The Woodlanders

A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt

enough in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at

the door than he heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still

more unwell than she had been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in

the neighborhood they had called him in, and he had instantly directed

them to get her to bed. They were not, however, to consider her

illness serious--a feverish, nervous attack the result of recent

events, was what she was suffering from, and she would doubtless be

well in a few days.

Winterborne, therefore, did not remain, and his hope of seeing her that

evening was disappointed. Even this aggravation of her morning

condition did not greatly depress Melbury. He knew, he said, that his

daughter's constitution was sound enough. It was only these domestic

troubles that were pulling her down. Once free she would be blooming

again. Melbury diagnosed rightly, as parents usually do.

He set out for London the next morning, Jones having paid another visit

and assured him that he might leave home without uneasiness, especially

on an errand of that sort, which would the sooner put an end to her

suspense.

The timber-merchant had been away only a day or two when it was told in

Hintock that Mr. Fitzpiers's hat had been found in the wood. Later on

in the afternoon the hat was brought to Melbury, and, by a piece of

ill-fortune, into Grace's presence. It had doubtless lain in the wood

ever since his fall from the horse, but it looked so clean and

uninjured--the summer weather and leafy shelter having much favored its

preservation--that Grace could not believe it had remained so long

concealed. A very little of fact was enough to set her fevered fancy

at work at this juncture; she thought him still in the neighborhood;

she feared his sudden appearance; and her nervous malady developed

consequences so grave that Dr. Jones began to look serious, and the

household was alarmed.

It was the beginning of June, and the cuckoo at this time of the summer

scarcely ceased his cry for more than two or three hours during the

night. The bird's note, so familiar to her ears from infancy, was now

absolute torture to the poor girl. On the Friday following the

Wednesday of Melbury's departure, and the day after the discovery of

Fitzpiers's hat, the cuckoo began at two o'clock in the morning with a

sudden cry from one of Melbury's apple-trees, not three yards from the

window of Grace's room.

"Oh, he is coming!" she cried, and in her terror sprang clean from the

bed out upon the floor.