dden
hope dawned upon him; he wondered if her affirmation were true. He
asked himself whether it were not the act of a woman whose natural
purity and innocence had blinded her to the contingencies of such an
announcement. His wide experience of the sex had taught him that, in
many cases, women who ventured on hazardous matters did so because they
lacked an imagination sensuous enough to feel their full force. In
this light Grace's bold avowal might merely have denoted the
desperation of one who was a child to the realities of obliquity.

Fitzpiers's mental sufferings and suspense led him at last to take a
melancholy journey to the neighborhood of Little Hintock; and here he
hovered for hours around the scene of the purest emotional experiences
that he had ever known in his life. He walked about the woods that
surrounded Melbury's house, keeping out of sight like a criminal. It
was a fine evening, and on his way homeward he passed near Marty
South's cottage. As usual she had lighted her candle without closing
her shutters; he saw her within as he had seen her many times before.

She was polishing tools, and though he had not wished to show himself,
he could not resist speaking in to her through the half-open door.
"What are you doing that for, Marty?"

"Because I want to clean them. They are not mine." He could see,
indeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy,
and another was a bill-hook which she could only have used with both
hands. The spade, though not a new one, had been so completely
burnished that it was bright as silver.

Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne's, and he
put the question to her.

She replied in the affirmative. "I am going to keep 'em," she said,
"but I can't get his apple-mill and press. I wish could; it is going
to be sold, they say."

"Then I will buy it for you," said Fitzpiers. "That will be making you
a return for a kindness you did me." His glance fell upon the girl's
rare-colored hair, which had grown again. "Oh, Marty, those locks of
yours--and that letter! But it was a kindness to send it,
nevertheless," he added, musingly.

After this there was confidence between them--such confidence as there
had never been before. Marty was shy, indeed, of speaking about the
letter, and her motives in writing it; but she thanked him warmly for
his promise of the cider-press. She would travel with it in the autumn
season, as he had d