Some few days later, Fitzpiers started on the back of this horse to see
a patient in the aforesaid Vale. It was about five o'clock in the
evening when he went away, and at bedtime he had not reached home.
There was nothing very singular in this, though she was not aware that
he had any patient more than five or six miles distant in that
direction. The clock had struck one before Fitzpiers entered the
house, and he came to his room softly, as if anxious not to disturb her.
The next morning she was stirring considerably earlier than he.
In the yard there was a conversation going on about the mare; the man
who attended to the horses, Darling included, insisted that the latter
was "hag-rid;" for when he had arrived at the stable that morning she
was in such a state as no horse could be in by honest riding. It was
true that the doctor had stabled her himself when he got home, so that
she was not looked after as she would have been if he had groomed and
fed her; but that did not account for the appearance she presented, if
Mr. Fitzpiers's journey had been only where he had stated. The
phenomenal exhaustion of Darling, as thus related, was sufficient to
develop a whole series of tales about riding witches and demons, the
narration of which occupied a considerable time.
Grace returned in-doors. In passing through the outer room she picked
up her husband's overcoat which he had carelessly flung down across a
chair. A turnpike ticket fell out of the breast-pocket, and she saw
that it had been issued at Middleton Gate. He had therefore visited
Middleton the previous night, a distance of at least five-and-thirty
miles on horseback, there and back.
During the day she made some inquiries, and learned for the first time
that Mrs. Charmond was staying at Middleton Abbey. She could not
resist an inference--strange as that inference was.
A few days later he prepared to start again, at the same time and in
the same direction. She knew that the state of the cottager who lived
that way was a mere pretext; she was quite sure he was going to Mrs.
Charmond. Grace was amazed at the mildness of the passion which the
suspicion engendered in her. She was but little excited, and her
jealousy was languid even to death. It told tales of the nature of her
affection for him. In truth, her antenuptial regard for Fitzpiers had
been rather of the quality of awe towards a superior being than of
tender solicitude for a lover. It had been based upon mystery and
strangeness--the mystery of his past, of his knowledge, of his
professional skill, of his beliefs. When this structure of ideals was
demolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely
human as the Hintock people themselves, a new foundation was in demand
for an enduring and stanch affection--a sympathetic interdependence,
wherein mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive
alliance. Fitzpiers had furnished none of that single-minded
confidence and truth out of which alone such a second union could
spring; hence it was with a controllable emotion that she now watched
the mare brought round.