As February merged in March, and lighter evenings broke the gloom of
the woodmen's homeward journey, the Hintocks Great and Little began to
have ears for a rumor of the events out of which had grown the
timber-dealer's troubles. It took the form of a wide sprinkling of
conjecture, wherein no man knew the exact truth. Tantalizing phenomena,
at once showing and concealing the real relationship of the persons
concerned, caused a diffusion of excited surprise. Honest people as
the woodlanders were, it was hardly to be expected that they could
remain immersed in the study of their trees and gardens amid such
circumstances, or sit with their backs turned like the good burghers of
Coventry at the passage of the beautiful lady.
Rumor, for a wonder, exaggerated little. There were, in fact, in this
case as in thousands, the well-worn incidents, old as the hills, which,
with individual variations, made a mourner of Ariadne, a by-word of
Vashti, and a corpse of the Countess Amy. There were rencounters
accidental and contrived, stealthy correspondence, sudden misgivings on
one side, sudden self-reproaches on the other. The inner state of the
twain was one as of confused noise that would not allow the accents of
calmer reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this direction, and
headlong plunges in that; dignified safeguards, undignified collapses;
not a single rash step by deliberate intention, and all against
judgment.
It was all that Melbury had expected and feared. It was more, for he
had overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as it now
had done. What should he do--appeal to Mrs. Charmond himself, since
Grace would not? He bethought himself of Winterborne, and resolved to
consult him, feeling the strong need of some friend of his own sex to
whom he might unburden his mind.
He had entirely lost faith in his own judgment. That judgment on which
he had relied for so many years seemed recently, like a false companion
unmasked, to have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy and
speciousness where all had seemed solidity. He felt almost afraid to
form a conjecture on the weather, or the time, or the fruit-promise, so
great was his self-abasement.
It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles. The woods
seemed to be in a cold sweat; beads of perspiration hung from every
bare twig; the sky had no color, and the trees rose before him as
haggard, gray phantoms, whose days of substantiality were passed.
Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he believed him to be occupying
a lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs. Charmond's estate, though
still within the circuit of the woodland. The timber-merchant's thin
legs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, his eyes on the dead
leaves of last year; while every now and then a hasty "Ay?" escaped his
lips in reply to some bitter proposition.