"She would hardly have been happy with me," he said, in the dry,
unimpassioned voice under which he hid his feelings. "I was not well
enough educated: too rough, in short. I couldn't have surrounded her
with the refinements she looked for, anyhow, at all."
"Nonsense--you are quite wrong there," said the unwise old man,
doggedly. "She told me only this day that she hates refinements and
such like. All that my trouble and money bought for her in that way is
thrown away upon her quite. She'd fain be like Marty South--think o'
that! That's the top of her ambition! Perhaps she's right. Giles, she
loved you--under the rind; and, what's more, she loves ye still--worse
luck for the poor maid!"
If Melbury only had known what fires he was recklessly stirring up he
might have held his peace. Winterborne was silent a long time. The
darkness had closed in round them, and the monotonous drip of the fog
from the branches quickened as it turned to fine rain.
"Oh, she never cared much for me," Giles managed to say, as he stirred
the embers with a brand.
"She did, and does, I tell ye," said the other, obstinately. "However,
all that's vain talking now. What I come to ask you about is a more
practical matter--how to make the best of things as they are. I am
thinking of a desperate step--of calling on the woman Charmond. I am
going to appeal to her, since Grace will not. 'Tis she who holds the
balance in her hands--not he. While she's got the will to lead him
astray he will follow--poor, unpractical, lofty-notioned dreamer--and
how long she'll do it depends upon her whim. Did ye ever hear anything
about her character before she came to Hintock?"
"She's been a bit of a charmer in her time, I believe," replied Giles,
with the same level quietude, as he regarded the red coals. "One who
has smiled where she has not loved and loved where she has not married.
Before Mr. Charmond made her his wife she was a play-actress."
"Hey? But how close you have kept all this, Giles! What besides?"
"Mr. Charmond was a rich man, engaged in the iron trade in the north,
twenty or thirty years older than she. He married her and retired, and
came down here and bought this property, as they do nowadays."
"Yes, yes--I know all about that; but the other I did not know. I fear
it bodes no good. For how can I go and appeal to the forbearance of a
woman in this matter who has made cross-loves and crooked entanglements
her trade for years? I thank ye, Giles, for finding it out; but it
makes my plan the harder that she should have belonged to that unstable
tribe."