Grace was not the only one who watched and meditated in Hintock that
night. Felice Charmond was in no mood to retire to rest at a customary
hour; and over her drawing-room fire at the Manor House she sat as
motionless and in as deep a reverie as Grace in her little apartment at
the homestead.

Having caught ear of Melbury's intelligence while she stood on the
landing at his house, and been eased of much of her mental distress,
her sense of personal decorum returned upon her with a rush. She
descended the stairs and left the door like a ghost, keeping close to
the walls of the building till she got round to the gate of the
quadrangle, through which she noiselessly passed almost before Grace
and her father had finished their discourse. Suke Damson had thought it
well to imitate her superior in this respect, and, descending the back
stairs as Felice descended the front, went out at the side door and
home to her cottage.

Once outside Melbury's gates Mrs. Charmond ran with all her speed to
the Manor House, without stopping or turning her head, and splitting
her thin boots in her haste. She entered her own dwelling, as she had
emerged from it, by the drawing-room window. In other circumstances she
would have felt some timidity at undertaking such an unpremeditated
excursion alone; but her anxiety for another had cast out her fear for
herself.