Weeks and months of mourning for Winterborne had been passed by Grace
in the soothing monotony of the memorial act to which she and Marty had
devoted themselves. Twice a week the pair went in the dusk to Great
Hintock, and, like the two mourners in Cymbeline, sweetened his sad
grave with their flowers and their tears. Sometimes Grace thought that
it was a pity neither one of them had been his wife for a little while,
and given the world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes.
Nothing ever had brought home to her with such force as this death how
little acquirements and culture weigh beside sterling personal
character. While her simple sorrow for his loss took a softer edge with
the lapse of the autumn and winter seasons, her self-reproach at having
had a possible hand in causing it knew little abatement.
Little occurred at Hintock during these months of the fall and decay of
the leaf. Discussion of the almost contemporaneous death of Mrs.
Charmond abroad had waxed and waned. Fitzpiers had had a marvellous
escape from being dragged into the inquiry which followed it, through
the accident of their having parted just before under the influence of
Marty South's letter--the tiny instrument of a cause deep in nature.
Her body was not brought home. It seemed to accord well with the
fitful fever of that impassioned woman's life that she should not have
found a native grave. She had enjoyed but a life-interest in the
estate, which, after her death, passed to a relative of her
husband's--one who knew not Felice, one whose purpose seemed to be to
blot out every vestige of her.
On a certain day in February--the cheerful day of St. Valentine, in
fact--a letter reached Mrs. Fitzpiers, which had been mentally promised
her for that particular day a long time before.
It announced that Fitzpiers was living at some midland town, where he
had obtained a temporary practice as assistant to some local medical
man, whose curative principles were all wrong, though he dared not set
them right. He had thought fit to communicate with her on that day of
tender traditions to inquire if, in the event of his obtaining a
substantial practice that he had in view elsewhere, she could forget
the past and bring herself to join him.
There the practical part ended; he then went on--
"My last year of experience has added ten years to my age, dear Grace
and dearest wife that ever erring man undervalued. You may be
absolutely indifferent to what I say, but let me say it: I have never
loved any woman alive or dead as I love, respect, and honor you at this
present moment. What you told me in the pride and haughtiness of your
heart I never believed [this, by the way, was not strictly true]; but
even if I had believed it, it could never have estranged me from you.
Is there any use in telling you--no, there is not--that I dream of your
ripe lips more frequently than I say my prayers; that the old familiar
rustle of your dress often returns upon my mind till it distracts me?
If you could condescend even only to see me again you would be
breathing life into a corpse. My pure, pure Grace, modest as a
turtledove, how came I ever to possess you? For the sake of being
present in your mind on this lovers' day, I think I would almost rather
have you hate me a little than not think of me at all. You may call my
fancies whimsical; but remember, sweet, lost one, that 'nature is one
in love, and where 'tis fine it sends some instance of itself.' I will
not intrude upon you further now. Make me a little bit happy by
sending back one line to say that you will consent, at any rate, to a
short interview. I will meet you and leave you as a mere acquaintance,
if you will only afford me this slight means of making a few
explanations, and of putting my position before you. Believe me, in
spite of all you may do or feel, Your lover always (once your husband), "E."