"Yes," said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband

had hired a carriage all the way from Shottsford. "What it will cost!"

she said.

"I don't care what it costs!" he exclaimed, testily. "I was determined

to get her home. Why she went away I can't think! She acts in a way

that is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see." (Grace

had not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the

disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) "Since Edgar

is come," he continued, "he might have waited in till I got home, to

ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; where

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is he gone?"

Mrs. Melbury did not know positively; but she told her husband that

there was not much doubt about the place of his first visit after an

absence. She had, in fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of the

Manor House.

Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at this

moment, when there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, or

at any rate to ride along the Shottsford road to meet his ailing wife,

he should be doing despite to her by going elsewhere. The old man went

out-of-doors again; and his horse being hardly unsaddled as yet, he

told Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he again mounted, and rode

off at the heels of the surgeon.

By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go any

lengths in combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter's

husband. He would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means,

rough or fair: in his view there could come of his interference nothing

worse than what existed at present. And yet to every bad there is a

worse.

He had entered by the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on this

side, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of

Fitzpiers's horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which his

precursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visible

here in the gloom of the boughs he found to be Darling, as left by

Fitzpiers.

"D--n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?" said

Melbury.

He profited by Fitzpiers's example; dismounting, he tied his horse

under an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the other

had done. He was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in his

investigation, and did not hesitate to gently open the front door

without ringing.




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