To his inquiry if she were hurt she made some incoherent reply to the
effect that she did not know. The damage in other respects was little
or none: the phaeton was righted, Mrs. Charmond placed in it, and the
reins given to the servant. It appeared that she had been deceived by
the removal of the house, imagining the gap caused by the demolition to
be the opening of the road, so that she turned in upon the ruins
instead of at the bend a few yards farther on.
"Drive home--drive home!" cried the lady, impatiently; and they started
on their way. They had not, however, gone many paces when, the air
being still, Winterborne heard her say "Stop; tell that man to call the
doctor--Mr. Fitzpiers--and send him on to the House. I find I am hurt
more seriously than I thought."
Winterborne took the message from the groom and proceeded to the
doctor's at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into the
darkness, and waited till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door. He
stood for a few minutes looking at the window which by its light
revealed the room where Grace was sitting, and went away under the
gloomy trees.
Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw open
for the first time. Contrary to his expectation there was visible no
sign of that confusion or alarm which a serious accident to the
mistress of the abode would have occasioned. He was shown into a room
at the top of the staircase, cosily and femininely draped, where, by
the light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figure
reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of
magnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown
formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her
hair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder,
was thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a
cigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream of
smoke towards the ceiling.
The doctor's first feeling was a sense of his exaggerated prevision in
having brought appliances for a serious case; the next, something more
curious. While the scene and the moment were new to him and
unanticipated, the sentiment and essence of the moment were
indescribably familiar. What could be the cause of it? Probably a
dream.
Mrs. Charmond did not move more than to raise her eyes to him, and he
came and stood by her. She glanced up at his face across her brows and
forehead, and then he observed a blush creep slowly over her decidedly
handsome cheeks. Her eyes, which had lingered upon him with an
inquiring, conscious expression, were hastily withdrawn, and she
mechanically applied the cigarette again to her lips.