That was how it had begun, and tragedy had been its end. On his abrupt
departure she had followed him to the station but the train was gone;
and in travelling to Baden in search of him she had met his rival,
whose reproaches led to an altercation, and the death of both. Of that
precipitate scene of passion and crime Fitzpiers had known nothing till
he saw an account of it in the papers, where, fortunately for himself,
no mention was made of his prior acquaintance with the unhappy lady;
nor was there any allusion to him in the subsequent inquiry, the double
death being attributed to some gambling losses, though, in point of
fact, neither one of them had visited the tables.
Melbury and his daughter drew near their house, having seen but one
living thing on their way, a squirrel, which did not run up its tree,
but, dropping the sweet chestnut which it carried, cried
chut-chut-chut, and stamped with its hind legs on the ground. When the
roofs and chimneys of the homestead began to emerge from the screen of
boughs, Grace started, and checked herself in her abstracted advance.
"You clearly understand," she said to her step-mother some of her old
misgiving returning, "that I am coming back only on condition of his
leaving as he promised? Will you let him know this, that there may be
no mistake?"
Mrs. Melbury, who had some long private talks with Fitzpiers, assured
Grace that she need have no doubts on that point, and that he would
probably be gone by the evening. Grace then entered with them into
Melbury's wing of the house, and sat down listlessly in the parlor,
while her step-mother went to Fitzpiers.
The prompt obedience to her wishes which the surgeon showed did honor
to him, if anything could. Before Mrs. Melbury had returned to the
room Grace, who was sitting on the parlor window-bench, saw her husband
go from the door under the increasing light of morning, with a bag in
his hand. While passing through the gate he turned his head. The
firelight of the room she sat in threw her figure into dark relief
against the window as she looked through the panes, and he must have
seen her distinctly. In a moment he went on, the gate fell to, and he
disappeared. At the hut she had declared that another had displaced
him; and now she had banished him.