sentiment that Grace was a necessity of his
existence. The sudden pressure of her form upon his breast as she came
headlong round the bush had never ceased to linger with him, ever since
he adopted the manoeuvre for which the hour and the moonlight and the
occasion had been the only excuse. Now she was to be sent away.
Ambition? it could be postponed. Family? culture and reciprocity of
tastes had taken the place of family nowadays. He allowed himself to
be carried forward on the wave of his desire.

"How strange, how very strange it is," he said, "that you should have
come to me about her just now. I have been thinking every day of
coming to you on the very same errand."

"Ah!--you have noticed, too, that her health----"

"I have noticed nothing the matter with her health, because there is
nothing. But, Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter several times by
accident. I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming to ask you
if I may become better acquainted with her--pay my addresses to her?"

Melbury was looking down as he listened, and did not see the air of
half-misgiving at his own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers's face as
he made this declaration.

"You have--got to know her?" said Melbury, a spell of dead silence
having preceded his utterance, during which his emotion rose with
almost visible effect.

"Yes," said Fitzpiers.

"And you wish to become better acquainted with her? You mean with a
view to marriage--of course that is what you mean?"

"Yes," said the young man. "I mean, get acquainted with her, with a
view to being her accepted lover; and if we suited each other, what
would naturally follow."

The timber-merchant was much surprised, and fairly agitated; his hand
trembled as he laid by his walking-stick. "This takes me unawares,"
said he, his voice wellnigh breaking down. "I don't mean that there is
anything unexpected in a gentleman being attracted by her; but it did
not occur to me that it would be you. I always said," continued he,
with a lump in his throat, "that my Grace would make a mark at her own
level some day. That was why I educated her. I said to myself, 'I'll
do it, cost what it may;' though her mother-law was pretty frightened
at my paying out so much money year after year. I knew it would tell
in the end. 'Where you've not good material to work on, such doings
would be waste and vanity,' I said. 'But where you have that material
it is sure to be worth while.'"