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 half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could
in the dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well?
Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly
gone, you know--and after this I would not care to recover it if I
could."

By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where were now her
discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him
in his pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The
first step was 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 was a lumber-room,
containing abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in piles
which obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks
and lairs in which a person would not be discerned even should an eye
gaze in at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged
to the previous owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late
Mr. Charmond at the auction; but changing fashion, and the tastes of a
young wife, had caused them to be relegated to this dungeon.

Here Fitzpiers sat on the floor against the wall till she had hauled
out materials for a bed, which she spread on the floor in one of the
aforesaid nooks. She obtained water and a basin, and washed the dried
blood from his face and hands; and when he was comfortably reclining,
fetched food from the larder. While he ate her eyes lingered anxiously
on his face, following its every movement with such loving-kindness 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 m