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She burst into an immoderate fit of
laughter, her very gloom of the previous hour seeming to render it
the more uncontrollable. It had not died out of her when she
reached the dining-room; and even here, before the servants, her
shoulders suddenly shook as the scene returned upon her; and the
tears of her hilarity mingled with the remnants of those
engendered by her grief.
She resolved to be sad no more. She drank two glasses of
champagne, and a little more still after those, and amused herself
in the evening with singing little amatory songs.
"I must do something for that poor man Winterborne, however," she
said.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A week had passed, and Mrs. Charmond had left Hintock House.
Middleton Abbey, the place of her sojourn, was about twenty miles
distant by road, eighteen by bridle-paths and footways.
Grace observed, for the first time, that her husband was restless,
that at moments he even was disposed to avoid her. The scrupulous
civility of mere acquaintanceship crept into his manner; yet, when
sitting at meals, he seemed hardly to hear her remarks.


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