"And from me too, then. For my blood is no better than theirs."

He looked at her with a droll sort of awakening. It was, indeed, a

startling anomaly that this woman of the tribe without should be

standing there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments were as he had

said. In their travels together she had ranged so unerringly at his

level in ideas, tastes, and habits that he had almost forgotten how his

heart had played havoc with his principles in taking her to him.

"Ah YOU--you are refined and educated into something quite different,"

he said, self-assuringly.

"I don't quite like to think that," she murmured with soft regret. "And

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I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was brought

up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically

different. At any rate, I don't feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault,

and a great blemish in me. But I hope you will put up with it, Edgar."

Fitzpiers said that he would endeavor to do so; and as it was now

getting on for dusk, they prepared to perform the last stage of their

journey, so as to arrive at Hintock before it grew very late.

In less than half an hour they started, the cider-makers in the yard

having ceased their labors and gone away, so that the only sounds

audible there now were the trickling of the juice from the tightly

screwed press, and the buzz of a single wasp, which had drunk itself so

tipsy that it was unconscious of nightfall. Grace was very cheerful at

the thought of being soon in her sylvan home, but Fitzpiers sat beside

her almost silent. An indescribable oppressiveness had overtaken him

with the near approach of the journey's end and the realities of life

that lay there.

"You don't say a word, Edgar," she observed. "Aren't you glad to get

back? I am."

"You have friends here. I have none."

"But my friends are yours."

"Oh yes--in that sense."

The conversation languished, and they drew near the end of Hintock

Lane. It had been decided that they should, at least for a time, take

up their abode in her father's roomy house, one wing of which was quite

at their service, being almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen had

been painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in the

wedded pair's absence; and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer

that there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival,

that not the smallest detail remained undone. To make it all complete a

ground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent

outer door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate was screwed--for mere

ornament, such a sign being quite superfluous where everybody knew the

latitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round.




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