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"Now, neighbors," said Melbury, on joining them, "as it is getting late, we'll leg it home again as fast as we can. I ought to tell you that there has been some mistake some arrangement entered into between Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpiers which I didn't quite understand an important practice in the Midland counties has come to him, which made it necessary for her to join him to-night so she says.
"I don't want that kind of blessing." But after a moment's thought she went and delivered the information; and Grammer had the satisfaction of seeing Giles walk slowly to the bend in the leafy defile along which Grace would have to return. Meanwhile Mrs. Melbury, deserted by Grace, had perceived Fitzpiers and Winterborne, and also the move of the latter.
Albans, where Fitzpiers commenced his retaliation, by proclaiming, in the King's name, the old Saxon charter of Alfred and Edward, renewed by Henry I., as well as the repeal of the Forest Laws. Back came John in rage and fury, and let loose his free-companions on the estates of the confederates. At Northampton, Stephen Langton met him, and forbade his violence.
Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings, arguments, and persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by inclinations of her own at times. No woman is without aspirations, which may be innocent enough within certain limits; and Grace had been so trained socially, and educated intellectually, as to see clearly enough a pleasure in the position of wife to such a man as Fitzpiers.
Fitzpiers continued to regard the nearing picture, till at length their glances met for a moment, when she demurely sent off hers at a tangent and gave him the benefit of her three-quarter face, while with courteous completeness of conduct he lifted his hat in a large arc. Marty dropped behind; and when Fitzpiers held out his hand, Grace touched it with her fingers.
By this time Fitzpiers was quite recovered as to physical strength.
She turned away from Fitzpiers, and sobbed bitterly. "If you can get this posted at a place some miles away," he whispered, exhausted by the effort of writing "at Shottsford or Port-Bredy, or still better, Budmouth it will divert all suspicion from this house as the place of my refuge."
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 done, she said. She would be quite strong enough, with old Creedle as an assistant. "Ah! there was one nearer to him than you," said Fitzpiers, referring to Winterborne.
Had the old man been able to watch Fitzpiers narrowly enough, he would have observed that on rising and walking into the thicket he dropped blood as he went; that he had not proceeded fifty yards before he showed signs of being dizzy, and, raising his hands to his head, reeled and fell down. Grace was not the only one who watched and meditated in Hintock that night.
Somebody had looked over the wall to talk to the sawyers, and was telling them in a loud voice news in which the name of Mrs. Charmond soon arrested his ears. "Grammer, don't make so much noise with that grate," said the surgeon; at which Grammer reared herself upon her knees and held the fuel suspended in her hand, while Fitzpiers half opened the casement.
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