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The troubled Grace took the letter to her father, who now continued for

long hours by the fireless suht it

inter, the pitcher of cider standing beside him, mostly untasted,

and coated with a filo," said he

"I had felt I would not," she answered "But I did not knohat you

would say"

"If he coland, not too near here and in a

respectable way, and wants you to co it," enteel and seeo abroad you never shall

with my consent"

There the question rested that day Grace was unable to reply to her

husband in the absence of an address, and theon which he had requested her to hout the whole of it she remained within the four walls of her

rooht be i like a cowl of blackness over the Melbury household They spoke

almost in whispers, and wondered what Fitzpiers would do next It was

the hope of every one that, finding she did not arrive, he would return

again to France; and as for Grace, she illing to write to him on