to which the girls had wandered resounded with the
flapping of disturbed birds; then two or three hares and rabbits
bounded down the glade from the same direction, and after these the
rustling and crackling of leaves and dead twigs denoted the hurried
approach of the adventurers, whose fluttering gowns soon became
visible. Miss Melbury, having gone forward quite in the rear of the
rest, was one of the first to return, and the excitement being
contagious, she ran laughing towards Marty, who still stood as a
hand-post to guide her; then, passing on, she flew round the fatal bush
where the undergrowth narrowed to a gorge. Marty arrived at her heels
just in time to see the result. Fitzpiers had quickly stepped forward
in front of Winterborne, who, disdaining to shift his position, had
turned on his heel, and then the surgeon did what he would not have
thought of doing but for Mrs. Melbury's encouragement and the sentiment
of an eve which effaced conventionality. Stretching out his arms as
the white figure burst upon him, he captured her in a moment, as if she
had been a bird.

"Oh!" cried Grace, in her fright.

"You are in my arms, dearest," said Fitzpiers, "and I am going to claim
you, and keep you there all our two lives!"

She rested on him like one utterly mastered, and it was several seconds
before she recovered from this helplessness. Subdued screams and
struggles, audible from neighboring brakes, revealed that there had
been other lurkers thereabout for a similar purpose. Grace, unlike
most of these companions of hers, instead of gasping and writhing, said
in a trembling voice, "Mr. Fitzpiers, will you let me go?"

"Certainly," he said, laughing; "as soon as you have recovered."

She waited another few moments, then quietly and firmly pushed him
aside, and glided on her path, the moon whitening her hot blush away.
But it had been enough--new relations between them had begun.

The case of the other girls was different, as has been said. They
wrestled and tittered, only escaping after a desperate struggle.
Fitzpiers could hear these enactments still going on after Grace had
left him, and he remained on the spot where he had caught her,
Winterborne having gone away. On a sudden another girl came bounding
down the same descent that had been followed by Grace--a fine-framed
young woman with naked arms. Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she
said, with playful effrontery, "May'st kiss me if 'canst catch me, Tim