leasure in dealing
with house property in his small way.

Since one of the Souths still survived, there was not much doubt that
Giles could do what his father had left undone, as far as his own life
was concerned. This possibility cheered him much, for by those houses
hung many things. Melbury's doubt of the young man's fitness to be the
husband of Grace had been based not a little on the precariousness of
his holdings in Little and Great Hintock. He resolved to attend to the
business at once, the fine for renewal being a sum that he could easily
muster. His scheme, however, could not be carried out in a day; and
meanwhile he would run up to South's, as he had intended to do, to
learn the result of the experiment with the tree.

Marty met him at the door. "Well, Marty," he said; and was surprised
to read in her face that the case was not so hopeful as he had imagined.

"I am sorry for your labor," she said. "It is all lost. He says the
tree seems taller than ever."

Winterborne looked round at it. Taller the tree certainly did seem,
the gauntness of its now naked stem being more marked than before.

"It quite terrified him when he first saw what you had done to it this
morning," she added. "He declares it will come down upon us and cleave
us, like 'the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.'"

"Well; can I do anything else?" asked he.

"The doctor says the tree ought to be cut down."

"Oh--you've had the doctor?"

"I didn't send for him Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that
father was ill, and told him to attend him at her expense."

"That was very good of her. And he says it ought to be cut down. We
mustn't cut it down without her knowledge, I suppose."

He went up-stairs. There the old man sat, staring at the now gaunt
tree as if his gaze were frozen on to its trunk. Unluckily the tree
waved afresh by this time, a wind having sprung up and blown the fog
away, and his eyes turned with its wavings.

They heard footsteps--a man's, but of a lighter type than usual. "There
is Doctor Fitzpiers again," she said, and descended. Presently his
tread was heard on the naked stairs.

Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick-chamber just as a doctor is more or less
wont to do on such occasions, and pre-eminently when the room is that
of a humble cottager, looking round towards the patient with that
preoccupied gaze which so plainly reveals that he has wellnigh
forgotten all about the case and the whole circumstances