I meant to let it stay a little longer." "Some idle boy did it, no doubt," she murmured.
As this seemed very probable, and the actual perpetrator was unsuspected, Winterborne said no more, and dismissed the matter from his mind.
From this day of his life onward for a considerable time, Winterborne, though not absolutely out of his house as yet, retired into the background of human life and action thereabout--a feat not particularly difficult of performance anywhere when the doer has the assistance of a lost prestige.

Grace, thinking that Winterborne saw her write, made no further sign, and the frail bark of fidelity that she had thus timidly launched was stranded and lost..