It was at this time that Grace approached the house. Her knock, always
soft in virtue of her nature, was softer to-day by reason of her
strange errand. However, it was heard by the farmer's wife who kept
the house, and Grace was admitted. Opening the door of the doctor's
room the housewife glanced in, and imagining Fitzpiers absent, asked
Miss Melbury to enter and wait a few minutes while she should go and
find him, believing him to be somewhere on the premises. Grace
acquiesced, went in, and sat down close to the door.
As soon as the door was shut upon her she looked round the room, and
started at perceiving a handsome man snugly ensconced in the couch,
like the recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the
fifteenth century, except that his hands were by no means clasped in
prayer. She had no doubt that this was the doctor. Awaken him herself
she could not, and her immediate impulse was to go and pull the broad
ribbon with a brass rosette which hung at one side of the fireplace.
But expecting the landlady to re-enter in a moment she abandoned this
intention, and stood gazing in great embarrassment at the reclining
philosopher.
The windows of Fitzpiers's soul being at present shuttered, he probably
appeared less impressive than in his hours of animation; but the light
abstracted from his material presence by sleep was more than
counterbalanced by the mysterious influence of that state, in a
stranger, upon the consciousness of a beholder so sensitive. So far as
she could criticise at all, she became aware that she had encountered a
specimen of creation altogether unusual in that locality. The
occasions on which Grace had observed men of this stamp were when she
had been far removed away from Hintock, and even then such examples as
had met her eye were at a distance, and mainly of coarser fibre than
the one who now confronted her.
She nervously wondered why the woman had not discovered her mistake and
returned, and went again towards the bell-pull. Approaching the chimney
her back was to Fitzpiers, but she could see him in the glass. An
indescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes
of the reflected image were open, gazing wonderingly at her, and under
the curious unexpectedness of the sight she became as if spellbound,
almost powerless to turn her head and regard the original. However, by
an effort she did turn, when there he lay asleep the same as before.
Her startled perplexity as to what he could be meaning was sufficient
to lead her to precipitately abandon her errand. She crossed quickly
to the door, opened and closed it noiselessly, and went out of the
house unobserved. By the time that she had gone down the path and
through the garden door into the lane she had recovered her equanimity.
Here, screened by the hedge, she stood and considered a while.