ion of his hopes. But not a soul knew of
his languor, and he did not think the case serious enough to send for a
medical man. After a few days he was better again, and crept about his
home in a great coat, attending to his simple wants as usual with his
own hands. So matters stood when the limpid inertion of Grace's
pool-like existence was disturbed as by a geyser. She received a
letter from Fitzpiers.

Such a terrible letter it was in its import, though couched in the
gentlest language. In his absence Grace had grown to regard him with
toleration, and her relation to him with equanimity, till she had
almost forgotten how trying his presence would be. He wrote briefly
and unaffectedly; he made no excuses, but informed her that he was
living quite alone, and had been led to think that they ought to be
together, if she would make up her mind to forgive him. He therefore
purported to cross the Channel to Budmouth by the steamer on a day he
named, which she found to be three days after the time of her present
reading.

He said that he could not come to Hintock for obvious reasons, which
her father would understand even better than herself. As the only
alternative she was to be on the quay to meet the steamer when it
arrived from the opposite coast, probably about half an hour before
midnight, bringing with her any luggage she might require; join him
there, and pass with him into the twin vessel, which left immediately
the other entered the harbor; returning thus with him to his
continental dwelling-place, which he did not name. He had no intention
of showing himself on land at all.

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

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

"I had felt I would not," she answered. "But I did not know what you
would say."

"If he comes and lives in England, not too near here and in a
respectable way, and wants you to come to him, I am not sure that I'll
oppose him in wishing it," muttered Melbury. "I'd stint myself to keep
you both in a genteel and seemly style. But go abroad you never shall
with my consent."

There the question rested that day. Grace was unable to reply to her
husband in the absence of an address, and the morrow came, and the next
day, and th