There was agitation to-day in the lives of all whom these matters
concerned. It was not till the Hintock dinner-time--one o'clock--that
Grace discovered her father's absence from the house after a departure
in the morning under somewhat unusual conditions. By a little
reasoning and inquiry she was able to come to a conclusion on his
destination, and to divine his errand.

Her husband was absent, and her father did not return. He had, in
truth, gone on to Sherton after the interview, but this Grace did not
know. In an indefinite dread that something serious would arise out of
Melbury's visit by reason of the inequalities of temper and nervous
irritation to which he was subject, something possibly that would bring
her much more misery than accompanied her present negative state of
mind, she left the house about three o'clock, and took a loitering walk
in the woodland track by which she imagined he would come home. This
track under the bare trees and over the cracking sticks, screened and
roofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud by a net-work of
boughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger trees
behind her and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and his
men were clearing the undergrowth.

Had Giles's attention been concentrated on his hurdles he would not
have seen her; but ever since Melbury's passage across the opposite
glade in the morning he had been as uneasy and unsettled as Grace
herself; and her advent now was the one appearance which, since her
father's avowal, could arrest him more than Melbury's return with his
tidings. Fearing that something might be the matter, he hastened up to
her.