led 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's 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 remained a wish
with him. His freedom from conventional errors and crusted prejudices
had, indeed, been such as to retard rather than accelerate his advance
in Hintock and its neighborhood, 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 father's 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 age was shining 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. 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 bedchamber.

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
foregoing troubles? Alas!--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
Fitzpiers first took up his residence there still remained; but as it
had fallen into disuse with the collapse of his practice, and his
elopement, she did not venture to pull it now.

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 recognized her husband in the speaker at once. Her
effort was now to disguise her own acce