It was in the same spirit that he had tacitly assented to
Fitzpiers's domicilation there. The two men had not met face to
face, but Mrs. Melbury had proposed herself as an intermediary,
who made the surgeon's re-entrance comparatively easy to him.
Everything was provisional, and nobody asked questions. Fitzpiers
had come in the performance of a plan of penitence, which had
originated in circumstances hereafter to be explained; his self-
humiliation to the very bass-string was deliberate; and as soon as
a call reached him from the bedside of a dying man his desire was
to set to work and do as much good as he could with the least
possible fuss or show. He therefore refrained from calling up a
stableman to get ready any horse or gig, and set out for One-
chimney Hut on foot, as Grace had done.
CHAPTER XLIII.
She re-entered the hut, flung off her bonnet and cloak, and
approached the sufferer. He had begun anew those terrible
mutterings, and his hands were cold. As soon as she saw him there
returned to her that agony of mind which the stimulus of her
journey had thrown off for a time.
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