CHAPTER XXVIII.
A week had passed, and Mrs.Charmond had left Hintock House.

Middleton Abbey, the place of her sojourn, was about twenty miles distant by road, eighteen by bridle-paths and footways.
Grace observed, for the first time, that her husband was restless, that at moments he even was disposed to avoid her.

The scrupulous civility of mere acquaintanceship crept into his manner; yet, when sitting at meals, he seemed hardly to hear her remarks.

Her little doings interested him no longer, while towards her father his bearing was not far from supercilious.

It was plain that his mind was entirely outside her life, whereabouts outside it she could not tell; in some region of science, possibly, or of psychological literature.