vaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified
that she had not dined there that day.

By this time Melbury's mood had a little
mollified. Everything here was so pacific,
so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no.
longer incited to provoke a collision with
Fitzpiers or with anybody. The comparative
stateliness of the apartments influenced him
to an emotion, rather than to a belief, that
where all was outwardly so good and proper

THE WOODLANDERS.

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 confound-
ing 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 long run. He would, after
all, adopt the more rational course, and plead
with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded
with Mrs. Charmond.

He accordingly retreated as silently as he
had come. Passincr the door of the drawing^-
room anew he fancied that he heard a noise
within, which was not the cracklino; of the
fire. Melbury gently re- opened the door to
a distance of a few inches, and saw at the
opposite window two figures in the act of
stepping out — a man and a woman — in
whom he recognised the lady of the house

1 6 THE WOODLAND ERS. chap.

and his son-in-law. In a moment they had
disappeared amid the gloom of the lawn.

He returned into the hall, and let himself
out by the carriage-entrance door, coming
round to the lawn-front in time to see the
two figures parting at the railing which
divided the precincts of the house from
the open park.

Mrs. Charmond turned to hasten back
Immediately that her lover had left her side ;
and FItzpiers going onward was speedily
absorbed into the duskiness of the trees.

Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had
re-entered the drawing-room, and then fol-
lowed after FItzpiers. 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 son-in-law might
possibly see the second horse near his own ;
but that would do him no harm, and might
prepare him for what he was to expect.

I. THE WOODLANDERS. 17

The event however, v»'as different from the
plan. On pkmging into the thick shade of
the clump of oaks, he could not perceive his
horse Blossom anvwhere ; but feelinof his
way carefully along, he by and by discerned
Fitzpiers's mare Darling still standing as
before under the adjoining tree. For a
moment Melbury thought that his own
horse, being young and strong, had broken
away from her fastening ; biit on listening
intentlv he could hear her amblino^ comfort-
ably along a little way ahead, and a creaking
of the saddle, which showed that she had a
rider. Walkinor on as far as the small orate
in the corner of the park, he met a labourer
who, in reply to Melbury s inquiry if he had
seen any person on a grey horse, said that he
had only met Dr. Fitzpiers.

It was just what Melbury had begun to
suspect : Fitzpiers had mounted the mare
which did not belong: to him in mistake for

VOL. III. C

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

his own — an oversight easily explicable, in
a man ever unwitting in horse-flesh, by the
darkness of the spot, and the near similarity
of the animals in appearance, though Mel-
bury's was readily enough seen to be the
greyer horse by day.

He hastened back, and did what seemed
best in the circumstances — got upon old
Darling, and rode rapidly after Fitzpiers.

Melbury had just entered the wood, and
was winding along the cart-way which led
through it, channelled deep in the leaf-mould
with large ruts that were formed by the
timber-waggons in fetching the spoil of the
plantations, when all at once he descried in
front, at a point where the road took a turn-
ing round a large chestnut tree, the form of
his own horse Blossom. Melbury quickened
Darling's pace, thinking to come up with
Fitzpiers.

Nearer view revealed that the horse had

THE WOODLANDERS. 19

no rider. At Melbury's approach it galloped
friskily away under the trees in a homeward
direction. Thinking something was wrong,
the timber-merchant dismounted as soon as
he reached the chestnut, and after feeling
about for a minute or two discovered
Fitzpiers lying on the ground.

" Here — help ! " cried the latter as soon
as he felt Melbury's touch ; ''I have been
thrown off. . . . But there's not much harm
done, I think."

Since Melbury could not now very well
read the younger man the lecture he had
intended, and as friendliness would be
hypocrisy, his instinct was to speak not a
single word to his son-in-law. He raised
Fitzpiers into a sitting posture, and found
that he was a little stunned and stupefied,
but, as he had said, not otherwise hurt-
How this fall had come about was readily
conjecturable : Fitzpiers, imagining there was

c 2

THE WOODLANDERS. CH. I.

only old Darling under him, had been taken
unawares by the younger horse's sprightliness.

Melbury was a traveller of the old-
fashioned sort : having just come from
Shottsford-Forum, he still had in his pocket
the pilgrim's flask of rum which he always
carried on journeys exceeding a dozen miles,
though he seldom drank much of it. He
poured it down the surgeon's throat, with
such effect that he quickly revived. Melbury
got him on his legs ; but the question was
what to do with him. He could not walk
more than a few steps, and the other horse
had gone away.

With great exertion Melbury contrived to
get him astride Darling, mounting himself
behind, and holding Fitzpiers round his
waist with one arm. Darling being broad,
straight-backed, and high in the withers, was
well able to carry double, at any rate as far
as Hintock, and at a gentle pace.

CHAPTER II.

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 Tutcombe Bottom,
intensely dark now with overgrowth, and
popularly supposed to be haunted by the
spirits of the fratricides exorcised from
Hintock House.

By this time Fitzplers had quite recovered
his physical strength. But he had eaten
nothing since making a hasty breakfast in

THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

London that morning, his anxiety about
Felice having hurried him away from home
before dining : as a consequence the old rum
administered by his father-in-law flew to the
young man's head and loosened his tongue,
without his ever having recognised who it
was that had lent him a kindly hand. He
began to speak in desultory sentences,
Melbury still supporting him.

'^ I've come all the way from London to-
day," said Fitzpiers. " Ah, that's the place
to meet your equals. I live at Hintock —
worse, at Little Hintock! — and I am quite
lost there. There's not a man within ten
miles of Hintock who can comprehend
me. ... I tell you, Farmer What's-your-
name, that Tm 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

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 23

match me in the whole county of Wessex as
a scientist. . . . Yet I am doomed to Hve
with tradespeople in a miserable little hole
like Hintock!"

" Indeed ! " muttered Melbury.

Here Fitzpiers, with alcoholic energy,
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 ; then, lowering his voice,
he added softly and slowly, " except one —
except one ! . . . A passionate soul, as warm
as she is clever, as beautiful as she is warm,
and as rich as she is beautiful. I say, old
fellowj those claws of yours clutch me rather
tight — rather like the eagle's, you know, that
ate out the liver of Pro — Pre — , the man
on Mount Caucasus. . . . People don't

24 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

appreciate me, I say, except her I . . . Ah,
gods, I am an unlucky man ! She would
have been mine, she would have taken my
name ; but unfortunately it cannot be so ! I
stooped to mate beneath me ; and now I
rue it."

The position was becoming a very trying
one for Melbury, corporeally and mentally.
He was obliged to steady Fitzpiers with his
left arm, and he began to hate the contact.
He hardly knew what to do. It was useless
to remonstrate with Fitzpiers, in his intel-
lectual confusion from the rum and from the
fall. He remained silent, his hold upon his
companion, however, being stern rather than
compassionate.

" You hurt me a little, farmer ! — though
I am much obliged to you for your kindness.
. . . People don't appreciate me, I say.
Between ourselves, I am losing my practice
here ; and why ? Because I see matchless

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 25

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 between us 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 honourable ambition
— a chance I have never had yet ! . . . and
now never, never shall have probably ! "

Melbury, his heart throbbing against the
other's backbone, and his brain on hre with
indignation, ventured to mutter huskily,
'' Why ? "

The horse ambled on some steps before
Fitzpiers replied. " Because I am tied and
bound to another by law, as tightly as I am
to you by your arm — not that I complain
of your arm — I thank you for helping me.
Well, w^here are we ? Not nearly home

26 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 in committing
myself. Had I only seen the other
first "

Here the old man's arm gave Fitzpiers
a convulsive shake.

''What are you doing .-^^ continued the
latter. " Keep still, please, or put me down.
... I was saying that I lost her by a mere
little two months ! There is no chance for
me now In this world, and it makes me
reckless — reckless! Unless, indeed, any-
thing should happen to the other one. She
is amiable enough ; but if anything should
happen to her — and I hear she is 111 — well,
If It should, I should be free — and my fame,
my happiness, would be insured ! "

These were the last words that Fitzpiers

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 27

Uttered in his seat in front of the timber-
merchant. Unable longer to master himself,
Melbury whipped away his spare arm from
Fitzpiers's waist, and seized him by the
collar.

" You heartless villain — after 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 further,
and stopped.

" God forgive me ! " Melbury murmured,
repenting of what he had done. ''He tried

28 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

me too sorely ; and now perhaps I've
murdered him ! "

He turned round in the saddle, and looked
towards the spot on which Fitzpiers had
fallen. To his great surprise he beheld the
surgeon rise to his feet with a bound, as if un-
hurt, and walk away rapidly under the trees.

Melbury listened till the rustle of Fitz-
piers's footsteps died away. ''It might have
been a crime, but for the mercy of Provi-
dence in providing leaves for his fall ; " he
said to himself. And then his mind reverted
to the words of Fitzpiers, and his indigna-
tion so mounted within him that he almost
wished the fall had put an end to the surgeon
there and then.

He had not ridden far when he discerned
his own grey mare standing under some
bushes. Leaving Darling for a moment,
Melbury went forward and easily caught
the younger animal, now disheartened at its

THE WOODLANDERS. 29

freak. He made the pair of them fast to a
tree, and turning back endeavoured to find
some trace of FItzpiers, feeHng pitifully that,
after all, he had gone further than he in-
tended 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, listenine
and lookino- round. The breeze was oozine
through the net-work 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 else
the fancy chose to make of them. Giving
up the search, Melbury came back to the
horses, and walked slowly homeward leading
one in each hand.

It happened that on the selfsame evening

30 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

a boy had been returning from Great to
Little Hintock about the time of Fitzpiers's
passage home along that route. A horse-
collar, that had been left at the harness-
mender's to be repaired, was required for
use at five o'clock next morning, and in
consequence the boy had to fetch it over-
night. He put his head through the collar,
and accompanied his walk by whistling the
one tune he knew, as an antidote to fear.

The boy suddenly became aware of a
horse trotting rather 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

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 31

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 recognised
the doctor.

As Melbury surmised, Fitzpiers had in
the darkness taken Blossom for Darlino-,
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 conserva-
tive objection to the unusual which animals
show, Blossom, on eyeing the collar under
the tree — quite invisible to Fitzpiers —
exercised none of the patience of the older
horse, but shied sufficiently to unseat so
second-rate an equestrian as the surgeon.

He fell, and did not move, lying as

32 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

Melbury afterwards found him. The boy
ran away, salving his conscience for the
desertion by thinking how vigorously he
would spread the alarm of the accident
when he got to Hintock — which he un-
compromisingly 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, Shottsford-Forum, had
been paid for and dismissed. The long
drive had somewhat revived her, her illness
being a feverish Intermittent nervousness
which had more to do with mind than body,
and she walked about her sitting-room In
something of a hopeful mood. Mrs. Mel-
bury 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

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 33

would not allow her mind to harbour any
suspicion of his whereabouts, and her step-
mother said nothing of ]\Irs. Charmond's
rumoured sorrows and plans of departure.

So the young wife sat by the fire, waiting
silently. She had left Hintock in a turmoil
of aversion to her husband, after the revela-
tion of }vlrs. Charmond, and had intended
not to be at home when he returned. But
she had thought the matter over, and had
allowed her father's influence to prevail
and bring her back ; and now somewhat
regretted that Edred's arrival had preceded
hers.

By and by Mrs. ?^Ielbury came up stairs
with a slight air of flurry and abruptness.

" I have something to tell — some bad
news," she said. " But you must not be
alarmed, as it is not so bad as it might have
been. Edred has been thrown oft' his horse.
We don't think he is hurt much. It happened

VOL. III. D

34 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

in the wood the other side of Tutcombe
Bottom, where 'tis said the ghosts of the
Brothers walk."

She went on to give a few of the particu-
lars, but none of the invented horrors, that
had been communicated by the boy. '' I
thought it better to tell you at once," she
added, '' in case he should not — be very well
able to walk home, and somebody should
bring him."

Mrs. Melbury really thought matters much
worse than she represented, and Grace knew
that she thought so. She sat down dazed
for a few minutes, returning a negative to
her stepmother's inquiry if she could do
anything for her.

" Ah — yes — please go into the bedroom,"
Grace said on second thoughts, " and see if
all is ready there — in case it is serious."
Mrs. Melbury thereupon called Grammer,
and they did as directed, supplying the room

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 35

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 had passed when
Grace heard a knock at the door — a single
knock, not loud enough to reach the ears of
those in the bedroom.

She went to the top of the stairs, and said
faindy, '' 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 recognise, 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 Melbury— I would say Mrs.
Fitzpiers," she said, wringing her hands.
" This terrible news — is he dead ? Is he

D 2

36 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

hurted very bad ? Tell me ; I couldn't
help coming — please forgive me, Miss
Melbury — Mrs. FItzpiers, I would say ! "

Grace sank down on the oak chest which
stood on the landing, and put her hands to
her now flushed face and head. Ought she
not to order Suke Damson down stairs 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 so, why can't
I see him — would It be so very wrong ? "

Before Grace had answered somebody else
came to the door below — a footfall light as a
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

II. THE WOODLAXDERS. 37

possibly guided by the stray beam of light
on the landing, the new-comer ascended the
staircase as the first had done. Grace
started : it was a lady. Grace was suffi-
ciently visible, and the lady came to her
side.

'' I could make nobody hear down stairs,"
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 is — the matter —
tell me the worst ! Can he live ? '"

She looked at Grace imploringly, v/ithout
perceiving poor Suke, who, dismayed at such
a presence, had shrunk away into the shade.
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 he— killed ? "

38 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" She won't tell us — he's dying — he's in
that room ! " burst out Suke, regardless of
consequences, as she heard the distant move-
ments 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 report only — not so bad as you think. It
must have been exaggerated to you."

" Please do not conceal anything — let me
know^ all ! " said Felice doubtingly.

" You shall know all I know ; and indeed
you have a perfect right to go in there ; who
can have a better than either of you ?" said
Grace with a delicate sting w^hich was lost
upon them now, as, ceasing to obstruct the
way, she led on to the chamber door, and

11. THE WOODLANDERS. 39

flung it open. " I repeat, I have only heard
a less alarming account than you have heard ;
how much it means, and how little, I cannot
say. I pray God that it means not much —
in common humanity. You probably pray
the same — -/or otJier ^'easonsT

Then she resfarded them both there in the

o

dim light a while, as they stood dumb in their
trouble, staring at the empty bed ; not sting-
insf back at her, not heedinof her mood. A
tenderness spread over Grace like a dew. It
was well enough, conventionally, to address
either one of them in the wife's regulation
terms of virtuous sarcasm, as woman,
creature, or thing. 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 dav lonsf ; but could she,
by retributive words, in order to please her-
self, the individual, " offend ai2:ainst the
generation," as he would not ?

40 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

" He is dying, perhaps! " blubbered Suke
Damson, putting her apron to her eyes.

In their gestures and faces there were
anxieties, affection, agony of heart — all for a
man who had wronged them — had never
really behaved towards either of them any-
how but selfishly. Neither one but would
have well-nigh sacrificed half her life to him,
even now. The tears which his possibly
critical situation could not bring to her eyes
surged over at the contemplation of these
fellow- women. She turned to the balustrade,
bent herself upon it, and wept.

Thereupon Felice began to cry also, with-
out using her handkerchief, 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.

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 41

Grace at once started up, ran down the
stairs, and out into the quadrangle as her
father crossed it towards the door. '' Father,
what is the matter with him ? " she cried.

'' Who, Edred ? " said Melbury abruptly.
** Matter ? Nothing. What, my dear, and
have you got home safe ? Why, you are
better already ! But you ought not to be
out in the air like this."

" But he has been thrown off his horse ! "

" I know^ ; I know. I saw it. He got up
again, and walked off as well as ever. A fall
on the leaves didn't hurt a spry fellow like
him. He did not come this way," he added
significantly. " I suppose he went to look
for his horse. I tried to find him, but could
not. But after seeing him go away under
the trees I found the horse, and 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.

42 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

When she had aeain ascended to the landlnsf
and to her own rooms beyond, it was a
great relief to her to find that both Petti-
coat the First and Petticoat the Second of
her bien-aime had silently disappeared.
They had, in all probability, heard the
words of her father, and departed, with
their anxieties relieved.

Presently her parents came up to Grace,
and busied themselves to see that she was
comfortable. Perceiving soon that she
would prefer to be left alone they went
away.

Grace waited on. The clock raised its
voice now and then, but her husband did
not return. At her father's usual hour for
retiring he again came in to see her. " Do
not stay up," she said, as soon as he entered.
'' I am not at all tired. I will sit up for him."

'' I think it will be useless, Grace," said
Melbury, slowly.

II. THE WOODLANDERS. 43

" I have had a bitter quarrel with him.
And on that account I hardly think he will
return to-night."

"A quarrel? Was that after the fall
seen by the boy ? "

Melbury nodded an affirmative — without
taking his eyes off the candle.

"Yes; it was as we were coming home
together,'' he said.

Something had been swelling up in Grace
while her father was speaking. " How could
you want to quarrel vrith 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 in-
duce me to accept him, and then you do
things that divide us more than we should
naturallv be divided ! "

44 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'* How can you speak so unjustly to me,
Grace ? " said Melbury, with indignant sor-
row. '*/ divide you from your husband,
indeed ! You Httle think — "

He was inclined to say more — to tell her
the whole story of the encounter, and that
the provocation he had received had lain en-
tirely in hearing her despised. But it would
have greatly distressed her, and he forebore.

" You had better lie down. You are
tired," he said soothingly. " Good-night."

The household v/ent 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 nonce forgot
Winterborne.

" How these unhappy women must have

II. THE WOODLAXDERS. 45

admired Edred ! " she said to herself. " How
attractive he must be to everybody ; and,
indeed, he is attractive." The possiblHty
is that, piqued by rivalry, these ideas mieht
have been transmuted into their correspond-
ing emotions by a show of the least reci-
procity in F'itzpiers. There was, in truth,
a love-bird yearning to fly from her heart ;
and it wanted a lodo^ino- badlv.

But no husband came. The fact was
that ^lelbury had been much mistaken
about the condition of Fitzpiers. People
do not fall headlong on stumps of under-
wood 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 his hands
to his head, reeled and fell.

CHAPTER III.

Grace was not the only one who watched
and meditated In Hlntock that night.
FeHce Charmond was In no mood to retire
to rest at a customary hour ; and over her
drawing-room fire at the manor-house she
sat as motionless and in as deep a reverie
as Grace in her little chamber at the
homestead.

Having caught ear of Melburys intelli-
gence while she had stood on the landmg
at his house, and been eased of much of
her mental distress, her sense of personal
decorum had returned upon her with a

CH. III. THE WOODLANDERS. 47

rush. She descended the stairs and left
the door Hke 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, descend-
ing 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. She entered her own dwellino-
as she had emerged from it — by the drawing-
room window. Everything was just as
she had left it : she had been gone about
three-quarters of an hour by the clock, and
nobody seemed to have discovered her
absence. Tired in body but tense in mind

48 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

she sat down, palpitating, round-eyed, be-
wildered at what she had done.

She had been betrayed by affrighted love
into a visit which, now that the emotion
instigating it had calmed down under her
belief that Fitzpiers was in no danger, was
the saddest surprise to her. This was how
she had set about doing her best to escape
her passionate bondage to him ! Somehow,
in declaring to Grace and to herself the
unseemliness of her infatuation, she had
o-rown 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 weary-
ing, too hopeless, while she remained. It
was but a continual capitulation of conscience
to what she dared not name.

By degrees, as she sat on and on, Felice's

III. THE WOODLANDERS. 49

mind — helped perhaps by the anti-cHmax
of supposing that her lover was unharmed
after all her fright about him — grew won-
drously 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
knick-knacks scattered about the room, to
feel that preparations were really in train.

While moving here and there she fancied
that she heard a slight noise out of doors, and
stood still. Surely it was a tapping at the
window. A thought entered her mind, and
burnt 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

VOL. III. E

50 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

course of affairs she would have retired
also. Then she remembered that on step-
ping in by the casement and closing it, she
had not fastened the window-shutter, so
that a streak of light from the interior of
the room might have revealed her vigil to
an observer on the lawn. How all things
conspired against her keeping faith with
Grace !

The tapping recommenced, light as from
the bill of a little bird : her illegitimate
hope overcame her discretion : she went
and pulled back the shutter, determining
however to shake her head at him, and
keep the casement securely closed.

What she saw outside might have struck
terror into a heart stouter than a helpless
woman's at midnio^ht. In the centre of the
lowest pane of the window, close to the
glass, was a human face, which she barely
recognised as the face of Fitzpiers. It was

III. THE WOODLANDERS. 51

surrounded with the darkness of the night
without, corpse-Hke 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 Sudarium of St. Veronica.

He moved his lips, and looked at her
imploringly. Her rapid mind pieced to-
gether 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 tlie window and fastening
the shutters she bent over him breathlessly.

" Are you hurt much, much ? " she cried
faintly. " Oh, oh, how is this ! "

*' Rather much — but don't be frightened,"

E 2

52 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

he answered in a difficult whisper, and
turning himself to obtain an easier position
if possible. *' A little water, please."

She ran across into the dining-room, and
brought a bottle and glass, from which he
eagerly drank. He could then speak much
better, and v/ith her help got upon the
nearest couch.

'' Are you dying, Edred ? " she said.
'' Do speak to me ! "

'' 1 am half dead," said Fitzpiers. " But
perhaps I shall get over it. , . . It is chiefly
loss of blood."

^' But I thought your fall did not hurt
you?" said she. ^' Who did this?"

'' Felice- — -my father-in-law ! . . . I have
crawled to you more than a mile on my
hands and knees — -God, I thought I should
never have crot here ! . . . I have come to

o

you— because you are the only friend — I
have in the world now. ... I can never

III. THE WOODLAXDERS. 53

go back to Hintock — never — to the roof of
the Melburys ! Not poppy nor mandragora
will ever medicine this bitter feud! ... If
I were only well again — "

" Let me bind your head, now that you
have rested."

" Yes — but wait a moment — it has stopped
bleeding, fortunately, or I should be a dead
man before now. While in the wood I
managed to make a tourniquet of some
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. ]\Iy practice is nearly gone you
know — and after this I would not care to
recover it if I could."

By this time Felice's tears began to blind
her. Where were now her discreet plans
for sunderinc^ their lives for ever ? To
administer to him in his pain, and trouble.

54 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

and poverty, was her single thought. The
first step was to hide him, and she asked
herself where. A place occurred to her
mind.

She got him some wine from the dining-
room, which strengthened him much. Then
she managed to remove his boots, and, as
he could now keep himself upright by
leaning upon her on one side and a
walking-stick on the other, they went thus
In 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 w^as a lumber-
room, containing abandoned fijrnlture 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

III. THE WOODLAXDERS. 55

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 ]\Ir. Charmond at
the auction ; but chano-Ino^ fashion, and the
tastes of a young wife, had caused them to
be releQ:ated to this duno^eon.

Here FItzpIers sat en 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. Wlille he ate, her eyes
lino^ered anxiously on his face, followlnof Its
every movement with such lovlncr-kindness

J o

as only a fond woman can show.

He was now In better condition, and
discussed his position with her.

" What I fancy I said to ]Melbury must

56 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 running
up and down ! "

She fetched writing materials, and held up
the blotting-book as a support to his hand.

III. THE WOODLANDERS. 57

while he penned a brief note to his nominal
wife.

'' The animosity shown towards me by
your father," he wrote in this coldest of
marital epistles, " is such that I cannot return
aeain to a roof which is his, even though it
shelters you. A parting is unavoidable, as
you are sure to be on his side in this division.
I am starting on a journey which will take me
a long way from Hintock, and you must not
expect to see me there again for some time."

He then gave her a few directions bearing
upon his professional engagements and other
practical matters, concluding without a hint
of his destination, or a notion of when she
would see him aeain. 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 bevond en-
durance. She turned away from Fitzpiers,
and sobbed bitterly.

58 THE WOODLANDERS chap.

'' If you can get this posted at a place
some miles away," he whispered, exhausted
by the effort of writing, '' at Shottsford, or
Port-Bredy, or still better, Budmouth, it will
divert all suspicion from this house as the
place of my refuge."

'' I will drive to one or other of the places
myself — anything to keep it unknown," she
murmured, her voice weighted vv^ith vague
foreboding, now that the excitement of
helping him had passed away.

Fitzpiers told her that there was yet one
thing more to be done. "In creeping over
the fence on to the lawn," he said, " I made
the rail bloody, and It shov/s rather too
plainly on the white paint — I could see it in
the dark. At all hazards it should be washed
off Could you do that also, Felice ? "

What will not women do on such devoted
occasions ? Weary as she was she went —
all the way down the rambling staircases to

III. THE VVOODLANDERS. 59

the ercund floor, then to search for a lantern,
which she Hehted and hid under her cloak ;
then for a wet sponge, and next 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 blood —
just where he had told her it would be found.
She shuddered. It was almost too much to
bear in one day ; but with a shaking hand
she sponged the rail clean, and returned to
the house.

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

CHAPTER IV.

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, what-
ever its nature miorht 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 Mel-

CH. IV. THE WOODLANDERS. 6i

bury household was aware that he did not
return on the night of his accident, no
excitement manifested itself In the vlllaee.

Thus the early days of ]\Iay passed by.
None but the nocturnal birds and animals
observed that late one evenlnof, towards
the middle of the month, a closely wrapped
figure, with a crutch under one arm and
a stick in his hand, crept out from HIntock
House across the lawn to the shelter of
the trees, taking thence a slow and laborious
walk to the nearest point of the turnpike
road.

The mysterious personage was so dis-
guised that his own wife would hardly
have known him. Felice Charmond was
a practised hand at such work, as well she
might be ; and she had done her utmost
in padding and painting Fitzpiers with the
old materials of her art in the recesses of
that lumber-room.

62 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

In the highway he was met by a covered
carriage, which conveyed him to Sherton
Abbas, whence he proceeded to the nearest
port on the south coast, and immediately
crossed the Channel.

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

IV.

THE WOODLAXDERS. 63

agitated the little community ever since

the winter.

Melbury had entered the Valley of
Humiliation even further than Grace. His
spirit seemed broken.

But once a week he mechanically went
to market as usual, and here, as he was
passing by the conduit one day, his mental
condition expressed largely by his gait, he
heard his name spoken by a voice formerly
familiar. He turned and saw a certain
Fred 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 fre-
quently than was good for the clever brains

64 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 as-
tonishingly small fees — mostly carrying on
his profession on public-house settles, in
whose recesses he might often have been
overheard making country-people's wills for
half-a-crown, calling with a learned voice
for pen and Ink and a halfpenny sheet of
paper, on which he drew up the testament,
while resting It In a little space wiped with
his hand on the table amid the liquid circles
formed by the cups and glasses. An Idea
Implanted early In life is difficult to uproot,
and many elderly tradespeople still clung
to the notion that Fred Beaucock knew a
great deal of law.

It was he who had called Melbury by
name.

IV. THE WOODLANDERS. . 65

"You look very down, Mr. Melbury —
very, if I may say as much," he observed,
when the timber-merchant turned. " But I
know — I know. A very sad case — very.
I was bred to the law, as you know, and
am professionally no stranger to such matters.
Well, Mrs. Fitzpiers has her remedy."

" How — what — a remedy ? " said Melbury.

" Under the new law, sir. A new court
was established last year, and under the new
statute, twenty and twenty-one Vic, cap.
eighty-five, unmarrying is as easy as marry-
ing. No more Acts of Parliament necessary -.
no longer one law for the rich and another
for the poor. But come inside — I was just
going to have a nibleykin of rum hot — I'll
explain it all to you."

The intelligence amazed Melbury, who
saw little of newspapers. And though he
was a severely correct man in his habits,
and had no taste for entering a tavern with

o
VOL. III. F

66 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

Fred Beaucock — nay, would have been quite
uninfluenced by such a character on any
other matter in the world — such fascination
lay in the idea of delivering his poor girl
from bondage, that it deprived him of the
critical faculty. He could not resist the
ex-lawyer's clerk, and entered the inn.

Here they sat down to the rum, which
Melbury paid for as a matter of course,
Beaucock leaning back on the settle with
a legal gravity which would hardly allow
him to be conscious of the spirits before
him ; though they nevertheless disappeared
with mysterious quickness.

How much of the exaggerated informa-
tion 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

IV. THE WOODLANDERS. 67

lather was Irradiated with the project ; and,
though he scarcely wetted his hps, ]\Ielbury
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 an angel.

He relinquished his horse, and took
WInterborne by the arm to a heap of rendle-
wood — as barked oak was here called — which
lay under a privet hedge.

" Giles," he said, when they had sat down
upon the logs, '' there's a new^ law In the
land ! Grace can be free quite easily. I
only knew it by the merest accident. I
might not have found It out for the next

F 2

68 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

ten years. She can get rid of him — d'ye
hear — get rid of him. Think of that, my
friend Giles ! "

He related what he had learnt of the
new legal remedy. A subdued tremulous-
ness about the mouth was all the response
that Winterborne made ; and Melbury added,
" My boy, you shall have her yet — if you
want her." His feelings had gathered
volume as he said this, and the articulate
sound of the old idea drowned his sight
in mist.

"Are you sure — about 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

IV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 69

allusion to such a leQ^al chancre ; 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 lawyer — nothing 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
at the moment. He was what was called at
Hintock " a solid-going fellow " ; he main-
tained his abeyant mood, not from want of
reciprocity, but from a taciturn hesitancy,
taught by life as he knew it.

'' But," continued the timber-merchant, a
temporary crease or two of anxiety supple-

70 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

menting those already established in his
forehead by time, " 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
personality in the excitement of her pre-
visioned career.

They had sat till the evening was begin-
ning to dye the garden brown, and now
went towards iMelbury'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 more ordinary pace of Winter-
borne. 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 forth-

IV. THE WOODLANDERS. 71

coming : 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
cominof. No sooner had he followed the
timber-mierchant In at the door than he
heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitz-
plers was still more unwell than she had
been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being
in the neighbourhood they had called him
in, and he had instantly directed them to
get her to bed. They were not, however,
to consider her illness serious — a feverish,
nervous attack, the result of recent events,
was what she was sufferlnor from — and she
would doubtless be well in a few days.

WInterborne therefore did not remain,
and his hope of seeing her that evening was
disappointed.

Even this aggravation of her morning

72 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

condition did not greatly depress Melbury.
He knew, he said, that his daughter's con-
stitution was sound enough. It was only
these domestic troubles that were pulling
her down. Once free she would be bloom-
ing again. Melbury diagnosed rightly, as
parents usually do.

He set out for London the next morn-
ing, Jones having paid another visit and
assured him that he might leave home without
uneasiness, especially on an errand of that
sort, which would the sooner put an end
to her suspense.

The timber-merchant had been away
only a day or two when it was told in
Hintock that Mr. Fitzpiers's hat had been
found in the wood. Later on in the after-
noon the hat was brought to Melbury's, and,
by a piece of ill-fortune, into Grace's pre-
sence. It had doubtless lain in the wood
ever since his fall from the horse : but it

IV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 73

looked SO clean and uninjured — the summer
weather and leafy shelter having much
favoured its preservation — that Grace could
not believe it had remained so lono^ con-
cealed. A very little fact was enough to
set her fevered fancy at work at this junc-
ture— she thought him still in the neigh-
bourhood, she feared his sudden appearance ;
and her nervous malady developed conse-
quences so grave that Dr. Jones began to
look serious, and the household was
alarmed.

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

74 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

at two o'clock in the morning with a sudden
cry from one of Melbury's apple-trees, not
three yards from the window of Grace's
room.

"Oh — he is coming!" she cried, and in
her terror sprang clean out from the bed
upon the floor.

These starts and frights continued till
noon ; and when the doctor had arrived and
had seen her, and had talked with Mrs.
Melbury, he sat down and meditated. That
ever-present terror it was indispensable to
remove from her mind at all hazards ; and
he thought how this might be done.

Without saying a word to anybody in the
house, or to the disquieted Winterborne
waiting in the lane below, Dr. Jones went
home and wrote to Mr. Melbury at the
address in London he had obtained from
his wife. The s^ist of his communication
was that Mrs. Fitzpiers should be assured

IV. THE WOODLANDERS. 75

as soon as possible that steps were 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
avertlnor much harm," he said. "Write to
herself; not to me."

On Saturday he drove over to HIntock,
and assured her with mysterious pacifica-
tions that In a day or two she might expect
to receive some eood news.

So it turned out. When Sunday morning
came there was a letter for Grace from her
father. It arrived at seven o'clock, the
usual time at which the toddling postman
passed by HIntock : at eight Grace awoke,
having slept an hour or two for a wonder,
and Mrs. Melbury brought up the letter.

"Can you open it yourself?" said she.

" Oh, yes, yes ! " said Grace with feeble
Impatience. She tore the envelope, un-

76 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

folded the sheet, and read ; when a creeping
blush tinctured her white neck and cheek.

Her father had exercised a bold discre-
tion. He informed her that she need have
no further concern about Fitzpiers's return ;
that she would shortly be a free woman ;
and therefore if she should desire to wed
her old lover — which he trusted was the
case, since it was his own deep wish — she
would be in a position to do so. In this
Melbury had not written beyond his belief
But he very much stretched the facts in
adding that the legal formalities for dis-
solving 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 pre-
vented 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

IV. THE WOODLANDERS. -j-j

was a breaking of the bond. Though he had
not as yet had an interview with the eminent
sohcitor they were about to consult, he was
on the point of seeing him ; and the case
was clear enough. Thus the simple Mel-
bury, urged by his parental alarm at her
danger, by the representations of his com-
panion, and by the doctor's letter, had
yielded, and sat down to tell her roundly
that she w^as virtually free.

" And you'd better write also to the
gentlem^an," suggested Beaucock, who,
scenting fame 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 Winter-
borne, so that her father might not have the
heart to withdraw from his attempt to make
her love legitimate when he discovered that
there were difficulties in the wav.

78 THE WOODLANDERS. CH. iv.

The nervous, Impatient Melbury was much
pleased with the Idea of " starting them at
once," as he called it. To' put his long-
delayed reparative scheme in train had
become a passion with him now. He
added to the letter addressed to his
daughter a passage hinting that she ought
to begin to encourage 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 ;
he, her father, was getting old ; there were
slips betwixt the cup and the lip ; her Interest
in him should be reawakened at once, that
all might be ready when the good time
came for unitlnor them.

CHAPTER V.

At these warm words Wliiterborne was
much moved. The novelty of the avowal
rendered what it carried with it inappre-
hensible by him all at once. Only a few
short months ago completely estranged from
this family — beholding Grace going to and
fro in the distance, clothed with the alienating
radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of
the then popular and fashionable Fitzpiers,
hopelessly outside his social boundary down
to so recent a time that flowers then folded
were hardly faded yet — he was now asked
by that jealously-guarding father of hers to

8o THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

take courage ; to get himself ready for the
day when he should be able to claim her.

The old times came back to him in dim
procession. How he had been snubbed :
how Melbury had despised his Christmas
party : how that sweet, coy Grace herself
had looked down upon him and his house-
hold arrangements, and poor Creedle's
contrivances !

Well, he could not believe it. Surely the
adamantine barrier of marriage with another
could not be pierced like this! It did
violence to custom. Yet a new law might
do anything. But was it at all within the
bounds of probability that a woman who,
over and above her own attainments, had
been accustomed to those of a cultivated
professional man, could ever be the wife of
such as he ? Since the date of his rejection
he had almost grown to see the reasonable-
ness of that treatment. He had said to

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. Si

himself ao^aln and ao^ain that her father was
right : that the ceorl, Giles Winterborne,
would never have been able to make such
a dainty girl happy. Yet now that she had
stood in a position further 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 Mel-
bury desired him to act seemed, indeed,
scarcely wise, because of the uncertainty of
events. Giles knew nothing of legal pro-
cedure ; 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 ]\Ielbury for
his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that
the ageing man must have suffered acutely to
be weakened to this unreasoninss: desire.

Winterborne was far too mao-nanimous to

VOL. III. G

82 THE WOODLANDERS. -CHAP.

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

There is no such thing as a stationary
love : men are either loving more or loving
less ; but Giles recognised no decline in his

THE WOODLANDERS.

sense of her dearness. He had been labour-
ing ever since his rejection and her marriage
to reduce his former passion to a docile
friendship, out of pure regard to its expe-
diency ; but hitherto he had experienced no
great success in his attempt.

A week and more passed, and there was
no further news of Melbury. But the effect
of the inteUigence he had already transmitted
upon the elastic-nerved daughter of the
woods had been much as the old surgeon
Jones had surmised. It had soothed her per-
turbed 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, god-like
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 orreater than her aversion to the

o

G 2

84 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

personality of him who had caused it. It
was mortifying, productive of sHghts, un-
dignified. Him she could forget : her
circumstances she had always with her.

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 concrete humanity.
He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god
and the wood-god in alternation : sometimes
leafy and smeared with green lichen, as she
had seen him amongst the sappy boughs of
the plantations : sometimes cider-stained and
starred with apple-pips, as she had met him
on his return from cider-making In White-
Hart Vale, with his vats and presses beside
him. In her secret heart she approximated
to her father's enthusiasm in wishing to show
Giles once for all how she still regarded him.

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 85

The question whether the future would
indeed brins: them too^ether for hfe 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 eivino: a hint to Winter-
borne lest there should be risk in delay, and
her feelings were not averse to such a step,
so far as it could be done without danorer at
this early stage of the proceedings.

From being a frail phantom of her former
equable self she returned in bounds to
a condition of passable philosophy. She
bloomed again in the face in the course of
a few days, and was well enough to go about
as usual.

One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that for
a chano^e she should be driven in the c^isf to
Sherton market, whither INIelbury's man was

86 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

going on other errands. Grace had no busi-
ness 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 dis-
cerned the young man on the pavement.
She thouo^ht of that time when he had been
standing under his apple-tree en 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 court-
yard of the Earl of Wessex Hotel, while she
was figuring as a fine lady in the balcony
above.

Grace directed the man to set her down

V. THE WOODLANDERS. ?7

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, perhaps, quite so much
embarrassment as had formerly marked him
at such meetings.

When a few Vv'ords had been spoken, she
said invitingly, " I have nothing to do.
Perhaps you are deeply engaged ? "

*' I ? Not a bit. My business now at
the best of times is small, I am sorry to
say.

''Well, then — I am. going into the Abbey.
Come alonof with me."

The proposition had suggested itself as a
quick escape from publicity, for many eyes
were regarding her. She had hoped that
sufficient time had elapsed for the extinction
of curiosity ; but it was quite otherwise. The
people looked at her with tender interest as
the deserted Qrlrl-wlfe — without obtruslveness.

88 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

and without vulgarity ; but she was ill-
prepared for scrutiny in any shape.

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 time they were in that town alone.

He remembered it perfectly, and remarked,
" You were a proud damsel then, and as
dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are
now ? "

Grace slowly shook her head. " Affliction
has taken all that out of me," she answered
impressively. '' Perhaps I 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 ? "

" Yes " said Winterborne.

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 89

She glanced ponderingly up at him. '* Not
about me ? "

^'Yes."

She saw that he had been bidden to take
the hint as to the future which she had been
bidden to give, and the discovery sent a
scarlet pulsation through her for the moment.
However it was only Giles who stood there,
of whom she had no fear ; and her self-
possession returned.

"He said I was to sound you with a view
to — what 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
hurry.

They had been children together, and there
was between them that familiarity as to
personal affairs which only such acquaintance-
ship can give. " You know, Giles," she
answered, speaking in a very practical tone,

90 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'* that that is all very well ; but I am in a
very anomalous position at present, and I
cannot say anything to the point about such
things as those."

" No ? " he said, with a stray air as re-
garded the subject. He was looking at her
w^ith a curious consciousness of discovery.

He had not been imacrininQf that their
renewed intercourse would show her to him
thus. For the first time he realised an
unexpectedness in her, which after all should
not have been unexpected. She before him
w^as not the girl, Grace IMelbury, whom he
had 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

V. THE WOODLAXDERS 91

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 Rubdon Hill, when she met him with his
cider apparatus ; and that interview had been
of too cursory a kind for insight.

Winterborne had advanced, too. Shy
though he was, he could criticise her some-
what. Tim;es had been when to criticise a
single trait in Grace ]\Ielbury would have
lain as far beyond his powers as to criticise a
deity. And this thing was sure as a result
of his criticism : 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 pleased or
displeased at this. But upon the whole the
novelty attracted him.

92 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 Hnes come in your forehead ? " she
asked. " I did not m.ean to offend you by
speaking of the time being premature as
yet."

Touched by the genuine loving-kindness
which had lain at the foundation of these
words, and miuch 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."

-How?"

He could not very w^ell tell her how,
and said with an evasive smile, "You are

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 93

prettier ; " which was not what he reahy had
meant. He then remained still holdincr her

o

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 present— and far enough to
satisfy my poor father that we are the same
as ever. You see, Giles, my case is not
settled yet, and if — Oh, suppose I never
get free ! — there should be any hitch or
informality ! "

She drew a catching breath, and turned
pale. The dialogue had been affectionate
comedy up to this point. The gloomy
atmosphere of the past, and the still gloomy
horizon of the present, had been for the
interval forgotten. Now, the whole environ-
ment came back ; the due balance of shade
among the light was restored.

94 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

"It is sure to be all right, I trust," she
resumed in uneasy accents. *' What did
my father say the solicitor had told
him ? "

" Oh — that all is sure enough. The case
is so clear — nothincr could be clearer. But
the legal part is not yet quite done and
finished, as Is natural."

'' Oh, no, — of course not," she said, sunk
in meek thought. " But father said it was
almost — did he not ? Do you know any-
thing about the new law that makes these
things so easy ? "

" Nothing — except the general fact that
it enables ill-assorted husbands and wives
to part in a way they could not formerly
do without an Act of Parliament."

" Have you to sign a paper, or swear
anything? Is it something like that?"

'' Yes, I believe so."

'•'How long has it been introduced?"

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 95

*' About six months or a year, the lawyer
said, I think."

To hear these two poor Arcadian inno-
cents talk of imperial law would have made
a humane person weep who should have
known what a dangerous structure they were
building up on their supposed knowledge.
They remained in thought, like children in
the presence of the incomprehensible.

" Giles," she said at last, " it makes me
quite weary when I think how serious my
situation is, or has been. Shall we not go
out from here now, as it may seem rather
fast of me — our being so long together, I
mean — if 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 documents — or whatever
it may be — have not been signed ; so that
I — am still as married as ever — or almost.
My dear father has forgotten himself. Not

96 THE WOODLANUERS. chap.

that I feel morally bound to any one else,
after what has taken place — no woman of
spirit could — now, too, that several months
have passed. But I wish to keep the
proprieties as well as I can."

" Yes, yes. Still, your father reminds me
that life is short. I myself feel that it is ;
that is why I v/ished 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
wdiat he said. If one of us were to die
before the formal signing and sealing that
is to release you have been done — if we
should drop out of the world and never
have made the most of this little, short, but
real opportunity, I should think to myself
as I sank 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,

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 97

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 reo-ard, as
though their passage were visible ; but as
he went on she dropped her glance.

''Yes," she said, "I have thought that,
too. i\nd, because I have thought it, I
bv no means meant, in speakine of the
proprieties, to be reserved and cold to you
who loved me so long ago, or to hurt your
heart as I used to do at that thoughtless
time. Oh, not at all, indeed ! But — ought
I to allow you — Oh, it is too quick —
surely ! " Her eyes filled with tears of
bewildered, alarmed emotion.

Winterborne was too straightforward to
influence her further against her better
judgment. " Yes — I suppose it is," he said
repentantly. " I'll wait till all is settled.

VOL. III. H

98 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

What has your father said in his letters
to you ? "

He meant about his progress with the
petition ; but she, mistaking him, frankly
spoke of the personal part. "He says —
what I have implied. Should I tell more
plainly ? "

*' Oh, no — don't, if it is a secret."

" Not at all. I will tell every word,
straight out, Giles, if you wish. He says
I am to encourage you. There. But I
cannot obey him further to-day. Come, let
us go now." She gently slid her hand from
his, and went in front of him out of the
Abbey.

" I was thinking of getting some dinner,"
said Winterborne, changing to the prosaic
as they walked. '' And you, too, must re-
quire something. Do let me take you to
a place I know."

Grace was almost without a friend in the

V. THE WOODLAXDERS. 99

world outside her father's house : her life
with Fitzpiers had brought her no society ;
had sometimes, indeed, brought her deeper
solitude 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
alone with Giles Winterborne were not a
proposal due rather to his unsophistication
than to his prudence. 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

H 2

loo THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

of the inn at which the meal had been
ordered, which was one that she had never
heard of.

** I'll find it by inquiry," said Grace,
setting out.

'* And shall I see you again ? "

'* Oh, yes — come to me there. It will not
be like going together. I shall want you to
find my father's man and the gig for me."

He waited on some ten minutes or a
quarter of an hour, till he thought her lunch
ended, and that he might fairly take advan-
tage of her invitation to start her on her
way home. He went straight to The Three
Tuns — a little tavern in a side street, scrupu-
lously 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 ensconced there, he perceived
that he had blundered.

V. THE WOODLANDERS. loi

Grace was seated in the only dining-room
that the simple old hostelry could boast of,
which was also a general parlour on market
days : a long, low apartment, with a sanded
floor herring-boned with a broom : a wide,
red-curtained window to the street, and
another to the garden. Grace had retreated
to the end of the room looking out upon the
latter, the front part being full of a mixed
company of dairymen and butchers which
had, to be just to him, dropped in since he
was there.

She was in a mood of the greatest
depression. On arriving, and seeing what
the tavern was like, she had been taken by
surprise ; but having gone too far to retreat,
she had heroically entered and sat down
on the well-scrubbed settle, opposite the
narrow table, with its knives and steel
forks, tin pepper-boxes, blue salt-cellars,
and posters advertising the sale of bullocks

I02 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

against the wall. The last time that she
had taken any meal in a public place it
had been with Fitzpiers at the dignified
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 circum-
stances than such as Giles had provided ?
And yet how unprepared she was for this
change ! The tastes that she had acquired
from Fitzpiers had been imbibed so subtly
that she hardly knew she possessed them
till confronted by this contrast. The
elegant Fitzpiers, in fact, at that very
moment owed a long bill at the above-
mentioned hotel for the luxurious 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 comfort-
able under those debt-impending conditions,

THE WOODLANDERS. 103

whilst she felt humiliated by her present
situation, which Winterborne had paid for
honestly on the nail.

He had noticed in a moment that she
shrank from her position, and all his
pleasure was gone. It was the same sus-
ceptibility over again which had spoiled his
Christmas party long ago.

But he did not know that this recru-
descence was only the casual result of
Grace's apprenticeship to what she was
determined to learn it spite of it — a con-
sequence of one of those sudden surprises
which confront everybody bent upon turn-
ing over a new leaf. She had finished her
lunch, which he saw had been a very
mincing performance ; and he brought her
out of the house as soon as he could.

" Now," he said, with great sad eyes,
"you have not finished at all well, I know!
Come round to the Earl of Wessex. I'll

I04 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

order a tea there. I did not remember
that what was good enough for me was
not good enough for you."

Her face faded into an aspect of deep
distress when she saw what had happened.
" Oh, no, Giles," she said with extreme
earnestness: "certainly not. Why do you
— say that, when you know better ? You
ever will misunderstand me."

" Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers.
Can you deny that you felt out of place
at The Three Tuns ? "

" I don't know ! . . . Well, since you
make me speak, I do not deny it."

" And yet I have felt at home there
these twenty years. Your husband used
always to take you to the Earl of Wessex,
did he not ? "

'' Yes," she reluctantly admitted. How
could she explain in the street of a market-
town that it was her superficial and transitory

THE WOODLANDERS. 105

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.

CHAPTER VI.

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
recklessly ignore, as some men would have
done in his place.

He was one of those silent, unobtrusive
beings who want little from others in the
way of favour or condescension, and perhaps

CH. VI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 107

on that very account scrutinise those others'
behaviour too closely. He was not versa-
tile, but one in whom a hope or belief
which had once had its rise, meridian, and
decline, seldom again exacdy 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 had allowed himself to be so charmed
with her that day.

Move another step towards her he would
not. He would even repulse her — as a
tribute to conscience. It would be sheer
sin to let her prepare a pitfall for her
happiness not much smaller than the first
by inveigling her into a union with such
as he. Her poor father was now blind to
these subtleties, which he had formerly

io8 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

beheld as in noontide light. It was his
own duty to declare them — for her dear
sake.

Grace, too, had a very uncomfortable
ni^ht, and her solicitous embarrassment
was not lessened the next morning when
another letter from her father was put into
her hands. Its tenour was an intenser strain
of the one that had preceded it.

After stating how extremely glad he was
to hear that she was better, and able to get
out of doors, he went on :

" This is a wearisome business, the soHcitor 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 in his shyness go
away from the neighbourhood. I have set my heart
upon seeing him your husband, if you ever have another.
Do then, Grace, give him some temporary encourage-
ment, even though it is over-early. 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.

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 109

my dear. I feel myself going rapidly down hill, and
late affairs have still further helped me that way. And
until this thing is done I cannot rest in peace."

He added a postscript :

" I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen
to-morrow. Possibly, therefore, I shall return in the
evening after you get this.

The paternal longing ran on all fours
with her own desire ; and yet in forwarding
it yesterday she had been on the brink of
giving offence. While craving to be a
country girl again, just as her father
requested ; to put off the old Eve, the
fastidious miss — or rather madam — com-
pletely, her first attempt had been beaten
by the unexpected vitality of that fastidious-
ness. 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

no THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

Fitzpiers was now prompting her to blow
hot and cold with poor Winterborne.

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 held 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 the whole landscape that
lay in her direction.

Oh, how she longed to make it up with
him ! Her father coming in the evening
— which meant, she supposed, that all
formalities would be in train, her marriage

VI.

THE WOODLAXDERS. in

virtually annulled, and she be free to be
won again — how could she look him in
the face if he should see them estranged
thus ?

It was a fair green afternoon in June.
She was seated in the garden, in the rustic
chair which stood under the laurel-bushes,
made of peeled oak branches that came to
Melbury's premises as refuse after barking-
time. The mass of full-juiced leafage on
the heights around her was just swayed into
faint gestures by a nearly spent wind which,
even in its enfeebled state, did not reach her
shelter. All day she had expected Giles to
call — to inquire how she had got home, or
something or other ; but he had not come.
And he still tantalised 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

112 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

from this that Creedle had just come from
Sherton, and had called as usual at the post-
office for anything that had arrived by the
afternoon post, of which there was no
delivery at Hintock. She pondered on
what the letter might contain — particularly
whether it were a second refresher for
Winterborne from her father, like her own
of the morning.

But it appeared to have no bearing upon
herself whatever. Giles read its contents ;
and almost immediately turned away to a
gap in the hedge of the orchard — if that
could be called a hedge which, owing to
the drippings of the trees, was little more
than a bank vith a bush upon it here and
there. He entered the plantation, and was
no doubt going that way homeward to the
mysterious hut he occupied on the other
side of the woodland.

The sad sands were running swiftly

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 113

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 com-
munication. Her freshness would pass,
the long-suffering devotion of Giles might
suddenly end — might end that very hour.
Men were so strange. The thought took
away from her all her former reticence,
and made her action bold. She started
from her seat. If the little breach, quarrel,
or whatever it might be called, of yesterday,
was to be healed up it must be done by her
on the instant. She crossed into the orchard,
and clambered through the gap after Giles,
just as he was diminishing to a faunlike
figure under the green canopy and over
the brown floor.

Grace had been wrong — very far wrong —
in assuming that the letter had no reference
to herself because Giles had turned away

VOL. III. I

114 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

into the wood after its perusal. It was, sad
to say, because the missive had so much
referePxCe 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 timber- merchant's
family scheme of justice to Giles, and his
communication was to inform Winterborne
at the earliest possible moment that their
attempt had failed, in order that the young
man should not place himself in a false
position towards Grace in the belief of its
coming success. The news was, in sum,

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 115

that Fitzplers's conduct had not been suffi-
ciently cruel to Grace to enable her to snap
the bond. She was apparently doomed to
be his wife till the end of the chapter.

Winterborne quite forgot his superficial
differences with the poor girl under the
warm rush of deep and distracting love for
her which the almost tragical information

o

engendered.

To renounce her for ever — that was then
the end of it for him, after all. There was no
longer any question about suitability, or room
for tiffs on petty tastes. The curtain had
fallen ao^ain between them. She could not
be his. The cruelty of their late revived
hope was now terrible. How could they all
have been so simple as to suppose this thing
could be done ?

It was at this moment that, hearing some
one coming behind him, he turned and saw
her hastenino- on between the thickets. He

I 2

ii6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

perceived in an instant that she did not
know the blighting news.

" Giles, why didn't you come across to
me ? " she asked with arch reproach.
'' Didn't you see me sitting there ever so
long ? "

"Oh, yes," he said in unprepared, provi-
sional tones, for her unexpected presence
caught him without the slightest plan of
behaviour in the conjuncture. His manner
made her think that she had been too
chiding in her speech ; and a mild scarlet
wave passed over her as she resolved to
soften it.

" I have had another letter from my
father," she hastened to continue. '' He
thinks he may come home this evening.
And — in view of his hopes — it will grieve
him if there is any little difference between
us, Giles."

" There is none," he said, sadly regarding

VI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 117

her from the face downwards as he pondered
how to lay the cruel truth bare..

"Still — I fear you have not quite forgiven
me about my being uncomfortable at the inn."

" I have, I'm sure."

" But you speak in quite an unhappy way,"
she returned, comnng up quite 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 Abbey — that's when my happiness
will come to me ! '' said he, staring as it
were into the earth.

" But — then that means that there is some-
thing 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 Abbey —
well, you know, Giles, that it was not on
account of my cold feelinors, but because I

ii8 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

did certainly, just then, think it was rather
premature, in spite of my poor father. That
was the true reason — the sole one. But I do
not want to be hard — God knows I do not,"
she said, her voice fluctuating. '' And per-
haps— as I am on the verge of freedom^ I
am not right, after all, in thinking there is
any harm in your kissing me."

*' Oh, Heaven ! " groaned Winterborne to
himself. His head w^as 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 hardly be explained.

"Did you say anything.^" she asked
timidly.

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 119

;' Oh, no— only that "

** You mean that it must be settled, since
my father is coming home ? " she said gladly.

''Ah— yes."

'' Then why don't you do what you want
to ? " She was almost pouting at his
hesitation.

Winterborne, though fighting valiantly
ao^ainst himself all this while — thouQ^h he
would have protected Grace's good repute
as the apple of his eye, was a man ; and, as
Desdemona said, men are not gods. In face
of the agonising seductiveness shown by her,
in her unenlightened school-girl simplicity
about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a
man's \\eakness. Since it was so — since it
had come to this, that Grace, deeming herself
free to do it, was virtually asking him to
demonstrate that he loved her — since he
could demonstrate it only too truly — since
life was short and love was strone — he eave

I20 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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, deciding
once in his life to clasp in his arms her he
had watched over and loved so long.

She started back suddenly from his
embrace, influenced by a sort of Inspiration.
" Oh, I suppose," she stammered, " that I
am really free ? — that this Is right ? Is there
really a new law '^ Father cannot have been

too sanguine in saying "

He did not answer, and a moment after-
wards Grace burst Into tears In spite of
herself. " Oh, why does not my father come
home and explain!" she sobbed, "and let
me know clearly what I am ! It is too trying,
this, to ask me to — and then to leave me so
long in so vague a state that I do not know
what to do, and perhaps do wrong ! "

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 121

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 dreamt of
kissing her ? He could hardly refrain from
tears. Surely nothing more pitiable had
ever been known than the condition of
this poor young thing, now as heretofore
the victim of her father's well-meant but
blundering policy.

Even in the hour of Melbury's greatest
assurance Winterborne had harboured a
suspicion that no law, new or old, could undo
Grace's marriage without her appearance in
public ; though he was not sufficiently sure
of what might have been enacted to destroy
by his own words her pleasing idea that a
mere dash of the pen, on her father's testi-
mony, was going to be sufficient. But he

122 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

had never suspected the sad fact that the
position was irremediable.

Poor Grace, perhaps feeUng that she had
indulged in too much fluster for a mere kiss,
even though it had been prolonged an
unconscionable time, 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 in-
firmities 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

VI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 123

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.

To hasten the revelation, however, was
beyond even him. What had been begun
between them was repeated as they walked,
and the afternoon was far advanced before he
could actually set about opening her eyes.

'■' We mav have been wrono[." he becran,
almost fearfully, '' in supposing that it can all
be carried out whilst 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 there should be any difficulty
and we cannot marry after all "

Her cheeks became slowly bloodless.
"Oh, Giles," she said, grasping his arm,
"you have heard something! What —
cannot my father conclude it there and
now ? Surely, he has done it ? Oh, Giles,
Giles, don't deceive me. After letting you

124 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

go on like this — what terrible position am
I in?"

He could not tell her, try as he would.
The sense of her implicit trust in his honour
absolutely disabled him. *' I cannot inform
you," he murmured, his voice as husky as
that of the leaves under foot. " Your father
will soon be here. Then we shall know. I
will take you home."

Inexpressibly dear as she was to him he
offered her his arm with the most reserved
air, as he added correctingly, '' I will take
you at any rate into the drive.

Thus they walked on together, Grace
vibrating between happiness and misgiving.
It was only a few minutes' walk to where the
drive ran, and they had hardly descended into
it when they heard a voice behind them cry,
'' Take out that arm ! "

For a moment they did not heed, and the
voice repeated more loudly and hoarsely :

VI. THE WOODLANDERS. 125

*' Take out that arm ! "

It was Melbury's. He had returned sooner
than they expected and now came up to
them. Grace's hand had been withdrawn
hke Hghtning on her hearing the second
command.

" I don't blame you, I don't blame you,"
he said, in the weary cadence of one broken
down with scourgings. " But you two must
walk together no more — I have been
surprised — I have been cruelly deceived —
Giles, don't say anything to me ; but go
away ! "

He was evidently not aw^are that Winter-
borne 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, iMelbury took his daughter indoors to
the room he used as his office. There he
sat down, and bent over the slope of the
bureau, her bewildered gaze fixed upon him.

126 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

When Melbury had recovered a Httle he
said, *' You are now as ever Fitzpiers's wife.
I was deluded. He has not done you enough
harm. You are still subject to his beck and
call."

" Then let it be, and never mind, father,"
she said with dignified sorrow. " I can bear
it. It is your trouble that grieves me most!"
She stooped over him, and put her arm
round his neck, which distressed Melbury
still more.

" I don't mind at all what comes to me,"
Grace continued ; '' whose wife I am, or
whose I am not. I do love Giles : I cannot
help that ; and I have gone farther with him
than I should have done if I had known
exactly how things w^ere. But I do not
reproach you."

"Then Giles did not tell you?" said
Melbury.

" No," said she. '' He could not have

VI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 127

known it. His behaviour to me proved that
he did not know."

Her father said nothing more, and Grace
went away to the sohtude of her chamber.

Her heavy disquietude had many shapes ;
and for a time she put aside the dominant
fact to think of her too free conduct towards
Giles. His love-making had been brief as it
was sweet ; but would he on reflection
contemn her for forwardness ? How could
she have been so simple as to suppose she
was in a position to behave as she had done !
Thus she mentally blamed her ignorance ;
and yet in the centre of her heart she
blessed it a little for what it had momentarily
brought her.

CHAPTER VII.

Life among the people involved in these
events seemed to be suppressed and hide-
bound for a while. Grace seldom showed
herself outside the house, never outside the
garden ; for she feared she might encounter
Giles Winterborne ; and that she could not
bear.

This pensive intramural existence of the
self-constituted nun appeared likely to con-
tinue for an indefinite time. She had learnt
that there was one possibility in which her
formerly imagined position might become
real and only one ; that her husband's

CH. VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 129

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
emotion that had little to do with livinor and
doing.

As for Giles he was Ivincr— or rather
sitting — ill at his hut. A feverish indisposi-
tion which had been hanorlniT about him for
sometime, the result of a chill caueht the

o

previous v\-inter, 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.

VOL. TIT. K

I30 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

So matters stood when the Hmpid inertion
of Grace's pool-hke existence was disturbed
as by a geyser. She received a letter from
Fitzpiers.

Such a startling letter it was in its im-
port, though couched in the gentlest lan-
guage. In his absence Grace had grown
to regard him with toleration, and her re-
lation to him with equanimity, till she had
almost forgotten how trying his presence
would be. He wrote briefly and unaf-
fectedly : 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 purposed
to cross the Channel to Budmouth by the
steamer on a day he named, which she
found to be three days after the time of
her present reading.

He said that he could not come to Hintock

VII. THE WOODLANDERS. 131-

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 harbour ; returning thus with
him to his Continental dwelling-place, which
he did not name. He had no intention of
showing himself on land at all.

The troubled Grace took the letter to
her father, who now continued for long
hours by the iireless summer chimney-
corner, as if he thought it were winter, the
pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly
untasted, and coated with a him of dust.
After reading it he looked up.

" You sha'n't go," said he.

K 2

132 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'•' 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, Tm not sure
that I'll oppose him in wishing it," mut-
tered Melbury. ''I'd stint myself to keep
you both in a genteel and seemly style.
But go abroad you never shall with my
consent."

There the question rested that day.
Grace was unable to reply to her husband
in the absence of an address, and the mor-
row came, and the next day, and the evening
on which he had requested her to meet
him. Throughout the whole of it she
remained within the four walls of her room.

The sense of her harassment, carking
doubt of what might be impending, hung
like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury
household. They spoke almost in whispers,

VII. THE WOODLANDERS. 133

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

134 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

seen hlrinor a carriaore at the Earl of Wessex
Hotel.

Her father and Grace were both present
when the intelligence was announced.

"Now," said Melbury, "we must make
the best of what has been a very bad
matter. The man is repenting : the partner
of his folly, 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, there's the empty wing
of the house as it was before."

"Oh, father!" said Grace, turning white
with dismay.

" Why not ? " said he, a little of his
former doggedness returning. He was, in
truth, disposed to somewhat more leniency

I

VII. THE WOODLANDERS. 135

towards her husband just now than he had
shown formerly, from a conviction that he
had treated him over roughly in his anger.

" Surely it is the most respectable thing
to do ? " he continued. '' I don't like this
state that you are in — neither married nor
single. It hurts me, and it hurts you, and
it will always be remembered against us
in Hintock. There has never been any
scandal like it in the family before."

"He will be here in less than an hour,"
murmured Grace.

The twilight of the room prevented her
father seeing the despondent misery of her
face. The one 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 was almost
hysterical.

'' Try if you cannot," he returned moodily.

136 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'* Oh, yes, I will, I will," she went on in-
consequently : "I'll try;" and jumping up
suddenly she left the room.

In the darkness of the apartment to which
she flew nothing could have been seen
during the next half hour ; but from a corner
a quick breathing was audible from this
impressible creature, who combined modern
nerves with primitive emotions, and was
doomed by such co-existence to be num-
bered among the distressed, and to take her
scourgings to their exquisite extremity.

The window was open. On this quiet,
late summer evening, whatever sound arose
in so secluded a district — the chirp of a bird,
a call from a voice, the turning of a wheel
— extended over bush and tree to 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 into her,

VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 137

accompanied by the trot of a horse on the
turnpike road. There seemed to be a
sudden hitch or pause in the progress of
the vehicle, which was what first drew her
attention to it. She knew the point whence
the sound proceeded — the hiU-top over
which travellers passed on their way hither-
ward from Sherton Abbas — the place at
which she had emero^ed from the wood with
Mrs. Charmond. Grace slid along the floor,
and bent her head over the window-sill,
listening with open lips. The carriage had
stopped, and she heard a man use exclam-
atory words. Then another said. "What
the devil is the matter with the horse ? "
She recoraised 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 hio^hwav, and then into the " drong "

138 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

which led out of the lane to the house
where she was.

A spasm passed through Grace. The
Daphnean Instinct, exceptionally strong in
her as a girl, had been revived by her
widowed seclusion ; and it was not lessened
by her affronted sentiments towards the
comer, and her regard for another man.
She opened some little ivory tablets that
lay on the dressing-table, scribbled In pencil
on one of them, " I am gone to visit one of
my school-friends," 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 garden-path,
through the gap In the hedge, and Into the
mossy cart-track under the trees which led
into the depth of the woods.

VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 139

The leaves overhead were now in their
latter green — so opaque, that it was darker
at some of the densest spots than in winter
time, scarce a crevice existing by which a
ray 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 eve — more spectral far than In the
leafless season, when there were fewer
masses and more minute llneallty. The
smooth surfaces of glossy plants came out
like weak, lldless eyes : there v/ere strange
faces and figures from expiring lights that
had somehow wandered into the canopied
obscurity ; while now and then low peeps ot
the skv between the trunks were like sheeted

I40 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

shapes, and on the tips of boughs sat faint
cloven tongues.

But Grace's fear just now was not imagin-
ative 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 grass-ttifts. She
paused breathlessly once or twice, and
fancied that she could hear, above the sound
of her strumming pulse, the vehicle contain-
ing Fitzpiers turning in at the gate of her
fathers premises. She hastened on again.

The Hintock woods owned by Mrs. Char-
mond were presently left behind, and those
into which she next plunged were divided
from the latter by a bank, from whose top
the hedge had long ago perished — starved
for want of sun. It was with some caution
that Grace now walked, though she was
quite free from any of the commonplace

VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 141

timidities of her ordinary pilgrimages to such
posts. She feared no hirking harms, but
that her effort would be all in vain, and her
return to the house rendered imperative.

She had walked between three and four
miles when that prescriptive comfort and
relief to wanderers in woods — a distant
light — broke at last upon her searching
eyes. It was so very sm.all as to be almost
sinister to a strano^er, but to her it was
what she sought. She pushed forward, and
the dim outline of a dwelling was disclosed.

The house was a square cot of one story
only, sloping up on all sides to a chimney
in the midst. It had formerly been the home
of a charcoal-burner, in times w^hen that fuel
was still used in the county-houses. Its
only appurtenance was a paled inclosure,
there beino^ no Qrarden, the shade of the
trees preventing the growth of vegetables.
She advanced to the window whence the

142 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

rays of light proceeded, and the shutters
being as yet unclosed, she could survey the
whole interior through the panes.

The room within was kitchen, parlour, and
scullery all in one : the natural sandstone
floor was worn into hills and dales by long 1
treading, so that none of the furniture stood
level, and the table slanted like a desk. A
fire burnt on the hearth, in front of which
revolved the skinned carcase of a very small
rabbit, suspended by a string from a nail.
Leaning with one arm on the mantel-shelf
stood Winterborne, his eyes on the roasting
animal, his face so rapt that speculation
could build nothing- on it concerninof 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 not enable
her to perceive that they were positively
haggard.

VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 143

Grace's throat emitted a gasp of relief at
finding the result so nearly as she had
hoped. She went to the door and tapped
lightly.

He seemed to be accustomed to the
noises of woodpeckers, squirrels, and such
small creatures, for he took no notice
of her tiny signal, and she knocked
again. This time he came and opened
the door.

When the light of the room fell upon
her face he started ; and, hardly knowing
what 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,

" Long tears upon their faces, waxen white

144 THE WOODLANDERS. chap

till he broke the silence by saying in a
whisper, " Come in."

" No, no, Giles ! " she answered hurriedly
stepping yet further back from the door.
'' I am passing by — and I have called on
you-^I won't enter. Will you help me ?
I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout
way to Sherton, and so to Exbury. I have
a school-fellow there — but I cannot get to
Sherton alone. Oh, if you will only ac-
company me a little way ! Don't condemn
me, Giles, and be offended ! I was obliged
to come to you because I have no other
help here. Three months ago you were
my lover : now you are 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 can be my
friend for one little hour ! I have no
other — "

She could get no further. Covering her

1

VII. THE WOODLAXDERS. ui

eyes with one hand, by an effort of re-
pression she wept silent tears, without a
sio:h or sob. Winterborne took her other
hand in both his.
'"What has happened?" he said.

" He has come."

There was a stillness as of death,
till Winterborne asked, "You mean this,
Grace — that I am to help )'ou to get
away :

" 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 treachery — if it could be called
such — earlier in the summer, when they met
for the last time as lovers ; and in the in-
tensity of his contrition for that tender
wrone, he determined to deserve her faith
now at least, and so wipe out that reproach
from his conscience.

VOL. III. L

146 THE WOODLANDERS. CH. vii.

" I'll come at once," he said. " I'll light
a lantern."

He unhooked a dark lantern from a nail ■
under the eaves, and she did not notice
how his hand shook with the slight strain,
or dream that in making this offer he was
taxine a convalescence which could ill afford
such self-sacrifice. The lantern was lit and
they started.

CHAPTER VIII.

The first hundred yards of their course
lay under motionless trees, whose upper
foliage began to hiss with falling drops of
rain. By the time that they emerged
upon a glade it rained heavily.

''This is awkward!" said Grace, with a
forced little laugh to hide her concern.

Winterborne stopped, " Gracie," he said,
preserving a strictly business manner which
belied him ; "you cannot go to Sherton to-
night."

''But I must!''

"Why.^ It is nine miles from here. It
is almost an impossibility in this rain."

L 2

148 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" True — why I' she replied mournfully at
the end of a silence. " What is reputation
to me .

" Now hearken," said Giles. " You won't
— go back to your — "

"No, no, no ! Don't make me ! " she
cried piteously.

'' Then let us turn." They slowly retraced
their steps, and again stood before his door.
'^ Now this house from this moment is yours,
and not mine," he said deliberately. '' I have
a place near by where I can stay very well."

Her face had drooped. " Oh," she mur-
mured as she saw the dilemma. '^What
have I done ! "

There was a smell of something burning
vv^thin, and he looked through the window.
The young 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.

I

VIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 149

You will find everything about the hut that
is necessary."

" But, Giles — your supper," she exclaimed.
''An outhouse would do for me — anything —
till to-morrow at daybreak 1 "

He signified a negative. " I tell you to go
in — you may catch agues out here in your
delicate state. You can give me my supper
through the window, if you feel well enough.
I'll wait a while."

He gently urged her to pass the doorway,
and was relieved when he saw her within
the room slttlnof down. Without so much as
crossing the threshold himself he closed the
door upon her, and turned the key in the
lock. Tapping at the window he signified
that she should open the casement, and when
she had done this he handed in the key to
her.

''You are locked in," he said ; "and your
own mistress."

ISO THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

Even in her trouble she could not refrain
from a faint smile at his scrupulousness, as
she took the door-key.

" Do you feel better ?" he went on. " If
so, and you wish to give me some of your
supper, please do. If not It Is of no im-
portance. I can get some elsewhere."

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 meal upon a plate.

" I don't like to treat you so hardly," she
murmured w^Ith deep regret In her words as
she heard the rain pattering on the leaves.
*' But — I suppose It Is best to arrange like
this?"

'' Oh yes," he said quickly.

I

VIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 151

'' I feel that I could never have reached
Sherton."

" It was impossible."

"Are you sure you have a snug place
out there ? " (With renewed misgiving.)

" Quite. Have you found everything you
want ? I am afraid it is rather rouo^h accom-
modation."

" Can I notice defects ? I have lono;
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 chafed his bosom
it was at this sight of a perfectly defenceless
creature conditioned by such harsh circum-
stances. He forgot his own agony in the
satisfaction of havino; at least found her a
shelter. He took his plate and cup from

152 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

her hands, saying, " Now I'll push the shut-
ter to, and you will find an iron pin on the
inside, which you must fix into the bolt. Do
not stir in the morninor till I come and call

you,"

She expressed an alarmed hope that he
would not go very far away.

'' Oh, no — I shall be quite within hail,"
said Winterborne.

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 brake-
fern. Underneath were dry sacks, hay, and
other litter of the sort, upon which he sat
down ; and there in the dark tried to eat
his meal. But his appetite was quite gone.
He pushed the plate aside, and shook up
the hay and sacks, so as to form a rude
couch, on which he flung himself down to
sleep, for it was getting late.

VIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 153

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 throuQfh the damn obscurltv. With all
its external features the same as usual, he
could scarcely believe that it contained the
dear friend — he would not use a warmer
name — who had come to him so unex-
pectedly and, he could not help admitting,
so rashly.

He had not ventured to ask her any
particulars ; but the position was pretty
clear without them. Though social law
had negatived for ever their opening para-
dise of the previous June, it was not with-
out stoical pride that he accepted the
present trying conjuncture. There was one
man on earth in Vv"hom she believed abso-
lutely, and he was that man. That this
crisis could end in nothinof but sorrow was
a view for a moment effaced by this tri-

154 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

umphant 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 fraihy 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 feeble-
ness— he who had been so strong. It was
imperative that she should know nothing
of his present state, and to do that she
must not see his face by daylight, for its
thinness would inevitably betray him.

The next morning, accordingly, when it

VIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 155

was hardly light, he rose and dragged his
stiff limbs about the precincts, preparing for
her everything she could require for getting
breakfast within. On the bench outside
the window-sill he placed water, wood, and
other necessaries, writing with a piece of
chalk beside them, " It is best that I should
not see you. Put my breakfast on the
bench."

At seven o'clock he tapped at her
window as he had promised, retreating at
once that she mio^ht not catch sioht 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 free from tears.

She read the writing, seemed, he thought,

156 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 request, 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.

VIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 157

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 dally \vork, and
forgotten that he had promised to accompany
her to Sherton ; an erroneous conclusion, for
he rem.alned 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
)et ; keeping the door carefully bolted lest
an Intruder should discover her. Locked In
this place she was comparatively safe, at any
rate, and doubted If she would be safe
elsewhere.

The humid gloom of an ordinary \vet day
was doubled by the shade and drip of the
leafage. Autumn, this year, was coming In
with rains. Gazing, In her enforced Idleness,
from the one window of the living room, she
could see various small members of the

158 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

animal community that lived unmolested
there — creatures of hair, fluff, and scale ;
the toothed kind and the billed kind ; under-
ground creatures jointed and ringed — circum-
ambulating the hut, under the impression
that, Giles having gone away, nobody was
there ; and eying it inquisitively with a view
to winter quarters. Watching these neigh-
bours, who knew neither law nor sin, dis-
tracted 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 when she
was gone.

Once or twice she fancied that she heard
a faint noise amid the trees, resembling a
cough ; but as It never came any nearer she
concluded that It was a squirrel or a bird.

At last the daylight lessened, and she
made up a larger fire, for the evenings were

VIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 159

chilly. As soon as it was too dark — which
was comparatively early — to discern the
human countenance in this place of shadows,
there came to the window, to her great
delight, a tapping which she knew from its
method to be Giles's.

She opened the casement instantly, and
put 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 ?

" My dear, good Giles ! " she burst out
impulsively.

" Anybody would have done it for you,"
replied Winterborne, with as much matter-
of-fact as he could summon.

i6o THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" About my getting to Exbury ? " she
said.

" I have been thinking," responded Giles,
with tender deference, ''that 3^ou had better
stay where yon are for the present, if you
v/ish 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 assist — such as make inquiries, or go a
great way towards Sherton-Abbas with you ;
for the cider season vAW soon be cominof 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 over-much
melancholy in being a prisoner ? "

viTi THE WOODLAXDERS. i6r

She declared that she did not mind it ; but
she sighed.

From long acquaintance they could read
each others heart-s}'mptoms like books of
large type. " I fear you are sorry you
came," said Giles, " and that you think I
should have advised you more firmly than
I did not to stay."

" Oh, no ! dear, dear friend," answered
Grace, with a heavino: bosom. " Don't think
that that is what I regret. \Miat I regret
is my enforced treatment of vou — dislodLrino-
you, excluding you from your own house.
Wliy should I not speak out ? You know
what I feel for you — what I have felt for no
other living man, what I shall never feel for
a man again ! But as I have vowed myself
to somebody else than you, and cannot be
released, I must behave as I do behave,
and keep that vow. I am not bound to
him by any divine law, after what he

VOL. III. M

i62 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

has done ; but I have promised, and I
will pay."

The rest of the evening was passed In his
handing her such things as she would require
the next day, and casual remarks thereupon,
an occupation which diverted her mind to
some degree from pathetic views of her
attitude towards him, and of her life In
general. The only Infringement — if infringe-
ment it could be called — of 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.
good-night. He knew she was weeping,
though he could not see her tears.

She aofain entreated his forcfiveness for so
selfishly appropriating the cottage. But it
would only be for a day or two more, she
thought, since go she must.

He yearningly replied. " I — I don't
like you to go away ! "

Mil. THE WOODLAXDERS. 163

"Oh, Giles," said she, ''I know — I
know ! But — 1 am a woman, and you
are a man. I cannot speak more plainly.
' Whatsoever things are pure ' — you know
\vhat is in my mind, because you know me
sj well."

*' Yes, Gracie, yes. I do not at all
mean that the question between us has
not been settled bv vour marriao^e turninof
out hopelessly unalterable. I mearly meant
— well, a feelino: — no more."

'' In a week, at the outside, I should be
discovered if I stayed here ; and I think that
by law he could compel me to return to him."

'* Yes ; perhaps you are right. Go when
you wish, dear Grace."

His last words that evening were a hope-
ful remark that all might be well with her
yet ; that ^Ir. Fitzpiers would not intrude
upon her life, if he found that his presence
cost her so much pain. Then the window

M 2

i64 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

was closed, the shutters folded, and the
rustle of his footsteps died away.

No sooner had she retired to rest that
night than the wind began to rise, and after
a few prefatory blasts to be accompanied by
rain. The wind grew more violent, and as
the storm went on it w^as difficult to believe
that no opaque body, but only an invisible
colourless thing, was trampling and climbing
over the roof, making branches creak, spring-
ing 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 grisly 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 v;as now. She seemed
almost to be apart from herself —a vacuous
duplicate only. The recent self of physical

VIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 165

animation and clear intentions was not
there.

Sometimes a bouoh from an adjoining tree
was swayed so low as to smite the roof in
the manner of a <2:io:antic hand smitinQ^ the
mouth of an adversary, to be followed by
a trickle of rain, as blood from the wound.
To all this weather Giles must be more or
less exposed ; how much, she did not know.

At last Grace could hardly endure the
idea of such a hardship in relation to him.
Whatever he was sufferino-, it was she who
had caused it ; he had vacated his house on
account of her. She was not worth such
self-sacrifice ; she should not have accepted
it of him. And then, as her anxiety
increased with increasing thought, there re-
turned upon her mind some incidents of her
late intercourse with him, which she had
heeded but little at the time. The look of
his face — what had there been about his face

i66 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

which seemed different from its appearance
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 day, and attri-
buted to squirrels ; it might have been his
couo^h after all.

Thus conviction took root in her per-
turbed mind that Winterborne was unwell,
or had been so, and that he had carefully
concealed his condition from her that she
might have no scruples about accepting a
hospitality which by the nature of the case
expelled her entertainer.

" My own, own, true 1 my dear kind

friend ! " she cried to herself. " Oh, It shall
not be — it shall not be ! "

VIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 167

She hastily wrapped herself up, and ob-
tained a light, \\ith 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 clutch-
ing it ; and pressing her other hand to her
forehead she fell into aeitatino- thought.

A tattoo on the window, caused by the
tree-droppings blowing against it, brought
her indecision to a close. She turned the
key, and opened the door.

The darkness was intense, seeminor to

o

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

i68 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

of their arms by the adjoining trees. At
last she cried loudly with an effort : " Giles !
you may come in ! "

There was no answer to her cry, and
overpowered by her own temerity, Grace
retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood
lookinir on the floor with flushed cheeks.
Perhaps he was very well after all. But
this mood was not for long. She again
lifted the latch, and with far more determina-
tion than at first.

"Giles, Giles!" she cried, with the full
strength of her voice, and without any of
the shamefacedness that had characterised
her first cry. "Oh, come In — come 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
so. Gl-i-iles ! "

A reply? It was a reply! Through the

VIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 169

darkness and ^vind a voice reached her,
floating upon the weather as though a part
of it.

" Here I am — all right ! Don't trouble
about me."

" Don't you want to come in ? Are you
not wet ? / doiit mind ivhat they say, or
zuhat they think any niorei'

" I am all right," he repeated. " It is not
necessarv for me to come. Good niorht !
good night ! "

Grace sighed, turned, and shut the door
slowly. Could she have been mistaken
about his health ? Perhaps, after all. she
had perceived a change in him because she
had not seen him for so lono;. 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 acrain.

CHAPTER IX.

The next morning Grace was at the win-
dow early. She felt determined to see him
somehow that day, and prepared his break-
fast eagerly. Eight o'clock struck, and she
then remembered that he had not come to
arouse her by a knocking as usual, her own
anxiety having caused her to stir.

The breakfast was set in its place without.
But he did not appear to take it ; and she
waited on. Nine o'clock arrived, and the
breakfast was cold ; and still there was no
Giles. A thrush, who had been repeating
himself a good deal on an opposite bush

CH. IX. THE WOODLAXDERS. 171

for some time, came and took a morsel from
the plate, bolted it, waited, looked around,
and took another. At ten o'clock she drew
in the tray, and sat down to her own
solitary meal. He must have been called
away on business early, the rain having
cleared off.

Yet she would have liked to assure her-
self, 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 paralysed her wish. The soli-
tude was further accentuated to-day by the
stopping of the clock for want of winding,
and the fall into the chimney-corner of flakes
of soot loosened by the rains. x-\t noon she
heard a slieht rustlinof outside the window,
and found that it was caused by an eft which
had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last

172 THE WOODLAND ERS. chap

suii-rays that would be worth having till tlie
following May.

She continually peeped out through the
lattice but could see little. In front lay the
brown leaves of last year, and upon them
some yellowish-green ones of this season
that had been prematurely blown down by
the gale. Above stretched an old beech,
with vast arm-pits, and great pocket-holes in
its sides vvhere branches had been removed
in past times ; a black slug was trying to
climb it. Dead bouehs were scattered about
like ichthyosauri in a museum, and beyond
them were perishing woodbine stems resem-
bling old ropes.

From the other window all she could see
were more trees, in jackets of lichen and
stockings of moss. At their roots were
stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apri-
cots, and tall fungi with more stem than
stool. Next were more trees close together,

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 173

wrestlino^ for existence, their branches dis-
fiQ:ured with wounds resultino- from their
mutual rubbings and blows. It was the
struggle between these neighbours 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 black teeth
from green gums. Further on were other
tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed
leaves — variety upon variety, dark green and
pale green ; moss like little fir-trees, like
plush, like malachite stars ; like nothing on
earth except moss.

The strain upon Grace's mind in various
ways was so great on this the most desolate
day she had passed there that she felt it
would be well-nigh impossible to spend
another in such circumstances. The evening
came at last ; the sun, when its chin was on
the earth, found an opening through which

174 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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
twenty-four hours since she had seen him.
As the room grew^ darker, and only the fire-
light broke against the gloom of the walls,
she was convinced that it would be beyond
her staying power to pass the night without
hearing from him or from somebody. Yet
eight o'clock drew^ on, and his form at the
window did not appear.

The meal remained untasted. Suddenly

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 175

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, had he not visited her ?
A horrid misgiving that he could not visit
her took possession of Grace, and she looked
up anxiously for the lantern, which was
hanorinof above her head. To liorht it and
go in the direction of the sound would be the
obvious way to solve the dread problem ;
but the conditions made her hesitate, and in
a moment a cold sweat pervaded her at
further sounds from the same quarter.

176. THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

They were low mutterings ; at first like
persons in conversation, but gradually re-
solving themselves into varieties of one
voice. It was an endless monologue, like
that w^e 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 so patient ? for
though he argued rapidly and persistently
nobody replied.

A dreadful enlightenment spread through
the mind of Grace. " Oh," she cried in her
anguish as she hastily prepared herself to go
out ; " how selfishly correct I am always —
too, too correct ! Can it be that cruel pro-
priety is killing the dearest heart that ever
woman clasped to her own ! "

While speaking thus to herself she had lit
the lantern, and hastening out without further

IX. THE WOODLAXDERS. 177

thouorht took the direction ^vhence the
mutterings had proceeded. The course was
marked by a Httle 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 beheld
what her prescient fear had pictured in
snatches all the way thither.

Upon the hay within her lover lay in his
clothes, just as she had seen him during the
whole of her stay here, except that his hat
was off, and his hair matted and wild.

Both his clothes and the hay were saturated
with rain. His arms were flunor over his

o
VOL. III. N

178 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

head ; his face was flushed to an unnatural
crimson. His eyes had a burning brightness,
and, though they met her own, she perceived
that he did not recognise her.

'' Oh, my Giles," she cried, "what have I
done to you ! "

But she stopped no longer even to reproach
herself. She saw that the first thing to be
thought of w^as to oret him indoors.

How Grace performed that labour she
never could have exactly explained. But
by dint of clasping her arms round him,
rearing him into a sitting posture and strain-
ing 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 to the
entrance of the hut, and, after a pause for
breath, in at the doorway.

It was somewhat singular that Giles in
his semi-conscious state acquiesced unresist-

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. i79

Ingly In all that she did. But he never
for a moment recognised her ; continuing
his rapid conversation to himself, and seem-
ing to look upon her as some angel or
other supernatural creature of the visionary
world in which he was mentally living.
The undertaking occupied her more than
ten minutes ; but by that time, to her great
thankfulness, he was in the inner room
lying in the bed, his damp outer clothing
removed.

Then the unhappy Grace regarded him
by the light of the candle. There was
something in his look which agonised her,
in the rush of his thoughts, accelerating
their speed from minute to minute. His
soul 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

N 2

i8o THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

believed he was dying. Unable to with-
stand her impulse, she knelt down beside
him, kissed his hands, and his face, and his
hair, moaning in a low voice, '' How could
I ? How could I ? "

Her timid morality had, indeed, under-
rated 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 who, herself, had more of Artemis
than of Aphrodite in her constitution.

All that a tender nurse could do, Grace
did ; and the power to express her solici-
tude in action, unconscious though the
sufferer was, brought her mournful satisfac-

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. i8i

tion. She bathed his hot head, clasped his
twitching hands, moistened his lips, cooled
his fiery eyelids, sponged his heated skin.
and administered whatever she could find
in the house that the imao^ination could
conceive as likely to be in any way alle-
viating. 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. Out-
wardly 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 some-
thing practical must immediately be done.

i82 THE WOODLANBERS. chap.

Much as she would have liked, in the
emotion of the moment, to keep him
entirely to herself, medical assistance was
necessary whilst there remained a possibility
of preserving him alive. Such assistance
was fatal to her own concealment ; but
even had the chance of benefiting him been
less than it was, she would have run the
hazard for his sake. The question was,
where should she get a medical man,
competent and near ?

There was one such man, and only one,
within accessible distance : a man who, if it
were possible to save Winterborne's life,
had the brain most likely to do it. If
human pressure could bring him, that man
ought to be brought to the sick Giles's
side. Though completely stultifying her
flight, the attempt should be made.

Yet she dreaded to leave her patient,
and the minutes raced past, and still she

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 183

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 opportunity.

She hastily made him as comfortable as
she could, put on her things, cut a new
candle from the bunch hanging in the cup-
board, and having set it up, and placed it
so that the light did not fall upon his eyes,
she closed the door and started, there being
now no rain.

The spirit of W interborne 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

i84 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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
Rubdon Hill, and onw^ard towards that
same Hintock, and that same house, out
of which she had fled a few days before in
irresistible alarm. But that had happened
which, above all other things of chance and
change, could make her deliberately frustrate
her plan of flight, and sink all regard of
personal consequences.

One speciality of Fitzpiers was respected
by Grace as much as ever : his 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 reiriained

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 185

a wish with him. His freedom from con-
ventional errors and crusted prejudices had
indeed been such as to retard rather than
accelerate his advance in Hintock and its
neighbourhood, where people could not
believe that Nature herself effected cures,
and that the doctor's business was only to
smooth the way.

It was past midnight when Grace arrived
opposite her fathers 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 ao^e was shininsf above its
arch. The two white gates were distinct,
and the white balls on the pillars : and the
puddles and damp ruts left by the recent
rain had a cold, corpse-eyed luminousness.

i86 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

She entered by the lower gate, and crossed
the quadrangle to the wing wherein the
apartments that had been hers since her
marriage were situate, till she stood under
a window which, if her husband were in the
house^ gave light to his bed-chamber.

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 foreoroiuQ^ troubles ? Alas i — old
Jones was seven miles off; Giles was
possibly dying — what else could she do ?

It was in a perspiration, wrought even
more by consciousness than by exercise, that
she picked up some gravel, threw it at the
panes, and waited to see the result. The
night-bell which had been fixed when Fitz-
piers first took up his residence there still
remained ; but as it had fallen into disuse
with the collapse of his practice, and his elope-
ment, she did not venture to pull it now.

I

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 187

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 recognised her
husband in the speaker at once. Her effort
was now to disguise her own accents.

" Doctor," she said, in as unusual a tone
as she could command, "a man is danger-
ously ill in One-Chimney Hut, out towards
Delborough, and you must go to him at
once — in all mercy ! "

'* I will, readily."

The alacrity, surprise, and pleasure ex-
pressed 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 doubtful joys, found the
soothing routine of professional practice
unexpectedly opening anew to him. The
highest desire of his soul just now was for

i88 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

a respectable life of painstaking. If this,
his first summons since his return, had been
to attend upon a cat or dog, he would
scarcely have refused it in the circumstances.

'' Do you know the way ? " she asked.

" Yes," said he.

" One-Chimney Hut," she repeated. ''And
— immediately ! "

"Yes, yes," said Fitzpiers.

Grace remained no longer. She passed
through the white gate without slamming
it, and hastened on her way back. Her
husband, then, had re-entered her father's
house. How he had been able to effect
a reconciliation with the old man, what were
the terms of the treaty between them, she
could not so much as conjecture. Some
sort of truce must have been entered into,
that was all she could say. But close as
the question lay to her own life, there was
a more uro^ent one which banished it ; and

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 189

she traced her steps quickly along the
meandering trackways.

Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to
leave the house. The state of his mind,
over and above his professional zeal, was
peculiar. At Grace's first remark he had
not recognised 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 eood
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 m.ind to be reconciled to him, that he
could not quite believe this neighbour to be
she. It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's
repentant humour at this date that, on re-
ceiving the explanation of her absence, he
had made no attempt to outrage her feelings
by following her ; though nobody had in-
lormed him how very shortly her departure

I90 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

had preceded his entry, and of all that might
have been inferred from her precipitancy.

Melbury, after much alarm and considera-
tion, had decided not to follow her either.
He sympathised with her flight, much as he
deplored it ; moreover the tragic colour of
the antecedent events that he had been a
ereat means of creatine 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 strange-
ness of her departure would have made
natural. A few months before this time a
performance by Grace of one-tenth the mag-
nitude 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

IX. THE WOODLANDERS. 191

face, but Mrs. Melbury had proposed herself
as an Intermediary, who made the surgeon's
re-entrance comparatively easy to him.
Everything was provisional, and nobody
asked questions. Fitzplers had come In
the performance of a plan of penitence
which had originated In circumstances here-
after to be explained ; his self-humlllatlon to
the very bass-string was deliberate ; and as
soon as a voice reached him from the bed-
side 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 stable-
man to get ready any horse or gig, and
set out for One-Chimnev Hut on foot as
Grace had done.

CHAPTER X.

She re-entered the hut, flung off her
bonnet and cloak, and approached the
sufferer. He had begun anew those terrible
mutterings, and his hands were cold. As
soon as she saw him there returned to her
that agony of mind which the stimulus of
her journey had thrown off for a time.

Could he really be dying ? She bathed
him, kissed him, forgot all things but the fact
that lying there before her was he who had
loved her more than the mere lover would
have loved ; had immolated himself for her
comfort, cared more for her self-respect than

CH. X. THE WOODLANDERS. 193

she had thought of caring. This mood con-
tinued till she heard quick, smart footsteps
without ; she knew whose footsteps they
were.

Grace sat on the inside of the bed against
the wall, holdinof her lover's hand, so that
when her husband entered the patient lay
between herself and him. He stood trans-
fixed at first, noticing Grace only. Slowly
he dropped his glance ; and discerned w^ho
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 devoted
purpose ; and that it was a husband who
stood there was forgotten. The first look
that possessed her face was relief; satisfac-
tion at the presence of the physician obliter-
ated thought of the man, which only returned

VOL. III. o

194 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

in the form of a sub-consciousness that did
not interfere with her words.

''Is he dying — is there any hope?" she
asked.

" Grace ! " said Fitzpiers in an indescrib-
able whisper — more than invocating — if not
quite deprecatory.

He was arrested by the spectacle, not so
much in its intrinsic character — though that
was striking enough to a man who called
himself the husband of the sufferer's friend
and nurse — but in its character as the
counterpart of one that had had its run
many months before, in which he had figured
as the patient, and the woman had been Felice
Charmond.

"Is he in great danger — can you save
him ? " she asked again.

Fitzpiers aroused himself, came a little
nearer, and examined Winterborne as he
stood. His inspection was concluded in a

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 195

mere glance. Before he spoke he looked at
her contemplatively as to the effect of his
coming words.

'' He is dying," he said with dry precision.

'' What ? " said she.

" Nothing can be done, by me or any
other man. It will soon be all over. The
extremities are dead already." His eyes
still remained fixed on her, the conclusion
to which he had come seeming to end his
interest, professional and otherwise, in
Winterborne for ever.

'^ But it cannot be ! He was well a week
ago."

'' Not well I suspect. This seems like
what we call a sequel, which has followed
some previous disorder — possibly typhoid — it
may have been months ago, or recently."

" Ah — he was ill last year — you are
right. And he must have been ill when I

came."

o 2

196 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

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 lon^ as it lasted
she never turned her eyes, or apparently her
thoughts, at all to her husband. He occa-
sionally murmured, with automatic authority,
some slight directions for alleviating the pain
of the dying man, which she mechanically
obeyed ; bending over him during the
intervals in silent tears.

Winterborne never recovered conscious-
ness 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.

Then Fitzpiers broke the silence. '' Have
you lived here long ? " he said.

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 197

Grace was wild with sorrow — bitter with
all that had befallen her — with the cruelties
that had attacked her — with life — with
Heaven. She answered at random. " Yes.
By what right do you ask ? "

" Don't think I claim any right," said
Fitzpiers sadly. ''It is for you to do and
say w^hat you choose. I admit, quite as
much as you feel, that I am a vagabond — a
brute — not worthy to possess the smallest
fragment of you. But here I am, and I
have happened to take sufficient interest in
you to make that inquiry."

''He is everything to me ! ' said Grace,
hardly heeding her husband, and laying her
hand reverently on the dead man's eyelids,
where she kept it a long time, pressing
down their lashes with gentle touches, as if
she were stroking a little bird.

He watched her awhile ; and then glanced
round the chamber, where his eyes fell

198 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

upon a few dressing necessaries that she
had brought.

'' Grace — if I may call you so," he said,
" 1 have been already humiliated almost to
the depths. I have come back — since you
refused to join me elsewhere — I have entered
your father's house — and borne all which
that cost me without flinching, because I
have felt I deserved humiliation. But is
there a yet greater humiliation in store
for me ? You say you have been living
here — that he was everything to you. Am
I to draw from that the obvious, the
extremest inference ? "

Triumph at any price is sweet to men
and women — especially the latter. It was
her first and last opportunity of repaying
him for the slights which she had borne at
his hands so docilely.

" Yes," she answered ; and there was that
in her subtly compounded nature which

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 199

made her feel a thrill of pride as she
did so.

Yet the moment after she had so mightily
belied her character she half repented. Her
husband had turned as white as the wall
behind him. It seemed as if all that re-
mained to him of hope and spirit had been
abstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not
move, and in his efforts at self-control closed
his mouth together as a vice. His deter-
mination was fairly successful, though she
saw how very much greater than she had
expected her triumph had been. Presently
he looked across at Winterborne.

"Would it startle you to hear," he said,
as if he hardly had breath to utter words,
*' that she who was to me what he was to
you is dead also ? "

'' Dead — she dead ? " exclaimed Grace.

"Yes. Felice Charmond is where this
young man is."

200 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'* Never! " said Grace vehemently.

He went on without heeding the insinua-
tion : "And I came back to try to make it
up with you — but "

Fitzpiers rose, and moved across the
room to go away, looking downwards
with the droop of a man whose hope was
turned to apathy if not despair. In going
round the door his eye fell upon her
once more. She was still bending over
the body of Winterborne, her face close
to his.

" Have you been kissing him during his
illness ? " asked her husband.

"Yes."

" Since his fevered state set in ? "

■''Yes."

'' On his lips?"

'' Yes."

" Then you will do well to take a few
drops of this in water as soon as possible."

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 201

He drew a small phial from his pocket, and
returned to offer it to her.

Grace shook her head.

"If you don't do as I tell you you may
soon be like him."

'' I don't care. I wish to die."

" I'll put it here," said Fitzpiers, placing
the bottle on a ledge beside him. ''The
sin of not having warned you will not be
upon my head at any rate, amongst my
other sins. I am now going, and I will
send somebody to you. Your father does
not know that you are here, so I suppose
I shall be bound to tell him ? "

" Certainly."

Fitzpiers left the cot, and the stroke of
his feet was soon immersed in the silence
that pervaded the spot. Grace remained
kneeling and weeping, she hardly knew
how long, and then she sat up, covered
poor Giles's features, and went towards the

202 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

door where her husband had stood. No
sign of any other comer greeted her ear,
the only perceptible sounds being the tiny
cracklings of the dead leaves, which, like
a feather bed, had not yet done rising to
their normal level where indented by the
pressure of her husband's receding foot-
steps. 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 re-
turned 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.

'' What— Marty ! " said Grace.

" Yes. I have heard," said Marty, whose
demeanour had lost all its girlishness under

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 203

the Stroke that seemed almost literally to
have bruised her.

*' He died for me ! " murmured Grace
heavily.

Marty did not fully comprehend ; and she
answered, "He belongs to neither of us
now, and your beauty is no more powe'rful
with him than my plainness. I have come
to help you, ma'am. He never cared for
me, and he cared much for you ; but he
cares for us both alike now."

" Oh, don't, don't, Marty ! "

Marty said no more, but knelt over
Winterborne from the other side.

" Did you meet my hus — Mr. Fitzpiers ? "

'* No."

" Then what brought you here ? "

'' I come this way sometimes. I have
got to go to the further side of the wood
this time of the year, and am obliged to
get there before four o'clock in the morn-

204 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

ing, to begin heating the oven for the early
baking. I have passed by here often at
this time."

Grace looked at her quickly. '' Then
did you know I was here ? "

"Yes, ma'am."

" Did you tell anybody ? "

" No. I knew you lived in the hut,
that he had gied it up to ye, and lodged
out himself."

" Did you know where he lodged ? "

'' No. That I couldn't find out. Was it
at Delborough ? "

" No. It was not there, Marty. Would
it had been ! It would have saved — saved

" To check her tears she turned, and

seeing a book in the window-bench took it
up. " Look, Marty, this is a Psalter. He
was not an outwardlv religious man ; but he
was pure and perfect in his heart. Shall
we read a psalm over him ? "

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 205

''Oh, yes — we will — with all my heart!"
Grace opened the thin brown book,
which poor Giles had kept at hand mainly
for the convenience of whetting his pen-
knife upon its leather covers. She began
to read in that rich, devotional voice peculiar
to women only on such occasions. When
it was over Marty said, " I should like to
pray for his soul."

"So should I," said her companion.
" But we must not."

"Why? Nobody would know."
Grace could not resist the argument,
influenced as she was by the sense of
making amends for having neglected him
in the body ; and their tender voices
united and filled the narrow room with
supplicatory murmurs that a Calvinist might
have countenanced. They had hardly
ended w^hen new and more numerous foot-
falls were audible ; also persons in conver-

2o6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

sation, one of whom Grace recognised as
her father.

She rose, and went to the outer apart-
ment, in which there w^as only such light
as beamed from the inner one. Melbury
and Mrs. Melbury were standing there.

'' I don't reproach you, Grace," said her
father with an estranged manner, and in a
voice not at all like his old voice. '' What
has come upon you and us is beyond reproach,
beyond weeping and beyond wailing. Per-
haps I drove you to it. But I am hurt ;
I am scourged; I am astonished. In the
face of this there is nothinof 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 circum-
stances of my life here. Go and tell him —
what you have told me — what you saw —
that he gave up his house to me."

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 207

She sat down, her face buried in her
hands, and Marty went, and after a short
absence returned. Then Grace rose, and
going out asked her father if he had talked
to Marty.

** Yes," said Melbury.

*' And you know all that has happened ?
I will let my husband think the worst, but
not you."

"I do. Forgive me, Grace, for suspect-
ing ye of worse than rashness — I ought to
know ye better. Are you coming with me
to what was once your home ? "

"No. I stay here with him. Take no
account of me any more."

The tender, perplexing, agitating relations
in which she had stood to Winterborne quite
lately — brought about by Melbury's own
contrivance — could not fail to soften the
natural anger of a parent at her more recent
doings. "My daughter, things are bad,"

2o8 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

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."

" But I don't wish to escape it."
"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 hairs with
sorrow to the grave?"

"If it were not for my husband — " she

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 209

began, moved by his words. " But how
can I meet him there ? How can any
woman who is not a mere man's creature
join him after what has taken place ? "

''He would go away again rather than
keep you out of my house."

'.'How do you know that, father.-^"

"We met him on our way here, and he
told us so," said Mrs. Melbury. "He had
said something like it before. He seems
very much upset altogether."

"He declared to her when he came to
our house that he would wait for time and
devotion to brinor about his forgiveness, "
said Melbury. " That was it, wasn't it,
Lucy ? "

" Yes. That he would not Intrude upon
you, Grace, till you gave him absolute per-
mission," Mrs. Melbury added.

This antecedent conslderateness in Fitz-
piers was as welcome to Grace as it was

VOL. III. p

2IO THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

unexpected ; and though she did not desire
his presence, she was sorry that by her
retaHatory 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 gather-
ing up the two or three things that belonged
to her. While she was doinof this the two
women came who had been called by Mel-
bury, 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 cider-barrels against the making,
and here was he. . . . Well, I've knowed
him from table-high ; I knowed his father —
used to bide about upon two sticks In the

X. THE WOODLANDEKS. 211

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 nobody will glutch down a
siofh for he."

They started for home, Marty and Creedle
remaining behind. For a time Grace and
her father walked side by side without speak-
ing. It was just in the blue of the dawn, and
the chilling tone of the sky w^as 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. W^inter-
borne 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 direc-

p 2

212 THE WOODLANDERS. CHAP.

tion that he had given them with his subtle
hand.

" One thing made it tolerable to us that
your husband should come back to the house,"
said Melbury at last. '' The death of Mrs.
Charmond."

" Ah, yes," said Grace, arousing slightly to
the recollection ; "he told me so."

" Did he tell you how she died ? It was
no such death as Giles's. She was shot — by
a disappointed lover. It occurred in Ger-
many. 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
favour him, and followed her about every-
where. So ends the brilliant Felice Char-
mond— once a good friend to me ; but no
friend to you."

" I can forgive her," said Grace absently.
'* Did Edred tell you of this ? "

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 213

" 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 story was, she had
no care for it now.

"Yes. Marty South." Melbury persisted
in his narrative, to divert her from her present
grief, if possible. " Before he went away she
wrote him a letter, which he kept in his
pocket a long while before reading. He
chanced to pull it out in Mrs. Charmond's

214 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

presence, and read It out loud. It contained
something which teased her very much, and
that led to the rupture. She was following
him to make It up when she met with her
terrible death."

Melbury did not know enough to glv^e 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 play-
fully Ironical tones of one who had become a
little w^eary of his situation, and was finding
his friend, In the phrase of George Herbert,

X. THE WOODLANDERS. 215

a ''flat delieht." 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 beo^un, and traQ^edv
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 alterca-
tion, and the death of both. Of that pre-
cipitate scene of passion and crime Fitzpiers
had known nothino^ 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 sul:)-
sequent inquiry, the double death being-
attributed to some crambling losses, though

2i6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

in point of fact neither one of them had
visited the tables.

Melbury and his daughter drew near
their house, having seen but one Hving
thing on their way, a squirrel, which did
not run up its tree, but, dropping the
sweet chestnut which it carried, cried
chut-chut-chut, and 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, somie of her old misgiving re-
turning, " that I am coming back only on
condition of his leaving as he promised ?
Will you let him know this, that there may
be no mistake ? "

Mrs. Melbury, who had had some long
private talks with Fitzpiers, assured Grace
that she need have no doubts on that point,

I

X.

THE WOODLANDERS. 217

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 parlour while her
stepmother went to Fitzpiers.

The prompt obedience to her wishes
which the surgeon showed did honour to
him, if anything could. Before Mrs. Melbury
had returned to the room, Grace, who was
sitting on the parlour window-bench, saw
her husband q:o 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
filled his place ; now she had banished him,

CHAPTER XL

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 bed-
side. " I don't know whe'r this is meant

1

CH. XI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 219

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
mornlnof."

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 con-
tents, 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 febrlfuQ^e of some sort.
Her father, her mother, and all the house-
hold were anxious for her recovery, and
she resolved to obey her husband's direc-
tions. Whatever the risk, If any, she was

220 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

prepared to run it. A glass of water was
brought, and the drops dropped in.

The effect, though not miraculous, was
remarkable. In less than an hour she felt
calmer, cooler, better able to reflect, less
inclined to fret and chafe and w^ear herself
away. She took a few drops more. From
that time the fever retreated, and went out
like a damped conflagration.

" How clever he is ! " she said regretfully.
"Why could he not have had more principle,
so as to turn his great talents to good
account ! Perhaps he has saved my useless
life. But he doesn't know it, and doesn't
care whether he has saved it or not ; and on
that account will never be told by me.
Probably he only gave it to me in the
arrogance of his skill, to show the greatness
of his resources beside mine, as Elijah drew
down fire from Heaven."

As soon as she had quite recovered from

XI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 221

this foiled attack upon her Hfe Grace went
to ^larty South's cottage. The current of
her being had again set towards the lost
Giles Winterborne.

" Marty," she said, " we both loved him.
We will go to his grave together.''

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 exceed-
ing Marty's, that haunting sense of having
put out the light of his life by her own hasty
doings. She had tried to persuade herself
that he might have died of his illness, even
if she had not taken possession of his house.
Sometimes she succeeded in her attempt ;
sometimes she did not.

They stood by the grave together, and

222 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

though the sun had gone down, they could
see over the woodland for miles, and down
to the vale in w^hlch he had been accus-
tomed to descend every year with his
portable mill and press to make cider about
this time.

Perhaps Grace's first grief, the discovery
that if he had lived he could never have
claimed her, had some power in softening
this, the second. On Marty's part there was
the same consideration ; never would she
have been his. As no anticipation of
gratified affection had been In existence
while he was w^ith them, there was none to
be disappointed now that he had gone.

Grace was abased when, by degrees, she
found that she had never understood Giles
as Marty had done. Marty South alone, of
all the w^omen in HIntock and the world,
had approximated to Winterborne's level
of Intelligent intercourse with Nature. In

XI. THE WOODLAxXDERS. 223

that respect she had formed his true com-
plement in the other sex, had Hved as his
counterpart, had subjoined her thought to
his as a corollary.

The casual glimpses which the ordinary
population bestowed upon that wondrous
world of sap and leaves called the Hintock
woods had been with these two, Giles and
Marty, a clear gaze. They had been
possessed of its finer mysteries as of common-
place knowledge ; had been able to read its
hieroglyphs as ordinary wTiting ; to them the
sitrhts and sounds of nio-ht, winter, wind,
storm, amid those dense boughs, which had
to Grace a touch of the uncanny, and even
of the supernatural, were simple occurrences
vrhose origin, continuance, and laws they fore-
knew. 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

224 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

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 pro-
nounce 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 conjuror's own point of view, and
not from that of the spectator.

''He ought to have married yo2i, Marty,
and nobody else In the world ! " said Grace
with conviction, after thinking somewhat
in the above strain.

Marty shook her head. "In all our out-
door days and years together, ma'am," she

XI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 225

replied, '' the one thing he never spoke of to
me was love ; nor I to him."

" Yet you and he could speak in a tongue
that nobody else knew — not even my father,
though he came nearest knowing — the
tonofue of the trees and fruits and flowers
themselves.'^

She could indulge in mournful fancies
like this to ]\Iarty ; but the hard core to her
grief — which Marty's had not — remained.
Had she been sure that Giles's death resulted
entirely from his exposure, it would have
driven her well nigh to insanity ; but there
was always that bare possibility that his
exposure had only precipitated w^hat was
inevitable. She longed to believe that it^
had not done even this.

There was only one man whose opinion on
the circumstances she would be at all disposed
to trust. Her husband was that man. Yet
to ask him it would be necessary to detail

VOL. III. Q

226 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

the true conditions in which she and Winter-
borne had hved during these three or four
critical days that followed her flight ; and in
withdrawing her original defiant announce-
ment 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 what she did not feel
the need of.

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 by her avowal of the
contrary.

He declared to himself that he had never

XI. THE WOODLANDERS. 227

known her dangerously full compass if she
were capable of such a reprisal ; and, melan-
choly as it may be to admit the fact, his
own humiliation and recjret engendered
a smoulderinor admiration of her.

He passed a month or two of great misery
at Exbury, the place to which he had retired
— quite 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 miQ;ht have wrono-ed her.
Then a sudden hope dawned upon him ; he
wondered if her affirmation were true. He
asked himself w^hether it were not the act of
an innocent woman whose pique had for the
moment blinded her to the contingencies
of such an announcement. His wide ex-
perience of the sex had taught him that, in
many cases, women who ventured on hazard,
ous matters did so because they lacked an
imagination gross enough to feel their full

^ 2

228 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

force. In this light Grace's bold avowal
might merely have denoted the desperation
of one who was a child to the realities of
obliquity.

Fitzpiers's mental sufferings and suspense
led him at last to take a melancholy journey
to the neighbourhood of Little HIntock ; and
here he hovered for hours around the scene
of the purest emotional experiences that he
had ever known In his life. He walked
about the woods that surrounded Melbury's
house, keeping out of sight like a criminal.
It was a fine evening, and on his way
homeward he passed near Marty South's
cottage. As usual she had lighted her
candle without closing her shutters ; he
saw her within as he had seen her many
times before.

She was polishing tools, and though he
had not wished to show himself he could
not resist speaking to her through the half-

XI. THE WOODLAXDERS. 229

open door. "What are you doing that for,
Marty?"

" Because I want to clean them. They
are not mine." He could see indeed that
they were not hers, for one was a spade,
large and heavy, and another was a bill-hook
which she could only have used with both
hands. The spade, though not a new one-
had been so completely burnished that it was
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 apple-mill and press. I wish I
could ; it is going to be sold, they say."

"Then I will buy it for you," said Fitz-
piers. " That will be making you a return
for a kindness you did me.'' His glance fell
upon the girl's rare-coloured hair, which had

230 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

grown again. " Oh, Marty, those locks of
yours — and that letter ! . . . But it was a
kindness to send It, nevertheless," he added
musingly.

After this there was confidence between
them — such confidence as there had never
been before. Marty was shy, indeed, of
speaking about the letter, and her motives In
writing It ; but she thanked him warmly for
his promise of the cider-press. She would
travel with it In the autumn season as he
had done, she said. She would be quite
strong enough, w^ith old Creedle as an
assistant.

" Ah ! — there was one nearer to him than
you," said FItzpiers, referring to Grace. " One
who lived where he lived, and was with him
when he died."

Then Marty, suspecting that he did not
know the true circumstances, from the fact
that Mrs. FItzpiers and himself were living

XL THE WOODLAXDERS. 231

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 suro^eon 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 than one sense his
journey to HIntock had not been In vain.

He would have given much to win Grace's
forgiveness then. But whatever he dared
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 thouQ^hts, and lead her to look
on him with toleration, if not with love.

I

CHAPTER XII.

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 them-
selves. Twice a week the pair went in the
dusk to Great Hintock, and, like the two
mourners in Cyrnbeline, sv/eetened his sad
grave with their flowers and their tears.

Nothino^ 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

CH. XII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 233

with the lapse of the autumn and winter
seasons, her self-reproach at having had a
possible hand In causing It knew slight
abatement.

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. There was a rumour that her
death had resulted less from the shot than
from the effect of fright upon her personal
condition at the time ; but this was never
verified. Fitzplers had had a marvellous
escape from being dragged into the inquiry
which followed the catastrophe, through the
accident of their having parted just before
under the influence of ?^Iarty South's
letter — the tiny Instrument of a cause deep
in nature.

Her body was not brought home. It
seemed to accord well with the fitful fever of

234 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

that impassioned woman's life that she should
not have found a native grave. She had
enjoyed but a life-interest in the estate,
which, after her death, passed to a relative of
her husband's — one who knew not Felice,
one whose purpose seemed to be to blot out
every vestige of her.

On a certain day in February — the cheer-
ful day of St. Valentine — a letter reached
Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had been mentally
promised her for that particular day a long
time before.

Her husband announced that he was living
at some midland town, where he had ob-
tained a temporary practice as assistant to a
local medical man, whose curative principles
were all wrong, though he dared not set
them right. He had thought fit to commu-
nicate with her on that day of tender tra-
ditions to inquire if, in the event of his
obtaining a substantial practice that he

XII. THE WOODLANDERS. 235

had In view elsewhere, she could forget
the past and bring herself to join him.

There the practical part ended : he then
went on : —

" 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 honour you

at this present moment. What you told me in the

pride and naughtiness 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 you — no, there is not —

that I dream of your ripe lips more frequently than I

say my prayers : that the old familiar rustle of your dress

often returns upon my mind till it distracts me? If you

could condescend even only to see me again you would

be breathing life into a corpse. jMy pure, pure Grace,

modest as a turtle-dove, 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 fine in love, and where 'tis fine it sends

some instance of itself.' — I will not intrude upon ycu

further now. Make me a little bit happy by sending

236 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

back one line to say that you will consent, at any rate,
to a short interview. I will meet you and leave you as
a mere acquaintance, if you will only afford me this
slight means of making a few explanations, and of putting
my position before you. Believe me, in spite of all you
may do or feel,

** Your lover always (once your husband),

"E. F."

It was, oddly enough, the first occasion,
or nearly the first, on which Grace had ever
received a love-letter from him, his courtship
having taken place under conditions which
rendered letter-writing unnecessary. Its
perusal, therefore, had a certain novelty for
her. She thought that, upon the whole, he
wrote love-letters very well. But the chief
rational interest of the letter to the reflective
Grace lay in the chance that such a meeting
as he proposed would afibrd her of setting
her doubts at rest one w^ay 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

XII. THE WOODLANDERS. 237

that time, would be immense. As for that
statement that she had uttered in her dis-
dainful grief, which at the time she had
regarded as her triumph, she was quite pre-
pared to admit to him that his belief was
the true one ; for in wron^inof herself as she
did w^hen she made it she had done what to
her was a far more serious thinof, wroneed
Winterborne's memory.

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 Rubdon Hill, the second that he
would not object to Marty South accom-
panying her.

Whatever art, much or little, there may
have been in Fitzpiers's so-called valentine
to his wife, he felt a delight as of the burst-
ing of spring when her brief reply came. It

238 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 ap-
pointed day found him climbing the well-
known hill, which had been the axis of so
many critical movements in their lives
durinor his residence at Hintock.

The sight of each homely and well-
remembered object swelled the regret that
seldom left him now. Whatever paths
might lie open to his future, the soothing
shades of Hintock were forbidden him for
ever as a permanent dwelling-place.

He longed for the society of Grace. But
to lay offerings on her slighted altar was his
first aim, and until her propitiation w^as com-
plete he would constrain her in no way

XII. THE WOODLANDERS. 239

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 to choose
between living with him and without him.

Moreover, a subtlist In emotions, he cul-
tivated as under glasses strange and mourn-
ful pleasures that he would not willingly
let die just at present. To show any for-
wardness in sucrorestinor a modus vivendi to
Grace would be to put an end to these
exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will
for a time— he demanded no more, and
found solace in the contemplation of the
soft miseries she caused him.

Approaching the hill-top with a mind
strung to these notions, Fitzpiers discerned
a gay procession of people coming over the
crest, and was not long in perceiving it to
be a wedding-party. Though the wind was
keen the women were in light attire, and the

240 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 w^Ith him one step, rise,
swing, gait, almost one centre of gravity.
In the buxom bride Fitzplers recognised no
other than Suke Damson, who In her light
gown looked a giantess ; the small husband
beside her he saw to be Tim Tangs.

Fitzplers 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. Fitzplers.
As the couples closed upon him he expressed
his congratulations.

"We be just walking round the parishes
to show ourselves a bit," said Tim. " First
we het across to Delborough, then athwart

XII. THE WOODLANDERS 241

to here, and from here we go to Rubdon
and Millshot, and then round by the cross
roads home. Home, says I, but it won't
be that lono^. AVe be oft next month.''

'' Indeed. Where to ? "

Tim informed him that they were going
to New Zealand. Not but that he would
have been contented with Hintock, but his
wife was ambitious and wanted to leave ; so
he had given way.

" Then good-bye," said Fitzpiers ; " I
may not see you again." He shook hands
with Tim and turned to the bride. " Good-
bye, Suke," he said, taking her hand also.
" I wish you and your husband prosperity
in the country you have chosen." With
this he left them, and hastened on to his
appointment.

The wedding-party re-formed and resumed
march likewise. But in restoring his arm
to Suke, Tim noticed that her full and

VOL. III. R

242 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

blooming countenance had undergone a
chano-e. '' Hullo ! me dear— what's the
matter ? " said Tim.

*' Nothing to speak o'," said she. But
to give the lie to her assertion she was
seized with lachrymose twitches, that soon
produced a dribbling face.

'' How — what the devil's this about ! ''
exclaimed the bridegroom.

'' She's a little wee bit overcome, poor
dear ! " said the first bridesmaid, unfolding
her handkerchief and wiping Suke's eyes.

'' I never did like parting from people ! "
said Suke as soon as she could speak.
" Why him in particular ? "
" Well — he's such a clever doctor, that
'tis a thousand pities we shan'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 ! "

XII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 243

They walked on, but Tim's face had
grown rigid and pale, for he recalled slight
circumstances, disregarded at the time of
their occurrence. The former boisterous
laughter of the wedding party at the
groomsman's jokes was heard ringing
through the woods no more.

By this time Fitzpiers had advanced on
his way to the top of the hill, where he saw
two fio^ures emerQ;inof from the bank on the
right hand. These were the expected ones,
Grace and I\Iarty South, who had evidently
come there by a short and secret path
through the wood. Grace was muffled up
In her winter dress, and he thought that
she had never looked so seductive as at this
moment, in the noontide bright, but heatless,
sun, and the keen wind, and the purplish-
grey masses of brushwood around. Fitzpiers
continued to regard the nearing picture, till
at length their glances met for a moment, when

R 2

244 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

she demurely sent off hers at a tangent and
gave him the benefit of her three-quarter
face, while with courteous completeness of
conduct he lifted his hat in a large arc.
Marty dropped behind ; and when Fitzpiers
held out his hand Grace touched it with
her fingers.

" I have agreed to be here mostly because
I wanted to ask you something important,"
said Mrs. Fitzpiers, her intonation modu-
lating in a direction that she had not quite
wished it to take.

" I am most attentive," said her husband.
" Shall we take to the wood for privacy ? "

Grace demurred, and Fitzpiers gave in,
and they kept the public road.

At any rate, she would take his arm ?
This also was gravely negatived, the refusal
being audible to Marty.

" Why not ? " he inquired.

" Oh, Mr. Fitzpiers — how can you ask ? "

XII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 245

" Rio-ht, rleht," said he, his effusiveness
shrivelled up.

As they walked on she returned to her
inquiry. "It is about a matter that may
perhaps be unpleasant to you. But I think
I need not consider that too carefully."

" Not at all,'"' said Fitzpiers heroically.

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, particularising the
dampness of the shelter to which he had be-
taken 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

246 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 favour. Winterborne's appa-
rent streno^th, during the last months of his
life, must have been delusive. It had often
occurred that after a first attack of that
insidious disease a person's apparent recovery
was a physiological mendacity.

The relief which came to Grace lay almost
as much in sharino 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

XII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 247

professional opinion, was chiefly why I con-
sented to come here to-day," said she, when
he had reached the aforesaid conclusion.

" For no other reason at all ? " he asked
ruefully.

"It was nearly the whole."

They stood and looked over a gate at
twenty or thirty starlings feeding in the
grass, and he started the talk again by saying
in a low voice, "And yet I love you more
than 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 altoeether,"
said he. "Less passionate; more profound.
It has nothing to do with the material con-
ditions 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.'"

248 THE WOCDLANDERS. chap.

'' That's out of Measure for Measure'^'
said she shly.

" Oh, yes — I meant It as a citation,"
blandly replied Fitzplers. '' Well then, why
not give me a very little bit of your heart
agani r

The crash of a felled tree In the remote
depths of the wood recalled the past at that
moment, and all the hom.ely faithfulness of
WInterborne. "Don't ask It! My heart
Is In the grave with Giles," she replied
staunchly.

'' Mine is with you — In no less deep a
grave, I fear, according to that.'*'

'' I am very sorry ; but It cannot be
helped."

" How can you be sorry for me, when you
wilfully keep open the grave ? "

" Oh, no — that's not so,"' returned Grace
quickly ; and moved to go away from him.

"But, dearest Grace!" said he. "You

XII. THE WOODLANDERS. 249

have condescended to come ; and I thought
from it that perhaps when I had passed
through a long state of probation you would
be generous. But if there can be no hope of
our getting completely reconciled, treat me
gently — wretch though I am."

" I did not say you were a wretch, nor
have I ever said so."

" But you have such a contemptuous way
of looking at me that I fear you think so."

Grace's heart struggled between the wish
not to be harsh and the fear that she mi^ht
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 for ever. I don't want you to re-
ceive me again for duty's sake, or anything
of that sort. If I had not cared more for

2SO THE WOODLAXDERS. chap.

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 tarnished — to enter the
house of a man from whom I have had
worse treatment than from any other man
alive — all for you ! "

This was undeniably true, and It had its
weight with Grace, who began to look as if
she thought she had been shockingly severe.

" Before you go," he continued, " I want
to know your pleasure about me : what you
wish me to do, or not to do."

"You are independent of me, and it seems
a mockery to ask that Far be it from me
to advise. But I will think it over. I
rather need advice myself than stand in a
position to give it."

XII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 251

" You don't need advice, wisest, dearest
woman that ever lived. If you did ..."

"Would you give it to me?"

*' Would you act upon what I gave ? "

" That's not a fair inquiry," said she
smiling despite her gravity. " I don't mind
hearing it — what you do really think the
most correct and proper course for me."

"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
Avas about to beckon ]\Iarty forward and
leave him, when he interrupted her with,
" Oh ! one moment, dear Grace — you will
meet me aealn ? "

She eventually agreed to see him that day
fortnight. FItzpiers expostulated at the
Interval, but the half-alarmed earnestness
with which she Intreated him not to come

252 THE WOCDLANDERS. chap.

sooner made him say hastily that he sub-
mitted to her will — that he would regard
her as a friend only, anxious for his reform
and well-being, till such time as she might
allow him to exceed that privilege.

All this was to assure her ; it was only
too clear that he had not won her confidence
yet. It amazed Fitzpiers, and overthrew all
his deductions from previous experience, to
find that this girl, though she had been
married to him, could yet be so coy. Not-
withstanding 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 wari-
ness in a gentle and once unsuspicious soul.

He was himself too fastidious to care to
coerce her. To be an object of misgiving
or dislike to a woman who shared his home
was what he could not endure the thought of.
Life as it stood was more tolerable.

xir. THE WOODLAXDERS. 253

When he was gone, Marty joined Mrs.
Fitzplers. She would fain have consulted
jMarty 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 stand-
ing at the scene of the felling which had been
audible to them, when, telling Marty that she
wished her meeting with Mr. Fitzpiers to be
kept private, she left the girl to join her
father. At any rate, she would consult him
on the expediency of occasionally seeing her
husband.

Her father was cheerful, and walked by
her side as he had done in earlier days.
" I was thinking of you when you came up,"
he said. " I have considered that what has
happened is for the best. Since your hus-
band is gone away, and seems not to wish
to trouble you, why, let him go, and drop

254 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 orood. I wouldn't mind sending him the
further sum of money he might naturally
expect to come to him, so that you may not
be bothered with him any more. He could
hardly have gone on living here without
speaking to me, or meeting me ; and that
w^ould have been very unpleasant on both
sides."

These remarks checked her Intention.
There was a sense of weakness in followino^
them by saying that she had just met her
husband by appointment. '' Then you
would advise me not to communicate with
him ? " she observed.

" I shall never advise ye again. You
are your own mistress — do as you like.
But my opinion is that it you don't live
with him, you had better live without him,

XII. THE WOODLANDERS.

and not go shilly-shallying and playing
bo-peep. You sent him away; and now
he's gone. Very well; trouble him no

more."

Grace felt a guiltiness — she hardly knew
why — and made no confession.

CHAPTER XIII.

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 snowdrops, primroses,
and other vernal flowers thereon as they
came.

One afternoon at sunset she was standing
just outside her father's garden, which, like
the rest of the HIntock inclosures, abutted

CH. XIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 257

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 w^as her husband.

" I am delighted," he said, coming up out
of breath ; and there seemed no reason to
doubt his words. *' I saw you some way
off — I was afraid you would go in before
I could reach you."

'' It is a week before the time," 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 de-
clined to meet me ! Would it make you
angry to know that I have been along
this path at dusk three or four times

VOL. III. s

258 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

since our last meeting ? Well, how are
you ? "

She did not refuse her hand, but when
he showed a wish to retain it a moment
longer than mere formality required, she
made it smaller, so that it slipped away
from him, with again that same alarmed
look which always followed his attempts in
this direction. He saw that she was not
yet out of the elusive mood ; not yet to
be treated presumingly ; and he was
correspondingly careful to tranquillise her.

His assertion had seemed to impress her
somewhat. " I had no idea you came so
often," she said. *' How far do you come
from ? "

'' From Exbury. I always walk from
Sherton Abbas, for if I hire people will
know that I come ; and my success with
you so far has not been great enough to
justify such overtness. Now, my dear one

XIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 259

— as I 7nust call you — I 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 on."

"It is the very thing I am doing. I
was going to ask you to burn — or, at least,
get rid of — all my philosophical literature.
It is in the bookcases in your rooms. The
fact is, I never cared much for abstruse
studies."

'' I am so glad to hear you say that. And
those other books — those piles of old plays
— what good are they to a medical man ? "

" None whatever ! " he replied cheer-
fully. " Sell them at Sherton for what
they will fetch."

s 2

26o THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" And those dreadful old French romances
with their horrid spellings of ' filz ' and ' ung '
and ' ilz ' and ' mary ' and ' ma foy ' ? "

" You haven't been reading them,
Grace ? "

'' Oh, no — I just looked into them, that
was all."

" 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
hand-books 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 could — come to me again ? "

'' I would rather you did not press me
on that just now," she replied with some
feeling. " You have said you mean to lead
a new, useful, effectual life ; but I should
like to see you put It in practice for a
little while before you address that query

XIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 261

to me. Besides — I could not live with
you."

''Why not?"

Grace was silent a few instants. " I go
with ]\Iarty to Giles's grave. We swore
we would show him that devotion. And
I mean to keep it up."

"Well, I wouldn't mind that at all. I
have no right to expect anything else, and
I will not wish you to keep away. I liked
the man as well as any I ever knew. In
short, I would accompany you a part
of the way to the place, and smoke a
cigar on the stile while I waited till you
came back."

'' Then you haven't given up smoking ? "

" Well — ahem — no. I have thought of
doing so, but " —

His extreme complaisance had rather
disconcerted Grace, and the question about
smoking had been to effect a diversion.

262 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 you — to
speak lightly on that subject, if you did
speak lightly. To be frank with you —
quite frank — I think of him as my betrothed
lover still. I cannot help It. So that It
would be wrong for me to join you."

Fitzpiers was now uneasy. '"You say
your betrothed lover still," he rejoined.
"When, then, were you betrothed to him,
or engaged, as we common people say ? "

"When you were away."

" How could that be ? "

Grace would have avoided this ; but her
natural candour 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 to love me."

XIII. THE WOODLANDERS. 263

Fitzpiers winced visibly ; and yet, upon
the whole, she was rioht in tellinor it. In-
deed, his perception that she was right in
her absolute sincerity, kept up his affec-
tionate admiration for her under the pain
of the rebuff. Time had been when the
avowal that Grace had deliberately taken
steps to replace him would have brought
him no sorrow. But she so far dominated
him now that he could not bear to hear
her words, although the object of her high
regard was no more.

" It is rough upon me — that ! " he said
bitterly. " Oh, Grace — I did not know
you — tried to get rid of me ! I suppose it is
of no use, but I ask, cannot you hope to
— find a little love in your heart for me
again ? "

"If I could I would oblige you ; but I
fear I cannot ! " she replied, with illogical
ruefulness. "And I don't see why you

264 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 w^ill not tell me ! "

'' I am sorry ; but I fear I cannot," she
said sighing again.

" I wonder if you ever will ?" He looked
musingly into her indistinct face as if he
would read the future there. " Now have
pity, and tell me : will you try ? "

"To love you again .'^"

" Yes ; if you can."

*T don't know how to reply," she answered,
her embarrassment proving her truth. " Will
you promise to leave me quite free as to
seeing you or not seeing you ? "

" Certainly. Have I given any ground
for you to doubt my first promise in that
respect ? "

xiTi. THE WOODLANDERS. 265

She was obliged to admit that he had
not.

" Then I think you might get your heart
out of that grave," said he, with playful sad-
ness. " It has been there a Ions: time."

She faintly shook her head, but said :
" I'll try to think of you more — if I can."

With this, Fitzpiers was compelled to be
satisfied, and he asked her when she would
meet him again.

"As we arranged — in a fortnight."

*' If it must be a fortnight it must!"

" This time at least. I'll consider by the day
I see you again if I can shorten the interval."

" Well, be that as it may, I shall come at
least twice a week to look at your window."

" You must do as you like about that.
Good-night."

" Say ' husband.' "

She seemed almost inclined to give him
the word ; but exclaiming, " No, no ; I can-

266 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

not," slipped through the garden-hedge and
disappeared.

Fitzpiers did not exaggerate when he told
her that he should haunt the precincts of the
dwelling. But his persistence in this course
did not result in his seeino- her much oftener
than at the fortnightly interval which she
had herself marked out as proper. At these
times, however, she punctually appeared, and
as the spring wore on, the meetings were
kept up, though their character changed but
little with the increase in their number.

The small garden of the cottage occupied
by the Tangs family — father, son, and now
son's wife — aligned with the larger one of
the timber-dealer 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 inclosure to smoke a
pipe, he frequently observed the surgeon

XIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 267

pass along the outside track before-men-
tioned. Fitzpiers always walked loiteringly,
pensively, looking wnth 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
glimpse of her whom he passionately desired
to take to his arms anew.

Now Tim beo^an to be struck with these
loitering progresses along the garden boun-
daries in the eloamine, 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, emo-
tional— almost also an artistic — pleasure
in being the yearning innamorato of a
woman he once had deserted, would have
seemed an absurdity to the young sawyer.
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers were separated ;

268 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

therefore the question of affection as between
them was settled. But his Suke had, since
that meeting on their marriage-day, repen-
tantly admitted, to the urgency of his ques-
tioning, 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 Suke
would be out of FItzpiers's way for ever.
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 firtrlight shone
upon Suke's fine face and form as she stood

XIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 269

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 niQ^ht almost for the last time.

Tim Tangs was not happy. This scheme
of emigration was dividing him from his
father — for old Tano-s would on no account

o

leave Hintock — and 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 par-
ticularly noticed this evening — she was very
restless, fitful in her actions, unable to remain
seated, and in a marked degree depressed.

"Sorry that you be going, after all,
Suke ? " he said.

She sighed involuntarily. " I don't know
but that I be," she answered. '' 'Tis natural,
isn't it, when one is going away ? "

270 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" But you wasn't born here as I was,"

'* No."

''There's folk left behind that you'd fain
have with 'ee, I reckon ? "

''Why do you think that?"

" 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 mind his
leavings abroad, but I do mind 'em at
home."

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 different — and it must
be added in justice to her — more innocent
sense than he supposed, judging from former
doings. She had accidentally discovered that

XTii. THE WOODLAXDERS. 271

Fitzpiers was in the habit of coming secretly
once or twice a week to Hintock, and knew
that this evening was a favourite one of the
seven for his journey. As she was going
next day to leave the country, 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 scene — if he had
not already gone by.

Her light cotton dress was visible to Tim
lounging in the arbour of the opposite corner,
though he was hidden from her. He saw
her stealthily climb into the hedge, and so

272 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

ensconce herself there that nobody could
have the least doubt her purpose was to
watch unseen for a passer-by.

He went across to the spot and stood
behind her. Suke started, having in her
blundering way forgotten that he might be
near. She at once descended from the
hedge.

" So he's coming to-night," said Tim
laconically. " And we be always anxious to
see our dears."

"He 7s coming to-night," she replied
with defiance. " And we de anxious for our
dears."

" Then will you step indoors, where your
dear will soon jine 'ee ? We've to monster
by half-past three to-morrow, and if we don't
get to bed by eight at latest our faces will be
as long as clock-cases all day."

She hesitated for a minute, but ultimately
obeyed, going slowly down the garden to

XIII. THE WOODLAXDERS. 273

the house, where he heard the door- latch
click behind her.

Tim was incensed beyond measure. His
marriage had so far been a total failure, a
source of bitter regret ; 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 suggested itself, and then
he had an idea.

Cominor to a sudden resolution he hastened
alone the garden, and entered the one at-
tached to the next cottage, which had for-
merly been the dwelling of a gamekeeper.
Tim descended the path, to the back of the

VOL. III. T

2/4 THE WOODLANDERS. CH. xiii.

house, where only an old woman lived at
present, and reaching the wall he stopped*
Owing to the slope of the ground the roof-
eaves of the linhay were here within touch,
and he thrust his arm up under them, feeling
about in the space on the top of the wall
plate.

" Ah, I thought my memory didn't deceive
me ! " he lipped silently.

With some exertion he drew down a cob-
webbed object curiously framed in iron,
which clanked as he moved it. It was
about three feet in length and half as wide.
Tim contemplated It as well as he could in
the dying light of day, and raked off the
cobwebs with his hand.

'' That will spoil his pretty shins for'n, I
reckon ! " he said.

It was a man-trap.

CHAPTER XIV.

Were the inventors of automatic machines
to be ranged according to the excellence of
their devices for producing sound artistic
torture, the creator of the man-trap would
occupy a very respectable, if not a very high
place.

It should rather, however, be said, the
inventor of the particular form of man-trap
of which this found in the keeper's out-
house was a specimen. For there w^ere
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

T 2

2/6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

menagerie as compared with the leading
lion or tiger. In short, though many
varieties had been in use during those
centuries which we are accustomed to look
back upon as the true and only period of
merry England — in the rural districts more
especially — and onward down to the third
decade of the nineteenth century, this model
had borne the palm, and had been most
usually followed when the orchards and
estates required new ones.

There had been the toothless variety
used by the softer-hearted landlords — quite
contemptible in their clemency. The jaws
of these resembled the jaws of an old
woman to whom time has left nothing but
o^ums. There were also the Intermediate

o

or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by
the middle-natured squires, or those under
the Influence of their wives : two Inches of
mercy, two Inches of cruelty, two Inches
of mere nip, two Inches of probe, and so

XIV. THE WOODLANDERS. 277

on, through the whole extent of the jaws.
There were also, as a class apart, the
bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh,
but only crushed the bone.

The sight of one of these gins, when
set, produced a vivid impression that it
was endowed widi 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 w'ere open,
the two halves formed a complete circle
between two and three feet in diameter,
the plate or treading-place in the midst
being about a foot square, w^hile from
beneath extended in opposite directions the
soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs,
each one being of a stiffness to render
necessary a lever or the whole weight of
the body when forcing it down.

278 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 w^hat he had done,
walked into it himself. The wound brought
on lockjaw, of which he died. This event
occurred during the thirties, and by the
year 1840 the use of such implements was
well nigh discontinued in the neighbourhood.
But being made entirely of iron, they by no
means disappeared, and in almost every
village one could be found in some nook
or corner as readily as this was found by Tim.
It had indeed been a fearful amusement of
Tim and other Hintock lads — especially
those who had a dim sense of becoming
renowned poachers when they reached their
prime — to drag out this trap from its hiding,

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 279

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 arrive, and it
behoved Tim to be careful as to the Identity
of his victim.

GoIuq: about a hundred vards alono- the
risine 2:round to the rlo^ht. he reached a rldo^e
whereon a large and thick holly grew.
Beyond this for some distance the wood

28o THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

was more open, and the course which Fltz-
piers must pursue to reach the point, if he
came to-night, was visible a long way for-
ward.

For some time there was no sign of him
or of anybody. Then there shaped itself a
spot out of the dim mid-distance, between the
masses of brushwood on each hand. And
it enlarged, and Tim could hear the brushing
of feet over the tufts of sour grass. The
airy gait revealed Fitzpiers even before his
exact outline could be seen.

Tim Tangs turned about, and ran down
the opposite side of the hill, till he was again
at the head of his own garden. It was the
work of a few moments to drag out the man-
trap very gently — that the plate might not
be disturbed sufficiently to throw it — to a
space between a pair of young oaks which,
rooted in contiguity, grew apart upward,
forming a V-shaped opening between ; and,
being backed up by bushes, left this as

XIV. THE WOODLANDERS. 281

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
catchlnof 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 down the path and softly
entered the house.

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, with-
out lighting a candle. His object seemed
to be to undress as soon as possible. Before,
however, he had completed the operation a
long cry resounded without — penetrating, but
indescribable.

"What's that ?"' said Suke, starting up in
bed.

282 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'' Sounds as if somebody had caught a
hare in his gin."

** Oh no," said she. ''It was not a hare,
'twas louder. Hark!"

'' Do 'ee get to sleep," said Tim. '' How be
you going to wake at half-past three else?"

She lay down and was silent. Tim
stealthily opened the window and listened.
Above the low harmonies produced by the
instrumentation of the various species of tree
around the premises he could hear the
twitching of a chain from the spot whereon
he had set the man trap. But further human
sound there was none.

Tim was puzzled. In the haste of his
project he had not calculated upon a cry ;
but if one, why not more ? He soon ceased
to essay an answ^er, 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.

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 283

The hour which had brouQ^ht these move-
ments of Tim to birth had been operating
actively elsewhere. Awaitinof in her father's
house the minute of her appointment with
her husband, Grace Fitzpiers deliberated on
manv things. Should she inform her father
before going out that the estrangement of her-
self and Edred 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 con-
siderate Q^ravitv. He certainlv had chanored.
He had at his worst times alwavs been crentle
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 o^ettino- over that ; and oueht she
any longer to keep him at a distance ? His
suave deference to her li!2:htest whim on the
question of his comings and goings, when as

284 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

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
avoid intruding upon her against her will.

Impelled by a remembrance she took down
a prayer-book, and turned to the marriage-
service. Reading it slowly through she
became quite appalled at her recent off-
handedness, w^hen she rediscovered w^hat
awfully solemn promises she had made him
at those chancel steps not so very long ago.
She became lost in long ponderings on how
far a person's conscience might be bound by
vows made without at the time a full recogni-
tion of their force. That particular sentence,
beginning " Whom God hath joined to-
gether," was a staggerer for a gentle woman
of strong devotional sentiment. She won-
dered whether God really did join them
together. Before she had done deliberating

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 285

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.

The position of things at that critical
juncture was briefly as follows. Two
hundred yards to the right of the upper end
of Tangs's garden Fitzpiers was still advanc-
ino-, havinor now nearly reached the summit
of the wood-clothed ridge, the path being the
actual one which further on passed between
the two young oaks. Thus far it was
according to Tim's conjecture. But about
two hundred yards to the left, or rather less,
was arisinor 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 meetino; Tim's intended
victim. [Midway between husband and wife
was the diabolical trap, silent, open, ready.

Fitzpiers's walk that night had been
cheerful, for he was convinced that the slow

286 THE WOODLANDERS.

CHAP.

and gentle method he had adopted was pro-
mising success. The very restraint that he was
obh'ged to exercise upon himself, so as not to
kill the delicate bud of returning confidence,
fed his flame. He walked so much more
rapidly than Grace that, if they continued
advancing as they had begun, he would
reach the trap a good half minute before
she could reach the same spot. But here a
new circumstance came in : to escape the
unpleasantness of being watched or listened
to by lurkers — -naturally curious by reason of
their strained relations — they had arranged
that their meeting for to-night should be at
the holm-tree on the ridge above-named.
So soon, accordingly, as Fitzplers reached
the tree he stood still to await her.

He had not paused under the prickly
foliage more than two minutes when he
thought he heard a scream from the other
side of the ridge. Fitzpiers wondered what
it could mean ; but such wind as there was

XIV. THE WOODLANDERS. 287

just now blew in an adverse direction, and his
mood was lig^ht. He set down the origin of
the sound to one of the superstitious freaks
or froHcsome scrimmaQfes between sweet-
hearts that still survived in Hintock from
old- English times ; and waited on where he
stood till ten minutes had passed. Feeling
then a little uneasy his mind reverted to the
scream ; and he went forward over the
summit and down the embowered incline,
till he reached the pair of sister oaks with
the narrow opening between them.

Fitzpiers stumbled and all but fell.
Stretching down his hand to ascertain the
obstruction it came in contact with a con-
fused mass of silken drapery and ironwork
that conveyed absolutely no explanatory idea
to his mind at all. It was but the work of a
moment to strike a match ; and then he saw
a sight which congealed his blood.

The man-trap was thrown ; and between
its jaws was part of a woman's clothing — a

288 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

patterned silk skirt — gripped with such
violence that the iron teeth had passed
through it, skewering its tissue in a score of
places. He immediately recognised the skirt
as that of one of his wife's gowns — the gown
that she had worn when she met him on the
very last occasion.

Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of
these instruments when examininof the collec-
tion 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 convic-
tion, striking into the very current of high
hope, was so great that he cried out like one
in corporal agony, and in his misery bowed
himself down to the ground.

Of all the degrees and qualities of
punishment that Fitzpiers had undergone
since his sins against Grace first began, not

xjv. THE WOODLANDERS.

any even approximated in intensity to this.
" Oh, my own — my darling ! Oh, cruel
Heaven — it is too much this ! " he cried,
writhing and rocking himself over the sorry
accessories of her he deplored.

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, noticeably
strange.

She was in white up to the waist, and
figured above. She was. in short, Grace,
his wife, lacking the portion of her dress
which the gin retained.

" Don't be grieved about me — don't, dear
Edred I " she exclaimed, rushing up and
bending over him. " I am not hurt a bit !
I was coming on to find you after I had

VOL. HI. u

290 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

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 Am;^-
zonian strength. He clasped his arms
completely round, pressed her to his breast,
and kissed her passionately.

" You are not dead ! — you are not hurt !
Thank God — thank God ! " he said, almost
sobbing in his delight and relief from the
horror of his apprehension. " Grace, my
wife, my love, how is this — w^hat has
happened ? "

" I was coming on to you," she said as
distinctly as she could in the half-smothered
state of her face against hi^. '* I was trying
to be as punctual as possible, and as I had
started a minute late I ran along the path

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 291

very swiftly — fortunately 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

w-as pulted backwards 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 vou what a strano-e accident had

happened to me. But when I had just

freed myself by leaving the dress behind, I

heard steps, and not being sure it was you,

I did not like to be seen in such a pickle,

so I hid away."

u 2

?92 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

'* It was only your speed that saved you !
One or both of your legs would have been
broken if you had come at ordinary walking
pace."

" Or yours, if you had got here first," said
she, beginning to realise the whole ghastliness
of the possibility. " Oh, Edred, there has
been an Eye watching over us to-night, and
we should be thankful indeed ! "

He continued to press his face to hers.
" You are mine — mine again now."

She gently owned that she supposed she
was. " I heard what you said when you
thought I was injured," she went on shyly,
"and I know that a man who could suffer as
you were suffering must have a tender
regard for me. But how does this awful
thing come here ? "

'' I suppose it has something to do with
poachers." Fitzpiers was still so shaken by
the sense of her danger that he was obliged
to sit awhile, and it was not until Grace said,

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 293

" If I could only get my skirt out nobody
would know anything about it," that he
bestirred himself.

By their united efforts, each standing
on one of the springs of the trap, they
pressed them down sufficiently to insert
across the jaws a billet which they dragged
from a fao^aot 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 unex-
pected manner, she made no further attempt
at reserve. '' I would ask you to come into
the house/' she said, " but my meetings with
you have been kept secret from my father,
and I should like to prepare him."

294 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

" Never mind, dearest. I could not very
well have accepted the invitation. I shall
never live here again — as much for your
sake as for mine. I have news to tell you
on this very point, but my alarm had put
it out of my head. I have bought a practice,
or rather a partnership, in the Midlands, and
I must go there in a week to take up per-
manent residence. My poor old great-aunt
died about eight months ago, and left me
enough to do this. I have taken a little
furnished house for a time, till we can get
one of our own."

He described the place, and the surround-
ings, and the view from the windows ; and
Grace became mxuch interested. '' But why
are you not there now ? " she said.

" Because I cannot tear myself away from
here till I have your promise. Now, darling,
you will accompany me there — will you not ?
To-night has settled that ? "

Grace's tremblings had gone off, and

XIV. THE WOODLANDERS. 295

she did not say nay. They went on
together.

The adventure, and the emotions conse-
quent 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 en-
circled glade in the densest part of the
wood. 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 beech trees have suddenly un-
folded large limp young leaves of the soft-
ness 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 depart-

296 THE WOOD LANDERS. chap.

ing 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 examined his
watch by the aid of the now strong moon-
light.

'' By the gods, I think I have lost my
train ! " said Fitzpiers.

'' Dear me — whereabouts are we ? " said
she.

''Two miles in the direction of Sherton."

" Then do you hasten on, Edred. I am
. not in the least afraid. I recognise now the
part of the wood we. are in, and I can find
my way back quite easily. I'll tell my father
that w^e have made it up. I wish I had not
kept our meetings so private, for it may veK
him a little to know I have been seeing you.
He is getting old and irritable, that was why
I did not. Good-bye."

XIV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 297

" But, as I must stay at the Earl of
Wessex to-night, for I cannot possibly catch
the train, I think it would be safer for you
to let me take care of you."

" But what will my father think has be-
come of me ! He does not know in the
least where I am — he thinks I only went
into the garden for a few minutes."

*' He will surely guess — somebody has
seen me for certain. I'll go all the way
back with you to-morrow."

'' But that newly done-up place — the Earl
of Wessex ! "

"If you are so very particular about the
publicity I will stay at the Three Tuns."

'' Oh no — it is not that I am particular —
but I haven't a brush or comb or anvthinsf ! "

CHAPTER XV.

All the evening Melbury had been
coming to his door saying, '' I wonder
where In the w^orld 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 get some parsley."

Melbury searched the garden, the parsley-
bed, and the orchard, but could find no
trace of her, and then he made Inquiries at
the cottacres 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

CH. XV. THE WOODLANDERS. 299

let out the fact that she had heard a scream
in the wood, though from which direction
she could not say.

This set Melbury's fears on end. He
told the men to light lanterns, and headed
by himself they started, Creedle following
at the last moment with quite a * burden of
grapnels and ropes which he could not be
persuaded to leave behind, the company
being joined by the hollow-turner and Caw-
tree who kept the cider-house as they
went alono^.

They explored the precincts of the village,
and in a short time lighted upon the man-
trap. 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 instru-
ment some frayings from Grace's clothing-
No intelligence of any kind was gained till
they met a woodman of Delborough, who

THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

said that he had seen a lady answering to
the description her father gave of Grace,
walkino- throuQ^h the wood on a orentleman's
arm in the direction of Sherton.

" Was he clutchinor her tio-ht ? " said

o o

Melbury.

" Well-^rather," said the man.

" Did she walk lame ? "

''Well 'tis true her head hung over to-
wards him a bit."

Creedle groaned tragically.

Melbury, not suspecting the presence of
Fitzpiers, coupled this account with the man-
trap and the scream ; he could not understand
what it all meant, but the sinister event of
the trap made him follow on. Accordingly,
they bore away towards the town, shouting
as they went, and in due course emerged
upon the highw^ay.

N earing Sherton Abbas, the previous in-
formation was confirmed by other strollers,
though the gendeman's supporting arm had

XV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 301

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 further 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 trudo-ed onward till the
lamplight from the town began to illuminate
their fronts. At the entrance to the Hiorh
Street they got fresh scent of the pursued,
but coupled with the new condition that the
lady in the costume described had been
going up the street alone.

" Faith — I believe she's mesmerised, or
walking in her sleep ! " said INIelbury.

However, the identity of this woman with
Grace was by no means certain ; but they
plodded along the street. Percomb the hair-
dresser, who had despoiled Marty of her
tresses, was standing at his door, and they
duly put inquiries to him.

302 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'' Ah — how's Little Hintock folk by now ! "
he said before replying. '' Never have I
been over there since one winter night some
three year ago — and then I lost myself
finding it. How can ye live in such a one-
eyed place ? Great Hintock is bad enough —
but Little Hintock — the bats and owls would
drive me melancholy-mad ! It took two days
to raise my sperrits to their true pitch again
after that night I went there. Mr. IMelbury,
sir, as a man that's put by money, why not
retire and live here, and see something of
the world ? "

The responses at last given by him to
their queries guided them to the building
that offered the best accommodation in
Sherton — having been enlarged contempor-
aneously with the construction of the raihvay
— namely, the Earl of Wessex Hotel.

Leaving the others without, Melbury made
prompt inquiry here. His alarm was les-
sened, though his perplexity was increased,

XV. THE WOODLAND ERS. 303

when he received a brief reply that such a
lady was in the house.

" Do vou know if it is mv daughter ? "
asked ^Nlelbury.

The waiter did not.

"Do you know the lady's name ? ^'

Of this, too, the household was ignorant, the
hotel having been taken by brand-new people
from a distance. They knew the gentleman
very well by sight, and had not thought it
necessary to ask him to enter his name.

"Oh, the gentleman appears again now,"
said Melbury to himself. " Well, I want to
see the lady," he declared.

A message was taken up, and after some
delay the shape of Grace appeared descend-
ing round the bend of the staircase, looking
as if she lived there, but In other respects
rather guilty and frightened.

"Why — what the name — " began her
father. " I thought you went out to get
parsley ! "

304 THE WOODLAXDERS. chap.

" Oh, yes — I did — but it is all right," said
Grace in a flurried whisper. " I am not
alone here. I am here with Edred. It is
entirely owing to an accident, father."

** Edred ! An accident ! How does he
come here ? I thought he was two hundred
mile off."

'' Yes ; so he is — I mean he has got a
beautiful practice two hundred miles off: he
has bought it with his own money, some that
came to him. But he travelled here, and I
was nearly caught in a man-trap, and that's
how it is I am here. We were just thinking
of sending a messenger to let you know."

Melbury did not seem to be particularly
enlightened by this explanation.

" You were caught in a man-trap ?"

" Yes ; my dress was. That's how it arose.
Edred is up stairs in his own sitting-room,"
she went on. ''He would not mind seeing
you, I am sure."

" Oh, faith, I don't want to see him ! I

XV. THE WOODLANDERS. 305

have seen him too often a'ready. I'll see
him another time, perhaps, if 'tis to oblige
'ee."

*' He came to see me ; he wanted to con
suit me about this large partnership I speak
of, as it is very promising."

'' Oh, I am glad to hear it," said Melbury
drily.

A pause ensued, during which the in-
quiring faces and whitey-brown clothes of
Melbury's companions appeared in the
doorway.

'' Then baint you coming home with us ?"
he asked.

'' I — I think not," said Grace, blushing.

'* H'm — very well — you are your own mis-
tress," he returned in tones which seemed to
assert otherwise. "Good-night;" and Mel-
bury retreated towards the door.

'' Don't be angry, father," she said, follow-
ing him a few steps. '' I have done it for
the best."

VOL. III. X

3o6 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

'' I am not angry, though it is true I have
been a Httle misled in this. However, good-
night. I must get home along."

He left the hotel, not without relief, for to
be under the eyes of strangers while he con-
versed with his lost child had embarrassed
him much. His search-party, too, had
looked awkw^ard there, having rushed to the
task of investigation — some in their shirt-
sleeves, others in their leather aprons, and
all much stained — just as they had come
from their work of barking, and not in their
Sherton marketing attire ; while Creedle, with
his ropes and grapnels and air of impending
tragedy, had added melancholy to gawkiness.

'' Now, neighbours," said Melbury, on join-
ing them, ''as it is getting late we'll leg it
home again as fast as we can. I ought to
tell you that there has been some mistake —
some arrangement entered into between Mr.
and Mrs. Fitzpiers which I didn't quite
understand — an important practice in the

XV. THE WOODLANDERS. 307

Midland counties has come to him, which
made it necessary for her to join him to-night
— so she says. That's all it was — and I'm
sorry I dragged you out."

''Well," said the hollow-turner, "here be
we six mile from home, and night-time, and
not a hoss or four-footed 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 lamp-
less 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 comfort-
able by the long table, and stretched out
their legs upon the herring-boned sand of
the floor. Melbury himself, restless as usual,

X 2

3o8 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

walked to the door while he waited for them,
and looked up and down the street.

''I'd gle her a good shaking if she were
my maid ; pretending to go out in garden,
and leading folk a twelve-mile traipse that
have got to get up at five o'clock to-morrow,"
said a bark-ripper ; who, not working re-
gularly for Melbury, could afford to indulge
in strong opinions.

" I don't speak so warm as that," said the
hollow-turner, " but if 'tis right for couples
to make a country talk about their sepa-
rating, and excite the neighbours, and
then make fools of 'em like this, why, I
haven't stood upon one leg for five-and-
twenty year."

All his listeners knew that when he alluded
to his foot-lathe in these enigmatic terms,
the speaker meant to be impressive ; and
Creedle chimed in with, '' Ah, young women
do wax wanton in these days ! Why couldn't
she ha' bode with her father, and been faith-

XV. THE WOODLANDERS. 309

ful." Poor Creedle was thinking of his old
employer.

" But this deceiving of folks is nothing
unusual in matrimony," said Farmer Cawtree.
'' I knowed a man and wife — faith, I don't
mind owning as there's no strangers here, that
the pair were my own relations — they'd be at
it that hot one hour that you'd hear the poker,
and the tongs, and the bellows, and the warm-
ing-pan, flee across the house with the move-
ments of their vengeance ; and the next hour
you'd hear 'em singing ' The Spotted Cow '
together as peaceable as two holy twins ; yes
— and very good voices they had, and would
strike in like professional ballet-singers to
one another's support in the high notes."

" And I knowed a woman, and the husband
o' her went away for four-and-twenty year,"
said the bark-ripper. '' And one night he
came home when she was sitting by the fire,
and thereupon he sat down himself on the
other side of the chimney-corner. * Well,'

3IO THE WOODLANDERS. char

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 chimney-corner,
and were found by the neighbours sound
asleep in their chairs, not having known
what to talk about at all."

" Well, I don't care who the man is,"
said Creedle, '' they required a good deal
to talk about, and that's true. It won't
be the same with these."

"No. He is such a projick, you see.
And she is a wonderful scholar too ! "

" What w^omen do know nowadays ! "
observed the hollow-turner. " You can't
deceive 'em as you could in my time."

" What they knowed then was not small,"
said John Upjohn. " Always a good deal

XV. THE WOOD LANDERS. 311

more than the men ! Why, when I went
courting my wife that is now, the skilful-
ness that she would show in keeping me
on her pretty side as she walked was
beyond all belief. Perhaps you've noticed
that she's got a pretty side to her face
as well as a plain one ? "

" I can't say I've noticed it particular
much," said the hollow-turner blandly.

" Well," continued Upjohn, not discon-
certed, " 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

312 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

a cotton thread, like a blind ram ; for that
was in the third cHmate of our courtship
. . . . No ; I don't think the women have
got cleverer, for they was never otherwise."

" How many climates may there be in
courtship, Mr. Upjohn ? " inquired a youth
— the same who had assisted at Winter-
borne's Christmas party.

" Five — from the coolest to the hottest —
leastwise there was five in mine."

'' Can ye give us the chronicle of 'em,
Mr. Upjohn ? "

'' Yes — I could. I could certainly. But
'tis quite unnecessary. They'll come to
ye by nater, young man, too soon for your
good."

''At present Mrs. Fitzpiers can lead the
doctor as your mis'ess could lead you," the
hollow-turner 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

XV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 313

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 girl."

Melbury now returned to the room, and
the men having declared themselves re-
freshed, they all started on the homeward
journey, which was by no means cheerless
under the rays of the high moon. Having
to walk the whole distance they came by
a footpath rather shorter than the highway,
though difficult except to those who knew
the country well. This brought them by
way of Great Hintock ; and passing the
churchyard they observed as they talked a
motionless figure standing by the gate.

'' I think it was Marty South," said the
hollow-turner parenthetically.

'' I think 'twas ; 'a was always a lonely maid,"
said Upjohn. And they passed on homeward,
and thought of the matter no more.

314 THE WOODLANDERS. chap.

It was Marty, as they had supposed.
That evening had been the particular one
of the week upon which Grace and herseh^
had been accustomed to privately deposit
flowers on Giles's grave, and this was the
first occasion since his death eight months
earlier on which Grace had failed to keep her
appointment. Marty had waited in the road
just outside Little Hintock, where her fellow-
pilgrim had been wont to join her, till she
was weary ; and at last, thinking that Grace
had missed her and gone on alone, she
followed 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

XV. THE WOODLAXDERS. 315

two hours had passed. She then heard the
footsteps of Melbury's men, who presently
passed on their return from the search. In
the silence of the night Marty could not
help hearing fragments of their conversation,
from which she acquired a general idea of
what had occurred, and where Mrs. Fitzpiers
then was.

Immediately they had dropped down the
hill she entered the churchyard, going to a
secluded corner behind the bushes, where
rose the unadorned stone that marked the
last bed of Giles 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.

3i6 THE WOODLANDERS. CH. xv.

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 I — whenever 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 cider wring, 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 good things ! "

THE END.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAY.

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