Chapter 29 - Page 2

marriage could be believed, her husband had felt affection
of some sort for herself and this woman simultaneously; and was
now again spreading the same emotion over Mrs. Charmond and
herself conjointly, his manner being still kind and fond at times.
But surely, rather than that, he must have played the hypocrite
towards her in each case with elaborate completeness; and the
thought of this sickened her, for it involved the conjecture that
if he had not loved her, his only motive for making her his wife
must have been her little fortune. Yet here Grace made a mistake,
for the love of men like Fitzpiers is unquestionably of such
quality as to bear division and transference. He had indeed, once
declared, though not to her, that on one occasion he had noticed
himself to be possessed by five distinct infatuations at the same
time. Therein it differed from the highest affection as the lower
orders of the animal world differ from advanced organisms,
partition causing, not death, but a multiplied existence. He had
loved her sincerely, and had by no means ceased to love her now.
But such double and treble barrelled hearts were naturally beyond
her conception.

Of poor Suke Damson, Grace thought no more. She had had her day.

"If he does not love me I will not love him!" said Grace, proudly.
And though these were mere words, it was a somewhat formidable
thing for Fitzpiers that her heart was approximating to a state in
which it might be possible to carry them out. That very absence
of hot jealousy which made his courses so easy, and on which,
indeed, he congratulated himself, meant, unknown to either wife or
husband, more mischief than the inconvenient watchfulness of a
jaundiced eye.

Her sleep that night was nervous. The wing allotted to her and
her husband had never seemed so lonely. At last she got up, put
on her dressing-gown, and went down-stairs. Her father, who slept
lightly, heard her descend, and came to the stair-head.

"Is that you, Grace? What's the matter?" he said.

"Nothing more than that I am restless. Edgar is detained by a
case at Owlscombe in White Hart Vale."

"But how's that? I saw the woman's husband at Great Hintock just
afore bedtime; and she was going on well, and the doctor gone
then."

"Then he's detained somewhere else," said Grace. "Never mind me;
he will soon be home. I expect him about one."

She went back to her room, and dozed and woke several times. One
o'clock had been the hour of his return on the last occasion; but
it passed now by a long way, and Fitzpiers did not come. Just
before dawn she heard the men stirring in the yard; and the
flashes of their lanterns spread every now and then through her
window-blind. She