e 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, and wondered what Fitzpiers would do next. It was
the hope of every one that, finding she did not arrive, he would return
again to France; and as for Grace, she was willing to write to him on
the most kindly terms if he would only keep away.

The night passed, Grace lying tense and wide awake, and her relatives,
in great part, likewise. When they met the next morning they were pale
and anxious, though neither speaking of the subject which occupied all
their thoughts. The day passed as quietly as the previous ones, and
she began to think that in the rank caprice of his moods he had
abandoned the idea of getting her to join him as quickly as it was
formed. All on a sudden, some person who had just come from Sherton
entered the house with the news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his way home
to Hintock. He had been seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex
Hotel.

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 shame, I hear, is
gone away from him to Switzerland, so that chapter of his life is
probably over. If he chooses to make a home for ye I think you should
not say him nay, Grace. Certainly he cannot very well live at Hintock
without a blow to his pride; but if he can bear that, and likes Hintock
best, why, 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 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