Fitzpiers--and send him on to the
House. I find I am hurt more seriously than I thought."
Winterborne took the message from the groom and proceeded to the
doctor's at once. Having delivered it, he stepped back into the
darkness, and waited till he had seen Fitzpiers leave the door.
He stood for a few minutes looking at the window which by its
light revealed the room where Grace was sitting, and went away
under the gloomy trees.
Fitzpiers duly arrived at Hintock House, whose doors he now saw
open for the first time. Contrary to his expectation there was
visible no sign of that confusion or alarm which a serious
accident to the mistress of the abode would have occasioned. He
was shown into a room at the top of the staircase, cosily and
femininely draped, where, by the light of the shaded lamp, he saw
a woman of full round figure reclining upon a couch in such a
position as not to disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown
of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown formed an admirable foil
to the peculiarly rich brown of her hair-plaits; her left arm,
which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was thrown upward, and
between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette, while
she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream of smoke
towards the ceiling.
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