 CHAPTER 38 At these warm words Winterborne was not less days than he was moved in heart. The novelty of the avowl rendered what it carried with it inapprehensible by him in its entirety. Only a few short months ago, completely estranged from this family, beholding grace going to and fro in the distance, clothed with the alienating radiance of obvious superiority, the wife of the then popular and fashionable Fitzpiers, hopelessly outside his social boundary, down to so recent a time that flowers then folded were hardly faded yet. He was now asked by that jealously-godding father of hers to take courage, to get himself ready for the day when he should be able to claim her. The old times came back to him in dim procession, how he had been snubbed, how Melbury had despised his Christmas party, how that sweet coy grace herself had looked down upon him and his household arrangements, and poor creedle's contrivances. Well, he could not believe it. Surely the adamantine barrier of marriage with another could not be pierced like this. It did violence to custom, yet a new law might do anything. But was it at all within the bounds of probability that a woman who, over and above her own attainments, had been accustomed to those of a cultivated professional man, could ever be the wife of such as he? Since the date of his rejection, he had almost grown to see the reasonableness of that treatment. He had said to himself, again and again, that her father was right, that the poor she-old, Giles Winterborne, would never have been able to make such a dandy girl happy. Yet now that she had stood in a position father removed from his own than at first, he was asked to prepare to war. He was full of doubt. Nevertheless, it was not in him to show backwardness. To act so promptly as Melbury desired him to act seemed, indeed, scarcely wise, because of the uncertainty of events. Giles knew nothing of legal procedure, but he did know that for him to step up to grace as a lover, before the bond which bounder was actually dissolved, was simply an extravagant dream of her father's overstrained mind. He pitied Melbury for his almost childish enthusiasm, and saw that the aging man must have suffered acutely to be weakened to this unreasoning desire. Winterborne was far too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecture that the timber merchant, in his intense affection for grace, was courting him now because that young lady, when disunited, would be left in an anomalous position to escape which a bad husband was better than none. He felt quite sure that his old friend was simply on tinderhooks of anxiety to repair the almost irreparable era of dividing two whom nature had striven to join together in earlier days, and that in his honor to do this he was oblivious of formalities. The cautious supervision of his past years had overleaped itself at last. Hence Winterborne perceived that, in this new beginning, the necessary care not to compromise grace by two early advances must be exercised by himself. Winterborne was not quite so ardent as here to fore. There is no such thing as a stationary love, either loving more or loving less. But Giles himself recognized no decline in his sense of her dearness. If the flame did indeed burn lower now than when he had fetched her from Sherton at her last return from school, the marvel was small. He had been laboring ever since his rejection and her marriage to reduce his former passion to a docile friendship out of pure regard to its expediency, and their separation may have helped him to a partial success. A week and more passed, and there was no further news of Melbury. But the effect of the intelligence he had already transmitted upon the elastic-nerved daughter of the woods had been much what the old surgeon Jones had surmised. It had soothed her perturbed spirit better than all the opiates in the Famicopeia. She had slept unbrokenly a whole night and a day. The new law was to her a mysterious, beneficent, godlike entity, lately descended upon earth, that would make her as she once had been without trouble or annoyance. Her position fretted her, its abstract features rousing an aversion which was even greater than her aversion to the personality of him who had caused it. It was mortifying, productive of slights, undignified. Him she could forget, her circumstances she had always with her. She saw nothing of Winterborne during the days of her recovery, and perhaps on that account her fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue than it could have done if he had stood before her with all the specks and flaws inseparable from corporality. He rose upon her memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in alternation, sometimes leafy, and smeared with green lichen, as she had seen him among the sappy boughs of the plantations, sometimes cytostained, and with apple-pips in the hair of his arms, as she had met him on his return from cytomaking in white hot veil with his vats and presses beside him. In her secret hot she almost approximated to her father's enthusiasm in wishing to show Giles once for all how she still regarded him. The question whether the future would indeed bring them together for life was a standing wonder with her. She knew that it could not with any propriety do so just yet. But reverently believing in her father's sound judgment and knowledge as good girls want to do, she remembered what he had written about her giving a hint to Winterborne, lest there should be risk and delay, and her feelings were not averse to such a step so far as it could be done without danger at this early stage of the proceedings. From being a frail phantom of her former equitable self she returned in bounds to a condition of passable philosophy. She bloomed again in the face in the course of a few days, and was well enough to go about as usual. One day Mrs. Melbury proposed that for a change she should be driven in the gig to Sheraton Market, where the Melbury's man was going on other errands. Grace had no business whatever in Sheraton, but it crossed her mind that Winterborne would probably be there, and this made the thought of such a drive interesting. On the way she saw nothing of him, but when the horse was walking slowly through the obstructions of Sheep Street, she discerned the young man on the pavement. She thought of that time when he had been standing under his apple tree on her return from school, and of the tender opportunity then missed through her fastidiousness. Her heart rose in her throat. She abjured all such fastidiousness now, nor did she forget the last occasion on which she had beheld him in that town, making cider in the courtyard of the Earl of Wessex Hotel, while she was figuring as a fine lady in the balcony above. Grace directed the man to set her down there in the midst and immediately went up to her lover. Giles had not before observed her, and his eyes now suppressedly looked his pleasure, without the embarrassment that had formally mocked him at such meetings. When a few words had been spoken she said, actually, I have nothing to do. Perhaps you are deeply engaged. I? Not a bit. My business now at the best of times is small, I am sorry to say. Well then I am going into the abbey. Come along with me. The proposition had suggested itself as a quick escape from publicity, for many eyes were regarding her. She had hoped that sufficient time had elapsed for the extinction of curiosity, but it was quite otherwise. The people looked at her with tender interest as the deserted girl-wife, without obtrusiveness and without vulgarity, but she was ill-prepared for scrutiny in any shape. They walked about the abbey aisles and presently sat down. Not a soul was in the building saved themselves. She regarded a stained window with her head sideways and tentatively asked him if he remembered the last time they were in that town alone. He remembered it perfectly and remarked, You were a proud miss then, and as dainty as you were high. Perhaps you are now. Grace slowly shook her head, Affliction has taken all that out of me, she answered impressively. Perhaps I am too far the other way now. As there was something lurking in this that she could not explain, she added so quickly as not to allow him time to think of it. Has my father written to you at all? Yes, said Winterborne. She glanced ponderingly up at him, not about me. Yes. His mouth was lined with characterry, which told her that he had been bidden to take the hint as to the future which she had been bidden to give. The unexpected discovery sent a scarlet pulsation through Grace for the moment. However, it was only Giles who stood there, of whom she had no fear, and her self-possession returned. He said I was to sound you with a view to, what you will understand if you care to, continued Winterborne in a low voice, having been put on this track by herself. She was not disposed to abandon it in a hurry. They had been children together, and there was between them that familiarity as to personal affairs which only such acquaintanceship can give. You know, Giles, she answered, speaking in a very practical tone, that that is all very well, but I am in a very anomalous position at present, and I cannot say anything to the point about such things as those. No, he said with a stray air as regarded the subject. He was looking at her with a curious consciousness of discovery. He had not been imagining that their renewed intercourse would show her to him thus. For the first time he realized an unexpectedness in her, which after all, should not have been unexpected. She before him was not the girl Grace Melbury whom he used to know. Of course he might easily have prefigured as much, but it had never occurred to him. She was a woman who had been married. She had moved on, and without having lost her girlish modesty, she had lost her girlish shyness. The inevitable change, though known to him, had not been heated, and it struck him into a momentary fixity. The truth was that he had never come into close comradeship with her since her engagement to Fitzpiers. With the brief exception of the evening encounter on Rubdown Hill, when she met him with his cider apparatus, and that interview had been of too cursory a kind for insight. Winterborne had advanced too. He could criticize her. Times had been when to criticize a single trait in Grace Melbury would have lain as far beyond his powers as to criticize a deity. This thing was sure. It was a new woman in many ways whom he had come out to see, a creature of more ideas, more dignity, and, above all, more assurance than the original Grace had been capable of. He could not at first decide whether he was pleased or displeased at this, but upon the whole the novelty attracted him. She was so sweet and sensitive that she feared his silence be tokened something in his brain of the nature of an enemy to her. What are you thinking of that makes those lines come in your forehead? She asked. I did not mean to offend you by speaking of the time being premature as yet. Touched by the genuine loving kindness which had lain at the foundation of these words and much moved, Winterborne turned his face aside as he took her by the hand. He was grieved that he had criticized her. You are very good, dear Grace, he said in a low voice. You are better, much better than you used to be. He could not very well tell her how, and said with an evasive smile, you are prettier, which was not what he really had meant. He then remained still holding her right hand in his own right, so that they faced in opposite ways, and as he did not let go, she ventured upon a tender remonstrance. I think we have gone as far as we ought to go at present, and far enough to satisfy my poor father that we are the same as ever. You see, Giles, my case is not settled yet, and if, oh, suppose I never get free, there should be any hitch or informality. She drew a catching breath and turned pale. The dialogue had been affectionate comedy up to this point. The gloomy atmosphere of the past and the still gloomy horizon of the present had been for the interval forgotten. Now the whole environment came back. The due balance of shade among the light was restored. It is sure to be all right, I trust, she resumed, in uneasy accents. What did my father say the solicitor had told him? Oh, that all is sure enough. The case is so clear. Nothing could be clearer. But the legal part is not yet quite done, and finished, as is natural. Oh, no, of course not, she said, sunk in meek thought. But father said it was almost, did he not? Do you know anything about the new law that makes these things so easy? Nothing except the general fact that it enables ill-assorted husbands and wives to part in a way they could not formally do without an act of parliament. Have you to sign a paper or swear anything? Is it something like that? Yes, I believe so. How long has it been introduced? About six months or a year, the lawyer said, I think. To hear these two poor Arcadian innocents talk of imperial law would have made a humane person weep, who should have known what a dangerous structure they were building up on their supposed knowledge. They remained in thought like children in the presence of the incomprehensible. Giles, she said at last, it makes me quite weary when I think how serious my situation is, or has been. Shall we not go out from here now, as it may seem rather fast of me, are being so long together, I mean. If anybody were to see us, I am almost sure, she added uncertainly, that I ought not to let you hold my hand yet, knowing that the documents, or whatever it may be, have not been signed, so that I am still as married as ever, or almost. My dear father has forgotten himself, not that I feel morally bound to anyone else after what has taken place. No woman of spirit could, now, too, that several months have passed. But I wish to keep the proprieties as well as I can. Yes, yes, still your father reminds us that life is short. I myself feel that it is. That is why I wish to understand you in this that we have begun. At times, dear Grace, since receiving your father's letter, I am as uneasy and fearful as a child at what he said. If one of us were to die before the formal signing and sealing, that is to release you have been done, if we should drop out of the world, and never have made the most of this little, short but real opportunity, I should think to myself as I sunk down dying, would to my God that I had spoken out my whole heart, given her one poor little kiss when I had the chance to give it. But I never did, although she had promised to be mine some day, and now I never can. That's what I should think. She had begun by watching the words from his lips with a mournful regard, as though their passage were visible. But as he went on she dropped her glance. Yes, she said, I have thought that, too, and because I have thought it, I by no means meant, in speaking of the proprieties, to be reserved and cold to you who loved me so long ago, or to hurt you hot, as I used to do at that thoughtless time. Oh, not at all, indeed, but ought I to allow you? Oh, it is too quick, surely. Her eyes filled with tears of bewildered, alarmed emotion. Winterborne was too straightforward to influence her further against her better judgment. Yes, I suppose it is, he said repentantly. I'll wait till all is settled. What did your father say in that last letter? He meant about his progress with the petition, but she mistaking him frankly spoke of the personal part. He said, what I have implied, should I tell more plainly? Oh, no, don't, if it is a secret. Not at all. I will tell every word straight out, Giles, if you wish. He said I was to encourage you, there. But I cannot obey him further to-day. Come, let us go now. She gently slid her hand from his, and went in front of him out of the abbey. I was thinking of getting some dinner, said Winterborne, changing to the prosaic as they walked. And you too must require something. Do let me take you to a place I know. Grace was almost without a friend in the world outside her father's house. Her life with Fitzpiers had brought her no society, had sometimes, indeed, brought her deeper solitude and inconsideration than any she had ever known before. Hence it was a treat to her to find herself again the object of thoughtful care. But she questioned if to go publicly to dine with Giles Winterborne were not a proposal due rather to his unsophistication than to his discretion. She said gently that she would much prefer his ordering her lunch at some place, and then coming to tell her it was ready, while she remained in the abbey porch. Giles saw her secret reasoning, thought how hopelessly blind to propriety he was beside her, and went to do as she wished. He was not absent more than ten minutes, and found Grace where he had left her. It will be quite ready by the time you get there, he said, and told her the name of the inn at which the meal had been ordered, which was one that she had never heard of. I'll find it by inquiry, said Grace, setting out. And shall I see you again? Oh, yes, come to me there. It will not be like going together. I shall want you to find my father's man in the jig for me. He waited on some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour till he thought her lunch ended, and that he might fairly take advantage of her invitation to start her on her way home. He went straight to the three tons, a little tavern in a side street, scrupulously clean, but humble and inexpensive. On his way he had an occasional misgiving as to whether the place had been elegant enough for her, and as soon as he entered it and saw her in sconce there he perceived that he had blundered. Grace was seated in the only dining room that the simple old hostelry could boast of, which was also a general power on market days, a long, low apartment with a sanded floor herring-boned with a broom, a wide, red-curtained window to the street, and another to the garden. Grace had retreated to the end of the room looking out upon the ladder, the front part being full of a mixed company which had dropped in since he was there. She was in a mood of the greatest oppression. On arriving and seeing what the tavern was like, she had been taken by surprise, but having gone too far to retreat, she had heroically entered and sat down on the well-scrubbed settle, opposite the narrow table with its knives and steel forks, tin pepper boxes, blue salt cellars, and posters advertising the sale of bullocks against the wall. The last time that she had taken any meal in a public place it had been with Fitzpiers at the grand new Earl of Wessex Hotel in that town, after a two-months roaming and sojourning at the gigantic hotels of the continent. How could she have expected any other kind of accommodation in present circumstances than such as Giles had provided? And yet how unprepared she was for this change! The taste that she had acquired from Fitzpiers had been imbibed so subtly that she hardly knew she possessed them till confronted by this contrast. The elegant Fitzpiers, in fact, at that very moment owed a long bill at the above-mentioned hotel for the luxurious style in which he used to put her up there whenever they drove to Sherton. But such is social sentiment that she had been quite comfortable under those dead impending conditions, while she felt humiliated by a present situation which Winterborne had paid for honestly on the nail. He had noticed in a moment that she shrunk from her position and all his pleasure was gone. It was the same susceptibility over again which had spoiled his Christmas party long ago. But he did not know that this recriticence was only the casual result of Grace's apprenticeship to what she was determined to learn in spite of it, a consequence of one of those sudden surprises which confront everybody bent upon turning over a new leaf. She had finished her lunch, which he saw had been a very mincing performance, and he brought her out of the house as soon as he could. Now he said, with great sad eyes, you have not finished it all well, I know, come round to the Earl of Wessex, I'll order a tea there. I did not remember that what was good enough for me was not good enough for you. Her face faded into an aspect of deep distress when she saw what had happened. Oh no, Giles, she said with extreme pathos. Certainly not. Why do you say that when you know better? You ever will misunderstand me. Indeed, that's not so, Mrs. Fitzpiers. Can you deny that you felt out of place at the three tons? I don't know. Well since you make me speak, I do not deny it. And yet I have felt at home there these twenty years. Your husband used always to take you to the Earl of Wessex, did he not? Yes, she reluctantly admitted. How could she explain in the street of a market town that it was her superficial and transitory taste which had been offended, and not her nature or her affection? Fortunately or unfortunately at that moment they saw Melbury's man driving vagantly along the street in search of her, the hour having passed at which he had been told to take her up. Winterborne hailed him, and she was powerless then to prolong the discourse. She entered the vehicle sadly, and the horse trotted away. End of Chapter 38, Recording by James O'Connor, Randolph, Massachusetts, July 2009, Chapter 39 of The Woodlanders. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James O'Connor. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, Chapter 39. All night did Winterborne think over that unsatisfactory ending of a pleasant time, forgetting the pleasant time itself. He feared anew that they could never be happy together. Even should she be free to choose him? She was accomplished. He was unrefined. It was the original difficulty which he was too sensitive to recklessly ignore, as some men would have done in his place. He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from others in the way of favor or condescension, and, perhaps on that very account, scrutinized those others' behavior too closely. He was not versatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its rise, meridian, and decline sell them again exactly recurred as in the breasts of more sanguine mortals. He had once worshiped her, laid out his life to suit her, wooed her, and lost her. Though it was with almost the same zest, it was with not quite the same hope that he had begun to tread the old tracks again, and allowed himself to be so charmed with her that day. Move another step towards her he would not. He would even repulse her, as a tribute to conscience. It would be sheer sin to let her prepare a pitfall for her happiness, not much smaller than the first, by invagling her into a union with such as he. Her poor father was now blind to these subtleties, which he had formally beheld as in noontide light. It was his own duty to declare them. For her dear sake, Grace too had a very uncomfortable night, and her solicitous embarrassment was not lessened the next morning when another letter from her father was put into her hands. Its tenor was an intensive strain of the one that had preceded it. Just stating how extremely glad he was to hear that she was better, and able to get out of doors he went on. This is a wearysome business, the solicitor we have come to see being out of town. I do not know when I shall get home. My great anxiety in this delay is still lest you should lose Giles Winterborn. I cannot rest at night for thinking that while our business hanging fire, he may become estranged, or go away from the neighborhood. I have set my heart upon seeing him, your husband, if you ever have another. Do then, Grace, give him some temporary encouragement, even though it is over early. For when I consider the past, I do think God will forgive me and you for being a little forward. I have another reason for this, my dear. I feel myself going rapidly downhill, and late affairs have still further helped me that way, and until this thing is done, I cannot rest in peace. He added a post-script. I have just heard that the solicitor is to be seen tomorrow. Possibly, therefore, I shall return in the evening after you get this. The paternal longing ran on all fours with her own desire, and yet in forwarding it yesterday she had been on the brink of giving offence. While craving to be a country girl again, just as her father requested, to put off the old Eve, the fastidious miss, or rather madam, completely, her first attempt had been beaten by the unexpected vitality of that fastidiousness. Her father, on returning and seeing the trifling coolness of Giles, would be sure to say that the same perversity, which had led her to make difficulties about marrying Fitzpiers, was now prompting her to blow hot and cold with poor winter-born. If the latter had been the most subtle hand at touching the stops of her delicate soul, instead of one who had just bound himself to let her drift away from him again, if she would, on the wind of her estranging education, he could not have acted more seductively than he did that day. He chanced to be superintending some temporary work in a field opposite her windows. She could not discover what he was doing, but she read his mood keenly and truly. She could see in his coming and going an air of determined abandonment of the whole landscape that lay in her direction. Oh, how she longed to make it up with him! Her father coming in the evening, which meant, she supposed, that all formalities would be in train, her marriage virtually annulled, and she be free to be one again. How could she look him in the face if he should see them estranged thus? It was a fair green evening in June. She was seated in the garden in the rustic chair which stood under the laurel bushes, made of peeled oak branches that came to Melbury's premises as refuse after barking time. The mass of full-juiced leafage on the heights around her was just swayed into faint gestures by a nearly-spent wind which, even in its enfeeble state, did not reach her shelter. All day she had expected Giles to call, to inquire how she had got home for something or other, but he had not come, and he still tantalized her by going a thwart and across that orchard opposite. She could see him as she sat. A slight diversion was presently created by Creedle bringing him a letter. She knew from this that Creedle had just come from Sheraton, and had called as usual at the post office for anything that had arrived by the afternoon post, of which there was no delivery at Hintock. She pondered on what the letter might contain, particularly whether it were a second refresher for a winter-born from her father, like her own of the morning. But it appeared to have no bearing upon herself whatever. Giles read its contents, and almost immediately turned away to a gap in the hedge of the orchard. If that could be called a hedge, which, owing to the drippings of the trees, was little more than a bank with a bush upon it, here and there. He entered the plantation and was no doubt going that way homeward to the mysterious hut he occupied on the other side of the woodland. The sad sands were running swiftly through time's glass. She had often felt it in these latter days. And like Giles she felt it doubly now, after the solemn and pathetic reminder in her father's communication. Her freshness would pass. The long-suffering devotion of Giles might suddenly end. Might end that very hour. Then were so strange. The thought took away from her all her former reticence, and made her action bold. She started from her seat. If the little breach, quarrel, or whatever it might be called of yesterday, was to be healed up, it must be done by her on the instant. She crossed into the orchard and clambered through the gap after Giles. Just as he was diminishing to a fawn-like figure under the green canopy and over the brown floor. Grace had been wrong, very far wrong, in assuming that the letter had no reference to herself, because Giles had turned away into the wood after its perusal. It was, sad to say, because the missive had so much reference to herself that he had thus turned away. He feared that his grieved discomforture might be observed. The letter was from Bocock, written a few hours later than Melbury's to his daughter. He had announced failure. Giles had once done that thriftless man a good turn, and now was the moment when Bocock had chosen to remember it in his own way. During his absence in town with Melbury, the lawyer's clock had naturally heard a great deal of the timber merchants' family scheme of justice to Giles. His communication was to inform Winterborne at the earliest possible moment that their attempt had failed, in order that the young man should not place himself in a false position towards Grace in the belief of its coming success. The news was, in some, that Fitzpiers' conduct had not been sufficiently cruel to Grace to enable her to snap the bond. She was apparently doomed to be his wife till the end of the chapter. Winterborne quite forgot his superficial differences with the poor girl under the warm rush of deep and distracting love for her, which the almost tragical information engendered. To renounce her forever. That was then the end of it for him, after all. There was no longer any question about suitability or room for tiffs on petty tastes. The curtain had fallen again between them. She could not be his. The cruelty of their late revived hope was now terrible. How could they all have been so simple as to suppose this thing could be done? It was at this moment that, hearing someone coming behind him, he turned and saw her hastening on between the thickets. He perceived in an instant that she did not know the blighting news. Giles, why didn't you come across to me, she asked, with arched reproach? Didn't you see me sitting there ever so long? Oh, yes, he said, in unprepared extemporized tones, for her unexpected presence caught him without the slightest plan of behavior in the conjuncture. His manner made her think that she had been too chiding in her speech, and a mild-skollet wave passed over her as she resolved to soften it. I have had another letter from my father, she hastened to continue. He thinks he may come home this evening, and, in view of his hopes, it will grieve him if there is any little difference between us, Giles. There is none, he said, sadly, regarding her from the face downward as he pondered how to lay the cruel fruit there. Still, I fear you have not quite forgiven me about my being uncomfortable at the inn. I have, Grace, I'm sure. But you speak in quite an unhappy way, she returned, coming up close to him with the most winning of the many pretty heirs that appertain to her. Don't you think he will ever be happy, Giles? He did not reply for some instance. When the sun shines on the north front of Sheraton Abbey, that's when my happiness will come to me, said he, staring as it were into the earth. But then that means that there is something more than my offending you in not liking the three tons. If it is because I did not like to let you kiss me in the Abbey, well, you know, Giles, that it was not on account of my cold feelings, but because I did certainly, just then, think it was rather premature, in spite of my poor father. That was the true reason, the sole one. But I don't want to be hard. God knows I do not, she said, her voice fluctuating. And perhaps, as I am on the verge of freedom, I am not right after all in thinking there is any harm in your kissing me. Oh, God, said Winterborne within himself. His head was turned to scents as he still resolutely regarded the ground. For the last several minutes he had seen this great temptation approaching him in regular siege, and now it had come. For wrong the social sin of now taking advantage of the offer of her lips had a magnitude in the eyes of one whose life had been so primitive, so ruled by purist household laws as Giles's, which can hardly be explained. Did you say anything, she asked timidly? Oh, no, only that. You mean that it must be settled, since my father is coming home, she said gladly? Winterborne, though fighting valiantly against himself all this while, though he would have protected Grace's good repute as the apple of his eye, was a man. And as Desdemona said, men are not gods. In face of the agonizing seductiveness shown by her, in her unenlightened schoolgirl simplicity about the laws and ordinances, he betrayed a man's weakness. Since it was so, since it had come to this, that Grace, deeming herself free to do it, was virtually asking him to demonstrate that he loved her. Since he could demonstrate it only too truly, since life was short and love was strong, he gave way to the temptation, not withstanding that he perfectly well knew her to be wedded irrevocably to Fitzpiers. Indeed, he cared for nothing past or future, simply accepting the present and what it brought, desiring once in his life to clasp in his arms her he had watched over and loved so long. She started back subtly from his embrace, influenced by a sort of inspiration. Oh, I suppose, she stammered, that I am really free, that this is right, is there really a new law? Father cannot have been too sanguine in saying. He did not answer, and the moment afterwards Grace burst into tears in spite of herself. Oh, why does not my father come home and explain, she sobbed, and let me know clearly what I am? It is too trying, this, to ask me to, and then to leave me so long in so vague a state that I do not know what to do, and perhaps do wrong. Winterborne felt like a very cane, over and above his previous sorrow. How he had sinned against her in not telling her what he knew. He turned aside, the feeling of his cruelty mounted higher and higher. How could he have dreamed of kissing her? He could hardly refrain from tears. Surely nothing more pitiable had ever been known than the condition of this four-young thing, now as heretofore the victim of her father's well-mint but blundering policy. Even in the hour of Melbury's greatest assurance, Winterborne had harbored a suspicion that no law, new or old, could undo Grace's marriage without her appearance in public, though he was not sufficiently sure of what might have been enacted to destroy by his own words her pleasing idea that a mere dash of the pin on her father's testimony was going to be sufficient, but he had never suspected the sad fact that the position was irremediable. Poor Grace, perhaps feeling that she had indulged in too much fluster for a mere kiss, calmed herself at finding how grave he was. I am glad we are friends again anyhow, she said, smiling through her tears. Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I married that you show now, you would have carried me off for your own first instead of second. If we do marry, I hope you will never think badly of me for encouraging you a little, but my father is so impatient. You know, as his years in infirmities increase, that he will wish to see us a little advanced when he comes. That is my only excuse. To winter-born all this was sadder than it was sweet. How could she so trust her father's conjectures? He did not know how to tell her the truth and shame itself, and yet he felt that it must be done. We may have been wrong, he began almost fearfully, in supposing that it can all be carried out while we stay here at Hintock. I am not sure but that people may have to appear in a public court, even under the new Act, and if there should be any difficulty, and we cannot marry after all. Her cheeks became slowly bloodless. Oh, Giles, she said, grasping his arm. You have heard something. What? Cannot my father conclude it there and now? Surely he has done it. Oh, Giles, Giles, don't deceive me. What terrible position am I in? He could not tell her, try as he would. The sense of her implicit trust in his honor absolutely disabled him. I cannot inform you, he murmured. His voice as husky as that of the leaves underfoot. Your father will soon be here. Then we shall know. I will take you home. Inexpressibly dear as she was to him, he offered her his arm with the most preserved air. As he added correctly, I will take you at any rate into the drive. Thus they walked on together, graced vibrating between happiness and misgiving. It was only a few minutes' walk to where the drive ran, and they had hardly descended into it. When they heard a voice behind them cry, take out that arm. For a moment they did not heed. And the voice repeated more loudly and hoarsely, take out that arm. It was Melbury's. He had returned sooner than they expected, and now came up to them. Grace's hand had been withdrawn like lightning on her hearing the second command. I don't blame you. I don't blame you, he said, in the weary cadence of one broken down with scourgings. But you too must walk together no more. I have been surprised. I have been cruelly deceived. Giles, don't say anything to me, but go away. He was evidently not aware that Winterborne had known the truth before he brought it, and Giles would not stay to discuss it with him then. When the young man had gone, Melbury took his daughter indoors to the room he used as his office, where he sat down and bent over the slope of the Bureau. Her bewildered gaze fixed upon him. When Melbury had recovered a little, he said, you are now, as ever, Fitzpiers's wife. I was deluded. He has not done you enough harm. You are still subject to his beckon call. Then let it be a never-mind father, she said, with dignified sorrow. I can bear it. It is your trouble that grieves me most. He stooped over him and put her arm round his neck, which distressed Melbury still more. I don't mind at all what comes to me, Grace continued, whose wife I am or whose I am not. I do love Giles. I cannot help that, and I have gone further with him than I should have done, if I had known exactly how things were. But I do not reproach you. Then Giles did not tell you, said Melbury. No, said she. He could not have known it. His behavior to me proved that he did not know. Her father said nothing more, and Grace went away to the solitude of her chamber. Her heavy disquietude had many shapes, and for a time she put aside the dominant fact to think of her too-free conduct towards Giles. His love-making had been brief as it was sweet. But would he on reflection contend her for forwardness? How could she have been so simple as to suppose she was in a position to behave as she had done? Thus she mentally blamed her ignorance, and yet in the center of her heart she blessed it a little for what it had momentarily brought her. End of Chapter 39 Recording by James O'Connor Randolph, Massachusetts, July 2009 Chapter 40 Life among the people involved in these events seemed to be suppressed and hidebound for a while. Grace seldom showed herself outside the house, never outside the garden, for she feared she might encounter Giles Winterborn, and that she could not bear. This pensive intramural existence of the self-constituted nun appeared likely to continue for an indefinite time. She had learned that there was one possibility in which her formally imagined position might become real, and only one, that her husband's absence should continue long enough to amount to positive desertion. But she never allowed her mind to dwell much upon the thought. Still less did she deliberately hope for such a result. Her regard for Winterborn had been rarefied by the shock which followed its avowal into an ethereal emotion that had little to do with living and doing. As for Giles, he was lying, or rather sitting, ill at his hut, a feverish indisposition which had been hanging about him for some time. The result of a chill caught the previous winter seemed to acquire virulence with the prostration of his hopes, but not a soul knew of his langer, and he did not think the case serious enough to sin for a medical man. After a few days he was better again, and crept about his home in a great coat, attending to his simple wants as usual with his own hands. So matters stood when the limpid inertia of Grace's pool-like existence was disturbed as by a geyser. She received a letter from Fitzpiers. Such a terrible letter it was in its import, though couched in the gentlest language. In his absence Grace had grown to regard him with toleration, and her relation to him with equanimity, till she had almost forgotten how trying his presence would be. He wrote briefly and unaffectedly. He made no excuses, but informed her that he was living quite alone, and had been led to think that they ought to be together if she would make up her mind to forgive him. He therefore purported to cross the channel to Budmouth by the steamer on a day he named, which she found to be three days after the time of her present reading. He said that he could not come to Hintock for obvious reasons, which her father would understand even better than herself. As the only alternative she was to be on the key to meet the steamer when it arrived from the opposite coast, probably about half an hour before midnight, bringing with her any luggage she might require, join him there, and pass with him into the twin vessel, which left immediately the other end of the harbor, returning thus with him to his continental dwelling-place, which he did not name. He had no intention of showing himself on land at all. The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for long hours by the fireless summer chimney-corner, as if he thought it were winter. The pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted, encoded with a film of dust. After reading it he looked up. "'You shan't go,' said he. I had felt I would not,' she answered, but I did not know what you would say. If he comes and lives in England, not too near here, and in a respectable way, and wants you to come to him, I'm not sure that I'll oppose him in wishing it,' muttered Melbury. I'd stint myself to keep you both in a genteel and seemly style, but go abroad you never shall with my consent.' There the question rested that day. Grace was unable to reply to her husband in the absence of an address, and the morrow came, and the next day, and the evening on which he had requested her to meet him. Throughout the whole of it she remained within the four walls of her room. The sense of her harrisment, carking doubt of what might be impending, hung like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury household. They spoke almost in whispers, and wondered what fits peers would do next. It was the hope of everyone that, finding she did not arrive, he would return again to France, and as for Grace, she was willing to write to him on the most kindly terms, if he would only keep away. The night passed, Grace lying tense and wide awake, and her relatives in great pot likewise. When they met the next morning they were pale and anxious, though neither speaking of the subject which occupied all their thoughts. The day passed as quietly as the previous ones, and she began to think that in the rank apprice of his moods he had abandoned the idea of getting her to join him as quickly as it was formed. All in a sudden some person who had just come from Sheridan entered the house with the news that Mr. Fitzpiers was on his way home to Hintock. He had been seen hiring a carriage at the Earl of Wessex Hotel. Her father and Grace were both present when the intelligence was announced. Now, said Melbury, we must make the best of what has been a very bad matter. The man is repenting. The partner of his shame, I hear, is gone away from him to Switzerland. So that chapter of his life is probably over. If he chooses to make a home for ye, I think you should not say him nay, Grace. Certainly he cannot very well live at Hintock without a blow to his pride. But if he can bear that, and likes Hintock best, why there's the empty wing of the house as it was before, O father, said Grace, turning white with dismay. Why not, said he, a little of his former dogginess returning. He was, in truth, disposed of somewhat more leniency towards a husband just now than he had shown formally, from a conviction that he had treated him overruply in his anger. Surely it is the most respectable thing to do, he continued. I don't like this state that you are in, neither married nor single. It hurts me, and it hurts you. And it will always be remembered against us in Hintock. There has never been any scandal like it in the family before. He will be here in less than an hour, Mermin Grace. The twilight of the room prevented her father seeing the despondent misery of her face. The one intolerable condition, the condition she had deprecated above all others, was that of Fitzpiers's reinstatement there. Oh, I won't, I won't see him, she said, sinking down. She was almost hysterical. Try if you cannot, he returned moodily. Oh, yes, I will, I will, she went on inconsequently. I'll try, and jumping up suddenly she left the room. In the darkness of the apartment to which she flew nothing could have been seen during the next half-hour. But from a corner a quick breathing was audible from this impressable creature who combined modern nerves with primitive emotions and was doomed by such coexistence to be numbered among the distressed and to take her scourgings to their exquisite extremity. The window was open. On this quiet late summer evening whatever sound arose and so secluded a district, the chirp of a bird, a call from a voice, the turning of a wheel, extended over bush and tree to unwanted distances. Very few sounds did arise, but as grace invisibly breathed in the brown glooms of the chamber the small, remote noise of light wheels came into her, accompanied by the trot of a horse on the turnpike road. There seemed to be a sudden hitch or pause in the progress of the vehicle, which was what first drew her attention to it. She knew the point whence the sound proceeded. The hilltop over which travelers passed on their way hither-wood from Sheraton Abbas, the place at which she had emerged from the wood with Mrs. Charmond. Grace slid along the floor and bent her head over the window- sill, listening with open lips. The carriage had stopped, and she heard a man use exclamatory words. Then another said, What the devil is the matter with the horse? She recognized the voice as her husband's. The accident, such as it had been, was soon remedied, and the carriage could be heard descending the hill on the Hintuck side, soon to turn into the lane leading out of the highway and then into the drawing which led out of the lane to the house where she was. A spasm passed through Grace. The Daphnean instinct, exceptionally strong in her as a girl, had been revived by her widowed seclusion, and it was not lessened by her affronted sentiments towards the comer and her regard for another man. She opened some little ivory tablets that lay on the dressing table, scribbled in pencil on one of them. I am gone to visit one of my school-friends, gathered a few toilet necessaries into a handbag, and not three minutes after that voice had been heard, her slim form, hastily wrapped up from observation, might have been seen passing out of the back door of Melbury's house. Then she skimmed up the garden path, threw the gap in the hedge, and into the mossy cot-track under the trees which led into the depth of the woods. The leaves overhead were now in their latter green, so opaque that it was darker at some of the densest spots than in wintertime. Scarce a crevice existing by which a ray could get down to the ground. But in open places she could see well enough. Summer was ending. In the daytime singing insects hung in every sunbeam. Vegetation was heavy nightly with globes of dew, and after showers creeping damps and twilight chills came up from the halls. The plantations were always weird at this hour of Eve. More spectral fire than in the leafless season, when there were fewer masses and more by newt linearity. The smooth surfaces of glossy plants came out like weak, lidless eyes. There were strange faces and figures from expiring lights that had somehow wandered into the canopied obscurity, while now and then low peeps of the sky between the trunks were like sheeted shapes, and on the tips of boughs sat faint cloven tongues. But Grace's fear just now was not imaginative or spiritual, and she heated these impressions but little. She went on as silently as she could, avoiding the hollows wherein leaves had accumulated, and stepping upon soundless moss and grass tufts. She paused breathlessly once or twice, and fancied that she could hear, above the beat of her strumming pulse, the vehicle containing Fitzpiers turning in at the gate of her father's premises. She hastened on again. The Hintock woods owned by Mrs. Shaman were presently left behind, and those into which she next plunge were divided from the ladder by a bank, from whose top the hedge had long ago perished, starved for want of sun. It was with some caution that Grace now walked, though she was quite free from any of the commonplace timidities of her ordinary pilgrimages to such spots. She feared no lurking hams, but that her effort would be all in vain and her return to the house rendered imperative. She had walked between three and four miles when that prescriptive comfort and relief to wanderers in woods, a distant light, broke it last upon her searching eyes. It was so very small as to be almost sinister to a stranger, but to her it was what she sought. She pushed forward, and the dim outline of a dwelling was disclosed. The house was a square cot of one story only, sloping up on all sides to a chimney in the midst. It had formerly been the home of a charcoal burner, in times when that fuel was still used in the county houses. Its only appurtenance was a paled enclosure, there being no garden, the shade of the trees preventing the growth of vegetables. She advanced to the window once the rays of light proceeded, and the shutters being as yet unclosed she could survey the whole interior through the panes. The room within was kitchen, pallor, and scullery all in one. The natural sandstone floor was worn into hills and dales by long treading, so that none of the furniture stood level, and the table slanted like a desk. A fire burned on the hearth, in front of which revolved the skinned carcass of a rabbit, suspended by a string from a nail. Standing with one arm on the mantel shelf stood Winterborne, his eyes on the roasting animal, his face so wrapped that speculation could build nothing on it concerning his thoughts, more than that they were not with the scene before him. She thought his features had changed a little since she saw them last. The firelight did not enable her to perceive that they were positively haggard. Grace's throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the results so nearly as she had hoped. She went to the door and tapped lightly. He seemed to be accustomed to the noises of woodpeckers, squirrels, and such small creatures, for he took no notice of her tiny signal, and she knocked again. This time he came and opened the door. When the light of the room fell upon her face he started, and hardly knowing what he did, crossed the threshold to her, placing his hands upon her two arms. While surprise, joy, alarm, sadness chased through him by turns. With Grace it was the same. Even in this stress there was the fond fact that they had met again. Thus they stood. Long tears upon their faces waxed in white with extreme sad delight. He broke the silence by saying in a whisper, in. No, no, Giles, she answered hurriedly, stepping yet farther back from the door. I am passing by, and I have called on you. I won't enter. Will you help me? I am afraid. I want to get by a roundabout way to Sheridan and so to Exbury. I have a school-fellow there. But I cannot get to Sheridan alone. Oh, if you will only accompany me a little way. How can Jim be, Giles, and be offended? I was obliged to come to you because I have no other help here. Three months ago you were my lover. Now you are only my friend. The law has stepped in and forbidden what we thought of. It must not be. But we can act honestly, and yet you can be my friend for one little hour. I have no other. She could get no further, covering her eyes with one hand by an effort of repression she wept a silent trickle, without a sigh or sob. Winterborne took her other hand. What has happened, he said? He has come. There was a stillness as of death till Winterborne asked. You mean this, Grace, that I am to help you to get away? Yes, said she. Appearance is no matter when the reality is right. I have said to myself I can trust you. Grace knew from this that she did not suspect his treachery, if it could be called such, earlier in the summer, when they met for the last time as lovers. And in the intensity of his contrition for that tinderong he determined to deserve her faith now, at least, and so wipe out that reproach from his conscience. I'll come at once, he said. I'll light a lantern. He unhooked a dark lantern from a nail under the eaves, and she did not notice how his hand shook with the slight strain, or dream that in making this offer he was taxing a convalescence which could ill-afford such self-sacrifice. The lantern was lit, and they started. End of Chapter 40 Recording by James O'Connor, Randolph, Massachusetts, July 2009 Chapter 41 of The Woodlanders This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James O'Connor The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, Chapter 41 The first hundred yards of their course lay under motionless trees, whose upper foliage began to hiss with falling drops of rain. By the time that they emerged upon a glade it rained heavily. This is awkward, said Grace, with an effort to hide her concern. Winter-born stopped. Grace, he said, preserving a strictly business manner which belied him, you cannot go to Sheraton tonight. But I must. Why? It is nine miles from here. It is almost an impossibility in this rain. True. Why? She replied mournfully at the end of a silence. What is reputation to me? Now Harkin said, Giles, you won't go back to your— No, no, no, don't make me, she cried piteously. Then let us turn. They slowly retraced their steps and again stood before his door. Now this house from this moment is yours and not mine, he said deliberately. I have a place nearby where I can stay very well. Her face had drooped. Oh, she murmured as she saw the dilemma. What have I done? There was a smell of something burning within, and he looked through the window. The rabbit that he had been cooking to coax a weak appetite was beginning to char. Please go in and attend to it, he said. Do what you like. Now I leave. You will find everything about the hut that is necessary. But Giles, your supper, she exclaimed. An outhouse would do for me anything till tomorrow at daybreak. He signified a negative. I tell you to go in. You may catch aggues out here in your delicate state. You can give me my supper through the window if you feel well enough. I'll wait a while. He gently urged her to pass the doorway, and was relieved when he saw her within the room sitting down. Not so much as crossing the threshold himself. He closed the door upon her, and turned the key in the lock. Tapping at the window, he signified that she should open the casement, and when she had done this he handed in the key to her. You are locked in, he said, and your own mistress. Even in her trouble she could not refrain from a faint smile at his scruplessness, as she took the door key. Do you feel better, he went on? If so, and you wish to give me some of your supper, please do. If not, it is of no importance. I can get some elsewhere. The grateful sense of his kindness stirred her to action, though she only knew half what that kindness really was. At the end of some ten minutes she again came to the window, pushed it open, and said in a whisper, Giles? He at once emerged from the shade, and saw that she was preparing to hand him his share of the meal upon a plate. I don't like to treat you so hardly, she murmured, with deep regret in her words, as she heard the rain pattering on the leaves. But I suppose it is best to arrange like this. Oh, yes, he said quickly. I feel that I could never have reached Sherton. It was impossible. Are you sure you have a snug place out there with renewed misgiving? Quite. Have you found everything you want? I am afraid it is rather rough accommodation. Can I notice defects? I have long passed that stage, and you know it, Giles, or you ought to. His eyes sadly contemplated her face as its pale responsiveness modulated through a crowd of expressions that showed only too clearly to what a pit she was strung. If ever Winterborne's heart fretted his bosom, it was at this sight of a perfectly defenseless creature conditioned by such circumstances. He forgot his own agony in the satisfaction of having at least found her a shelter. He took his plate and cupped from her hand, saying, Now I'll push the shutter, too, and you will find an iron pin on the inside which you must fix into the bolt. Do not stir in the morning till I come and call you. She expressed in a loud hope that he would not go very far away. Oh, no, I shall be quite within hail, said Winterborne. She bolted the window as directed and he retreated. This snug place proved to be a wretched little shelter of the roughest kind, formed of four hurdles thatched with break-furn. Underneath were dry sticks, hay, and other litter of the sort upon which he sat down, and there in the dark tried to eat his meal. But his appetite was quite gone. He pushed the plate aside and shook up the hay in sacks so as to form a rude couch on which he flung himself down to sleep for it was getting late. But sleep he could not, for many reasons, of which not the least was thought of his charge. He sat up and looked towards the cot through the damp obscurity. With all its external features the same as usual, he could scarcely believe that it contained the dear friend. He would not use a warmer name, who would come to him so unexpectedly, and he could not help admitting so rashly. He had not ventured to ask her any particulars, but the position was pretty clear without them. Though social law had negative forever their opening paradise of the previous June, it was not without stalkal pride that he accepted the present trying conjuncture. There was one man on earth in whom she believed absolutely, and he was that man, that this crisis could end in nothing but sorrow was a view for a moment effaced by this triumphant thought of her trust in him, and the purity of the affection with which he responded to that trust rendered him more than proof against any frailty that besieged him in relation to her. The rain which had never ceased now drew his attention by beginning to drop through the meagre screen that covered him. He rose to attempt some remedy for this discomfort, but the trembling of his knees and the throbbing of his pulse told him that in his weakness he was unable to fence against the storm, and he lay down to bear it as best he might. He was angry with himself for his feebleness, he who had been so strong. It was imperative that she should know nothing of his present state, and to do that she must not see his face by daylight, for its color would inevitably betray him. The next morning, accordingly when it was hardly light, he rose and dragged his stiff limbs about the precincts, preparing far everything she could require for getting breakfast within. On the bench outside the window sill he placed water, wood, and other necessaries. Writing with a piece of chalk beside them, it is best that I should not see you. Put my breakfast on the bench. At seven o'clock he tapped at her window as he had promised, looking at once, that she might not catch sight of him. But from his shelter under the boughs he could see her very well. When in response to his signal she opened the window and the light fell upon her face. The languid largeness of her eyes showed that her sleep had been little more than his own, and the pinkness of their lids, that her waking hours had not been free from tears. She read the writing, seemed he thought disappointed, but took up the materials he had provided, evidently thinking him some way off. Giles waited on, assured that a girl who in spite of her culture knew what country life was would find no difficulty in the simple preparation of their food. Within the cot it was all very much as he conjectured, though Grace had slept much longer than he. After the loneliness of the night she would have been glad to see him, but appreciating his feeling when she read the writing she made no attempt to recall him. She found abundance of provisions laid in, his plan being to replenish his buttery weekly, and this being the day after the victualing van had called from Sheraton. When the meal was ready she put what he required outside, as she had done with the supper, and, notwithstanding her longing to see him, withdrew from the window promptly and left him to himself. It had been a leadened on, and the rain now steadily renewed its fall. As she heard no more of Winterborne she concluded that he had gone away to his daily work, and forgotten that he had promised to accompany her to Sheraton, an erroneous conclusion, for he remained all day, by force of his condition, within fifty yards of where she was. The morning wore on, and in her doubt when to start and how to travel, she lingered yet. Keeping the door carefully bolted, Lester and Truda should discover her. Locked in this place she was comparatively safe at any rate, and doubted if she would be safe elsewhere. The human gloom of an ordinary wet day was doubled by the shade and drip of the leafage. Autumn this year was coming in with rains. One inner enforced idleness from the one window of the living room, she could see various small members of the animal community that lived unmolested there. Creatures of hair, fluff and scale, the tooth kind and the build kind, underground creatures, jointed and ringed, circumambulating the hut, under the impression that, giles having gone away, nobody was there, and eyeing it inquisitively with a view to into quarters. Watching these neighbors, who knew neither law nor sin, distracted her a little from her trouble, and she managed to while away some portion of the afternoon by putting giles's home in order and making little improvements, which she deemed that he would value when she was gone. Once or twice she fancied that she heard a faint noise amid the trees, resembling a cough, but as it never came any nearer she concluded that it was a squirrel or a bird. At last the daylight lessened, and she made up a lodge of fire for the evenings were chilly. As soon as it was too dark, which was comparatively early, to discern the human countenance in this place of shadows, it came to the window to her great delight a tapping which she knew from its method to be giles's. She opened the casement instantly and put out her hand to him, though she could only just perceive his outline. He clasped her fingers and she noticed the heat of his palm and its shakiness. He has been walking fast in order to get here quickly, she thought. How could she know that he had just crawled out from the straw of the shelter, hard by, and that the heat of his hand was feverishness? My dear good giles, she burst out impulsively. She would have done it for you, replied winter-born, with as much matter of fact as he could summon. About my getting to expiry, she said. I have been thinking, responded giles, with tender deference, that you had better stay where you are for the present, if you wish not to be caught. I need not tell you that the place is yours as long as you like, and perhaps in a day or two, finding you absent, he will go away. At any rate, in two or three days I could do anything to assist, such as make inquiries, or go a great way toward Sheridan Abbas with you, for the sight of season will soon be coming on, and I want to run down to the Vale to see how the crops are, and I shall go by the Sheridan Road. But for a day or two I am busy here. He was hoping that by the time mentioned he would be strong enough to engage himself actively on her behalf. I hope you do not feel over much melancholy in being a prisoner. She declared that she did not mind it, but she sighed. From long acquaintance they could read each other's heart symptoms like books of large type. I fear you are sorry you came, said giles, and that you think I should have advised you more firmly than I did, not to stay. Oh no, dear, dear friend, answered Grace with a heaving bosom. Don't think that that is what I regret. What I regret is my enforced treatment of you, dislodging you, excluding you from your own house. Why should I not speak out? You know what I feel for you, what I have felt for no other living man, what I shall never feel for a man again. But as I have bowed myself to somebody else than you, and cannot be released, I must behave as I do behave and keep that vow. I am not bound to him by any divine law, after what he is done, but I have promised, and I will pay. The rest of the evening was passed in his handing her such things as she would require the next day, and casual remarks thereupon, an occupation which diverted her mind to some degree from pathetic views of her attitude towards him and of her life in general. The only infringement, if infringement it could be called, of his predetermined bearing towards her, was an involuntary pressing of her hand to his lips when she put it through the casement to bid him good night. He knew she was weeping, though he could not see her tears. She again entreated his forgiveness for so selfishly appropriating the cottage, but it would only be for a day or two more, she thought, since go she must. He replied yearningly, I—I don't like you to go away. O Giles said she, I know, I know, but I am a woman and you are a man. I cannot speak more plainly. Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of good report. You know what is in my mind, because you know me so well. Yes, Grace, yes. I do not at all mean that the question between us has not been settled by the fact of your marriage turning out hopelessly unalterable. I merely meant—well—a feeling, no more. In a week at the outside I should be discovered if I stayed here, and I think that by law he could compel me to return to him. Yes, perhaps you are right. Go when you wish, dear Grace. His last words that evening were a hopeful remark that all might be well with her yet, that Mr. Fitzpiers would not intrude upon her life if he found that his presence cost her so much pain. Then the window was closed, the shutters folded, and the rustle of his footsteps died away. No sooner had she retired to rest that night than the wind began to rise, and after a few prefatory blasts to be accompanied by rain. The wind grew more violent, and as the storm went on it was difficult to believe that no opaque body, but only an invisible colorless thing, was trampling and climbing over the roof, making branches creak, springing out of the trees upon the chimney, dropping its head into the flu, and shrieking and blaspheming at every corner of the walls. As in the old story, the assailant was a specter which could be felt but not seen. She had never before been so struck with the devilry of a gusty night in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit as she was now. She seemed almost to be apart from herself, a vacuous duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and clear intentions was not there. Sometimes a bow from an adjoining tree was swayed so low as to smite the roof in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth of an adversary, to be followed by a trickle of rain as blood from the wound, to all this weather Giles must be more or less exposed, how much she did not know. That last grace could hardly endure the idea of such a hardship in relation to him. Whatever he was suffering, it was she who had caused it. He vacated his house on account of her. She was not worth such self-sacrifice. She should not have accepted it of him. And then, as her anxiety increased with increasing thought, there returned upon her mind some incidents of her late intercourse with him, which she had heeded but little at the time. The look of his face. What had there been about his face which seemed different from its appearance as of your? Was it not thinner, less rich in hue, less like that of ripe Autumn's brother to whom she had formally compared him? And his voice. She had distinctly noticed a change in tone. And his gait. Surely it had been feebler, stiffer, more like the gait of a weary man, that slight occasional noise she had heard in the day and attributed to squirrels. It might have been his cough, after all. Thus conviction took root in her perturbed mind that Winterborne was ill, or had been so, and that he had carefully concealed his conditioned from her, that she might have no scruples about accepting the hospitality which, by the nature of the case, expelled her entertainer. My own, own true eye? My dear kind friend, she cried to herself, Oh, it shall not be. It shall not be. She hastily wrapped herself up and obtained a light, with which she entered the adjoining room, the cot possessing only one floor. Setting down the candle on the table here, she went to the door with the key in her hand, and placed it in the lock. Before turning it she paused, her fingers still clutching it, and pressing her other hand to her forehead she fell into agitating thought. A tattoo on the window caused by the tree-droppings blowing against it brought her indecision to a close. She turned the key and opened the door. The darkness was intense, seeming to touch her pupils like a substance. She only now became aware how heavy the rainfall had been and was. The dripping of the eaves splashed like a fountain. She stood listening with potted lips, and holding the door in one hand, till her eyes, growing accustomed to the obscurity, discerned the wild brandishing of their bows by the adjoining trees. At last she cried loudly with an effort, Giles, you may come in. There was no immediate answer to her cry, and overpowered by her own temerity, Grace retreated quickly, shut the door, and stood looking on the floor. But it was not for long. She again lifted the latch, and with far more determination than at first. Giles? Giles? She cried with the full strength of her voice, and without any of the shame-facingness that had characterized her first cry. Oh, come in! Come in! Where are you? I have been wicked! I have thought too much of myself. Do you hear? I don't want to keep you out any longer. I cannot bear that you should suffer so. Giles? A reply. It was a reply. Through the darkness and wind a voice reached her, floating upon the weather as though a part of it. Here I am all right. Don't trouble about me. Don't you want to come in? Are you not ill? I don't mind what they say or what they think any more. I am all right, he repeated. It is not necessary for me to come. Good night, good night. Grace sighed, turned and shut the door slowly. Could she have been mistaken about his health? Perhaps after all she had perceived a change in him because she had not seen him for so long. Time sometimes did his aging work in jerks, as she knew. Well, she had done all she could. He would not come in. She retired to rest again. End of Chapter 41. Recording by James O'Connor, Randolph, Massachusetts, July 2009. Chapter 42 of The Woodlanders. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by James O'Connor. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. Chapter 42. The next morning Grace was at the window early. She felt determined to see him somehow that day and prepared his breakfast eagerly. Eight o'clock struck and she had remembered that he had not come to a rouser by a knocking as usual. Her own anxiety having caused her to stir. The breakfast was set in its place without, but he did not arrive to take it and she waited on. Nine o'clock arrived and the breakfast was cold and still there was no giles. A thrush that had been repeating itself a good deal on an opposite bush for some time, came and took a morsel from the plate and bolted it, waited, looked around and took another. At ten o'clock she drew in the tray and sat down to her own solitary meal. He must have been called away on business early, the rain having cleared off. Yet she would have liked to assure herself by thoroughly exploring the precincts of the hut that he was nowhere in its vicinity. But as the day was comparatively fine, the dread, lest some stray passenger or woodman should encounter her in such a reconnoiter, paralyzed her wish. The solitude was further accentuated today by the stopping of the clock for want of winding and the fall into the chimney corner of flakes of soot loosened by the rains. At noon she heard a slight rustling outside the window and found that it was caused by an eft which had crept out of the leaves to bask in the last sun rays that would be worth having till the following May. She continually peeped out through the lattice, but could see little. In front lay the brown leaves of last year and upon them some yellowish green ones of this season that had been prematurely blown down by the gale. Above stretched an old beach with fast armpits and great pocket holes in its sides where branches had been amputated in past times. A black slug was trying to climb it. Dead boughs were scattered about like icthasari in a museum and beyond them were perishing woodbind stems resembling old ropes. From the other window all she could see were more trees jacketed with lichen and stockinged with moss. At their roots were stemless yellow fungi like lemons and apricots and tall fungi with more stem than stool. Next were more trees close together wrestling for existence. Their branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows. It was the struggle between these neighbors that she had heard in the night. Beneath them were the rotting stumps of those of the group that had been vanquished long ago, rising from their mossy setting like decayed teeth from green gums. Father on were other tufts of moss in islands divided by the shed leaves, variety upon variety, dark green and pale green, moss like little fir trees, like plush, like malachite stars, like nothing on earth except moss. The strain upon Grace's mind in various ways was so great on this the most desolate day she had passed there that she felt it would be well nigh impossible to spend another in such circumstances. The evening came at last. The sun, when its chin was on the earth, found an opening through which to pierce the shade and stretched irradiated gauzes across the damp atmosphere, making the wet trunk shine and throwing splotches of such ruddiness on the leaves beneath the beach that they were turned to gory hues. When night at last arrived and with at the time for his return she was nearly broken down with suspense. The simple evening meal, potley tea, potley supper which Grace had prepared, stood waiting upon the harp and yet Giles did not come. It was now nearly twenty-four hours since she had seen him. As the room grew darker and only the firelight broke against the gloom of the walls, she was convinced that it would be beyond her staying-power to pass the night without hearing from him or from somebody. Yet eight o'clock drew on and his form at the window did not appear. The meal remained untasted, suddenly rising from before the hearth of smoldering embers where she had been crouching with her hands clasped over her knees. She crossed the room, unlocked the door, and listened. Every breath of wind had ceased with the decline of day, but the rain had resumed the steady dripping of the night before. Grace might have stood there five minutes when she fancied she heard that old sound, a cough, at no great distance, and it was presently repeated. If it were winter-borns, he must be near her. Why, then, had he not visited her? A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of Grace, and she looked up anxiously for the lantern which was hanging above her head. To light it and go in the direction of the sound would be the obvious way to solve the dread problem. But the conditions made her hesitate, and in a moment a cold sweat pervaded her at further sounds from the same quarter. They were low mutterings, at first like persons in conversation, but gradually resolving themselves into varieties of one voice. It was an endless monologue, like that we sometimes hear from inanimate nature in deep, secret places where water flows, or where ivy leaves flap against stones. But by degree she was convinced that the voice was winter-borns. Yet who could be his listener, so mute and patient? For though he argued so rapidly and persistently, nobody replied. A dreadful enlightenment spread through the mind of Grace. Oh, she cried in her anguish, as she hastily prepared herself to go out. How selfishly correct I am always, too, too correct! Cruel propriety is killing the dearest heart that ever woman clasped to her own. While speaking thus to herself she had lit the lantern, and hastening out without further thought took the direction whence the mutterings had proceeded. The course was marked by a little path which ended at a distance of about forty yards in a small erection of hurdles, not much larger than a shock of corn, such as were frequent in the woods and corpses when the cutting season was going on. It was too slight even to be called a hovel, and was not high enough to stand upright in, appearing, in short, to be erected for the temporary shelter of fuel. The side towards Grace was open, and turning the light upon the interior, she beheld what her prescient fear had pictured in snatches all the way thither. Upon the straw within went a born lay in his clothes, just as she had seen him during the whole of her stay here, except that his hat was off and his hair matted and wild. Both his clothes and the straw were saturated with rain, his arms were flung over his head, his face was flushed to an unnatural crimson, his eyes had a burning brightness, and though they met her own, she perceived that he did not recognize her. Oh, my child, she cried, what have I done to you? But she stopped no longer even to reproach herself. She saw that the first thing to be thought of was to get him indoors. How Grace performed that labor she never could have exactly explained. But by dint of clasping her arms round him, rearing him into a sitting posture, and straining her strength to the uttermost, she put him on one of the hurdles that was loose alongside, and taking the end of it in both her hands, dragged him along the path to the entrance of the hut, and after a pause for breath in at the doorway. It was somewhat singular that Giles in his semi-conscious state acquiesced unresistingly in all that she did. But he never for a moment recognized her, continuing his rapid conversation to himself, and seeming to look upon her as some angel for of a supernatural creature of the visionary world in which he was mentally living. The undertaking occupied her more than ten minutes. But by that time, to her great thankfulness, he was in the inner room, lying on the bed, his damp outer clothing removed. Then the unhappy Grace regarded him by the light of the candle. There was something in his look which agonized her. In the rush of his thoughts, accelerating their speed from minute to minute, he seemed to be passing through the universe of ideas like a comet, erratic, inapprehensible, untraceable. Grace's distraction was almost as great as his. In a few moments she firmly believed he was dying. Unable to withstand her impulse, she knelt down beside him, kissed his hands and his face and his hair, exclaiming in a low voice, How could I? How could I? Her timid morality had indeed underrated his chivalry till now, though she knew him so well. The purity of his nature, his freedom from the grosser passions, his scrupulous delicacy, had never been fully understood by Grace, till this strange self-sacrifice in lonely juxtaposition to her own person was revealed. The perception of it added something that was little shot of reverence to the deep affection for him of a woman who, herself, had more of atomists than of Aphrodite in her constitution. All that a tenderness could do Grace did, and the power to express her solicitude in action, unconscious though the sufferer was, brought her mournful satisfaction. She bathed his hot head, wiped his perspiring hands, moistened his lips, cooled his fiery eyelids, sponged his heated skin, and administered whatever she could find in the house that the imagination could conceive as likely to be in any way alleviating. That she might have been the cause, or partially the cause of all this, interfused misery with her sorrow. Six months before this date a scene almost similar in its mechanical parts had been enacted at Hintock House. It was between a pair of persons most intimately connected in their lives with these. Outwardly like as it had been, it was yet infinite in spiritual difference, though a woman's devotion had been common to both. Grace rose from her attitude of affection, and bracing her energies saw that something practical must immediately be done, such as she would have liked in the emotion of the moment, to keep him entirely to herself. Medical assistance was necessary, while there remained a possibility of preserving him alive. Such assistance was fatal to her own concealment. But even had the chance of benefiting him been less than it was, she would have run the hazard for his sake. The question was, where should she get a medical man, competent and near? There was one such man and only one within accessible distance. A man who, if it were possible to save Winterborn's life, had the brain most likely to do it. If human pressure could bring him, that man ought to be brought to the sick child's side. The attempt should be made. Yet she dreaded to leave her patient and the minutes fraced past. And yet she postponed her departure. At last, when it was after eleven o'clock, Winterborn fell into a fitful sleep, and it seemed to afford her an opportunity. She hastily made him as comfortable as she could, put on her things, cut a new candle from the bunch hanging in the cupboard, and having set it up, and placed it so that the light did not fall upon his eyes, she closed the door and started. The spirit of Winterborn seemed to keep her company and banish all sense of darkness from her mind. The reins had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood and rotting leaves that lay about her path, which, as scattered by her feet, spread abroad like spilt milk. She would not run the hazard of losing her way by plunging into any short, unfrequented track through the denser parts of the woodland, but followed a more open course, which eventually brought her to the highway. Once here she ran along with great speed, animated by a devoted purpose which had much about it that was storical, and it was scarcely any faltering of spirit that after an hour's progress she passed over Rubdown Hill and onward towards that same Hintock and that same house out of which she had fled a few days before in irresistible alarm. But that had happened which, above all other things of chance and change, could make her deliberately frustrate her plan of flight and sink all regard of personal consequences. One speciality of Fitzpierces was respected by Grace as much as ever, his professional skill. In this she was right. Had his persistence equaled his insight, instead of being the spasmodic and fitful thing it was, fame and fortune need never have remained a wish with him. His freedom from conventional errors and crusted prejudices had indeed been such as to retard rather than accelerate his advance in Hintock and its neighborhood, where people could not believe that nature herself affected cures and that the doctor's business was only to smooth the way. It was past midnight when Grace arrived opposite her father's house, now again temporarily occupied by her husband, unless he had already gone away. Ever since her emergence from the denser plantations about Winterborne's a pervasive lightness had hung in the damp autumn sky. In spite of the vault of cloud, signifying that a moon of some age was shining above its arch, the two white gates were distinct and the white balls on the pillars and the puddles and damp ruts left by the recent rain had a cold, corpse-eyed luminousness. She entered by the lower gate and crossed the quadrangle to the wing where in the apartments that had been hers since her marriage were situant, till she stood under a window which, if her husband were in the house, gave light to his bed-chamber. She faltered and paused with her hand on her hot in spite of herself. Could she call to her presence the very cause of all her foregoing troubles? Alas, old Jones was seven miles off, Giles was possibly dying. What else could she do? It was in her perspiration wrought even more by consciousness than by exercise that she picked up some gravel, threw it at the panes, and waited to see the result. The night bell which had been fixed when Fitzpiers first took up his residence there still remained, but as it had fallen into disuse with the collapse of his practice and his allotment, she did not venture to pull it now. Whoever slept in the room had heard her signal, slight as it was. In half a minute the window was open, and a voice said, Yes? Inquiringly? Grace recognized her husband in the speaker at once. Her effort was now to disguise her own accents. Doctor, she said, in as unusual a tone as she could command, a man is dangerously ill in one chimney hut, out towards Delborough, and you must go to him at once, in all mercy. I will, readily. The alacrity, surprise, and pleasure expressed in his reply amazed her for a moment. But in truth they denoted the sudden relief of a man who, having got back in a mood of contrition from erratic abandonment to fearful joys, found the soothing routine of professional practice unexpectedly opening anew to him. The highest desire of his soul just now was for a respectable life of painstaking. If this his first summons since his return had been to attend upon a cat or dog, he would scarcely have refused it in the circumstances. Do you know the way, she asked? Yes, said he. One chimney hut, she repeated, and immediately, yes, yes, said Fitzpiers. Grace remained no longer. She passed out of the white gate without slamming it, and hastened on her way back. Her husband, then, had re-entered her father's house. How he had been able to affect a reconciliation with the old man. What were the terms of the treaty between them? She could not so much as conjecture. Some sort of truce must have been entered into. That was all she could say. But close as the question lay to her own life, there was a more urgent one which banished it, and she traced her steps quickly along the meandering trackways. Meanwhile, Fitzpiers was preparing to leave the house, the state of his mind, over and above his professional zeal was peculiar. At Grace's first remark he had not recognized or suspected her presence, but as she went on he was awakened to the great resemblance of the speaker's voice to his wife's. He had taken in such good faith the statement of the household on his arrival that she had gone on a visit for a time because she could not at once bring her mind to be reconciled to him. That he could not quite actually believe this comer to be she. It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's repentant humor at this date that on receiving the explanation of her absence he had made no attempt to outrage her feelings by following her, though nobody had informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his entry and of all that might have been inferred from her precipitancy. Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to follow her either. He sympathized with her flight, much as he deplored it. Moreover, the tragic color of the antecedent events that he had been a great means of creating checked his instinct to interfere. He prayed and trusted that she had got into no danger on her way, as he supposed, to Sherton and Vince to Exbury, if that were the place she had gone to, for bearing all inquiry which the strangeness of her departure would have made natural, a few months before this time a performance by grace of one-tenth the magnitude of this would have aroused him to unwanted investigation. It was in the same spirit that he had tacitly assented to Fitzpiers's domiciliation there. The two men had not met face to face, but Mrs. Melbury had proposed herself as an intermediary, who made the surgeon's re-entrance comparatively easy to him. Everything was provisional, and nobody asked questions. Fitzpiers had come in the performance of a plan of penitence which had originated in circumstances hereafter to be explained. His self-humiliation to the very best string was deliberate, and as soon as a call reached him from the bedside of a dying man, his desire was to set to work and do as much good as he could, with the least possible fuss or show. He therefore refrained from calling up a stableman to get ready any horse or jig, and set out for one chimney hut on foot, as grace had done. End of Chapter 42, Recording by James O'Connor, Randolph, Massachusetts, July 2009.