The Woodlanders - Page 97/314

The doctor had started on his way out of the village on the night in

question when the light of his lamps fell upon the musing form of

Winterborne, walking leisurely along, as if he had no object in life.

Winterborne was a better class of companion than the doctor usually

could get, and he at once pulled up and asked him if he would like a

drive through the wood that fine night.

Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's friendliness, but said

that he had no objection, and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers.

They drove along under the black boughs which formed a network upon the

stars, all the trees of a species alike in one respect, and no two of

them alike in another. Looking up as they passed under a horizontal

bough they sometimes saw objects like large tadpoles lodged

diametrically across it, which Giles explained to be pheasants there at

roost; and they sometimes heard the report of a gun, which reminded him

that others knew what those tadpole shapes represented as well as he.

Presently the doctor said what he had been going to say for some time: "Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood--a very attractive

girl--with a little white boa round her neck, and white fur round her

gloves?"

Winterborne of course knew in a moment that Grace, whom he had caught

the doctor peering at, was represented by these accessaries. With a

wary grimness, partly in his character, partly induced by the

circumstances, he evaded an answer by saying, "I saw a young lady

talking to Mrs. Charmond the other day; perhaps it was she."

Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterborne had not seen him looking

over the hedge. "It might have been," he said. "She is quite a

gentlewoman--the one I mean. She cannot be a permanent resident in

Hintock or I should have seen her before. Nor does she look like one."

"She is not staying at Hintock House?"

"No; it is closed."

"Then perhaps she is staying at one of the cottages, or farmhouses?"

"Oh no--you mistake. She was a different sort of girl altogether." As

Giles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him accordingly, and apostrophized

the night in continuation: "'She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,

A power, that from its objects scarcely drew

One impulse of her being--in her lightness

Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,

Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue,

To nourish some far desert: she did seem

Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,

Like the bright shade of some immortal dream

Which walks, when tempests sleep, the wave of life's dark stream.'"