The Woodlanders

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.