The Woodlanders

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.