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But he
had done it, and Grace was the sweetest girl alive.
As for the departed visitor, his own last words lingered in
Melbury's ears as he walked homeward; he felt that what he had
said in the emotion of the moment was very stupid, ungenteel, and
unsuited to a dialogue with an educated gentleman, the smallness
of whose practice was more than compensated by the former
greatness of his family. He had uttered thoughts before they were
weighed, and almost before they were shaped. They had expressed
in a certain sense his feeling at Fitzpiers's news, but yet they
were not right. Looking on the ground, and planting his stick at
each tread as if it were a flag-staff, he reached his own
precincts, where, as he passed through the court, he automatically
stopped to look at the men working in the shed and around. One of
them asked him a question about wagon-spokes.
"Hey?" said Melbury, looking hard at him. The man repeated the
words.
Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away without answering, he
went up the court and entered the house.


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