Life among the people involved in these events seemed to be suppressed
and hide-bound for a while. Grace seldom showed herself outside the
house, never outside the garden; for she feared she might encounter
Giles Winterborne; 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 formerly 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 Winterborne 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 languor, and he did not think the case serious enough to send 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 inertion of Grace's
pool-like existence was disturbed as by a geyser. She received a
letter from Fitzpiers.