"Yes," said Mrs. Melbury. She expressed her concern that her husband
had hired a carriage all the way from Shottsford. "What it will cost!"
she said.
"I don't care what it costs!" he exclaimed, testily. "I was determined
to get her home. Why she went away I can't think! She acts in a way
that is not at all likely to mend matters as far as I can see." (Grace
had not told her father of her interview with Mrs. Charmond, and the
disclosure that had been whispered in her startled ear.) "Since Edgar
is come," he continued, "he might have waited in till I got home, to
ask me how she was, if only for a compliment. I saw him go out; where
is he gone?"
Mrs. Melbury did not know positively; but she told her husband that
there was not much doubt about the place of his first visit after an
absence. She had, in fact, seen Fitzpiers take the direction of the
Manor House.
Melbury said no more. It was exasperating to him that just at this
moment, when there was every reason for Fitzpiers to stay indoors, or
at any rate to ride along the Shottsford road to meet his ailing wife,
he should be doing despite to her by going elsewhere. The old man went
out-of-doors again; and his horse being hardly unsaddled as yet, he
told Upjohn to retighten the girths, when he again mounted, and rode
off at the heels of the surgeon.
By the time that Melbury reached the park, he was prepared to go any
lengths in combating this rank and reckless errantry of his daughter's
husband. He would fetch home Edgar Fitzpiers to-night by some means,
rough or fair: in his view there could come of his interference nothing
worse than what existed at present. And yet to every bad there is a
worse.
He had entered by the bridle-gate which admitted to the park on this
side, and cantered over the soft turf almost in the tracks of
Fitzpiers's horse, till he reached the clump of trees under which his
precursor had halted. The whitish object that was indistinctly visible
here in the gloom of the boughs he found to be Darling, as left by
Fitzpiers.
"D--n him! why did he not ride up to the house in an honest way?" said
Melbury.
He profited by Fitzpiers's example; dismounting, he tied his horse
under an adjoining tree, and went on to the house on foot, as the other
had done. He was no longer disposed to stick at trifles in his
investigation, and did not hesitate to gently open the front door
without ringing.