It was one of the
features of Fitzpiers's repentant humor at this date that, on
receiving the explanation of her absence, he had made no attempt
to outrage her feelings by following her; though nobody had
informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his
entry, and of all that might have been inferred from her
precipitancy.
Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to
follow her either. He sympathized with her flight, much as he
deplored it; moreover, the tragic color of the antecedent events
that he had been a great means of creating checked his instinct to
interfere. He prayed and trusted that she had got into no danger
on her way (as he supposed) to Sherton, and thence to Exbury, if
that were the place she had gone to, forbearing all inquiry which
the strangeness of her departure would have made natural. A few
months before this time a performance by Grace of one-tenth the
magnitude of this would have aroused him to unwonted
investigation.
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