Marty did not fully comprehend; and she answered, "He belongs to
neither of us now, and your beauty is no more powerful with him than my
plainness. I have come to help you, ma'am. He never cared for me, and
he cared much for you; but he cares for us both alike now."

"Oh don't, don't, Marty!"

Marty said no more, but knelt over Winterborne from the other side.

"Did you meet my hus--Mr. Fitzpiers?"

"Then what brought you here?"

"I come this way sometimes. I have got to go to the farther side of
the wood this time of the year, and am obliged to get there before four
o'clock in the morning, to begin heating the oven for the early baking.
I have passed by here often at this time."

Grace looked at her quickly. "Then did you know I was here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did you tell anybody?"

"No. I knew you lived in the hut, that he had gied it up to ye, and
lodged out himself."

"Did you know where he lodged?"

"No. That I couldn't find out. Was it at Delborough?"

"No. It was not there, Marty. Would it had been! It would have
saved--saved--" To check her tears she turned, and seeing a book on the
window-bench, took it up. "Look, Marty, this is a Psalter. He was not
an outwardly religious man, but he was pure and perfect in his heart.
Shall we read a psalm over him?"

"Oh yes--we will--with all my heart!"

Grace opened the thin brown book, which poor Giles had kept at hand
mainly for the convenience of whetting his pen-knife upon its leather
covers. She began to read in that rich, devotional voice peculiar to
women only on such occasions. When it was over, Marty said, "I should
like to pray for his soul."

"So should I," said her companion. "But we must not."

"Why? Nobody would know."

Grace could not resist the argument, influenced as she was by the sense
of making amends for having neglected him in the body; and their tender
voices united and filled the narrow room with supplicatory murmurs that
a Calvinist might have envied. They had hardly ended when now and more
numerous foot-falls were audible, also persons in conversation, one of
whom Grace recognized as her father.

She rose, and went to the outer apartment, in which there was only such
light as beamed from the inner one. Melbury and Mrs. Melbury were
standing there.

"I don't reproach you, Grace," said her father, with an estranged
manner, and in a voice not at all like his old voice. "What has come
upon you and us is beyond rep