Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders

33. CHAPTER XXXIII. (continued)

"I have seen your father," she at length resumed. "And--I am much troubled by what he told me."

"What did he tell you? I have not been admitted to his confidence on anything he may have said to you."

"Nevertheless, why should I repeat to you what you can easily divine?"

"True--true," returned Grace, mournfully. "Why should you repeat what we both know to be in our minds already?"

"Mrs. Fitzpiers, your husband--" The moment that the speaker's tongue touched the dangerous subject a vivid look of self-consciousness flashed over her, in which her heart revealed, as by a lightning gleam, what filled it to overflowing. So transitory was the expression that none but a sensitive woman, and she in Grace's position, would have had the power to catch its meaning. Upon her the phase was not lost.

"Then you DO love him!" she exclaimed, in a tone of much surprise.

"What do you mean, my young friend?"

"Why," cried Grace, "I thought till now that you had only been cruelly flirting with my husband, to amuse your idle moments--a rich lady with a poor professional gentleman whom in her heart she despised not much less than her who belongs to him. But I guess from your manner that you love him desperately, and I don't hate you as I did before."

"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Fitzpiers, with a trembling tongue, "since it is not playing in your case at all, but REAL. Oh, I do pity you, more than I despise you, for you will s-s-suffer most!"