solicitor they were
about to consult, he was on the point of seeing him; and the case was
clear enough. Thus the simple Melbury, urged by his parental alarm at
her danger by the representations of his companion, and by the doctor's
letter, had yielded, and sat down to tell her roundly that she was
virtually free.

"And you'd better write also to the gentleman," suggested Beaucock,
who, scenting notoriety and the germ of a large practice in the case,
wished to commit Melbury to it irretrievably; to effect which he knew
that nothing would be so potent as awakening the passion of Grace for
Winterborne, so that her father might not have the heart to withdraw
from his attempt to make her love legitimate when he discovered that
there were difficulties in the way.

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

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

At these warm words Winterborne was not less dazed than he was moved in
heart. The novelty of the avowal rendered what it carried with it
inapprehensible by him in its entirety.

Only a few short months ago completely estranged from this
family--beholding Grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed with
the alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the then
popular and fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his social
boundary down to so recent a time that flowers then folded were hardly
faded yet--he was now asked by that jealously guarding father of hers
to take courage--to get himself ready for the day when he should be
able to claim her.

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

Well, he could not believe it. Surely the adamantine barrier of
marriage with another could not be pierced like this! It did v