Darling being the light-gray mare which Winterborne had bought for Grace, and which Fitzpiers now constantly used, the animal having turned out a wonderful bargain, in combining a perfect docility with an almost human intelligence; moreover, she was not too young.

Fitzpiers was unfamiliar with horses, and he valued these qualities.
"Yes," he replied, "but not to drive.

I am riding her.

I practise crossing a horse as often as I can now, for I find that I can take much shorter cuts on horseback." He had, in fact, taken these riding exercises for about a week, only since Mrs.Charmond's absence, his universal practice hitherto having been to drive.
Some few days later, Fitzpiers started on the back of this horse to see a patient in the aforesaid Vale.

It was about five o'clock in the evening when he went away, and at bedtime he had not reached home.
There was nothing very singular in this, though she was not aware that he had any patient more than five or six miles distant in that direction.