That judgment on which he had relied for so many years seemed recently, like a false companion unmasked, to have disclosed unexpected depths of hypocrisy and speciousness where all had seemed solidity.

He felt almost afraid to form a conjecture on the weather, or the time, or the fruit-promise, so great was his self-abasement.
It was a rimy evening when he set out to look for Giles.

The woods seemed to be in a cold sweat; beads of perspiration hung from every bare twig; the sky had no color, and the trees rose before him as haggard, gray phantoms, whose days of substantiality were passed.
Melbury seldom saw Winterborne now, but he believed him to be occupying a lonely hut just beyond the boundary of Mrs.Charmond's estate, though still within the circuit of the woodland.

The timber-merchant's thin legs stalked on through the pale, damp scenery, his eyes on the dead leaves of last year; while every now and then a hasty "Ay ?" escaped his lips in reply to some bitter proposition.
His notice was attracted by a thin blue haze of smoke, behind which arose sounds of voices and chopping: bending his steps that way, he saw Winterborne just in front of him.

It just now happened that Giles, after being for a long time apathetic and unemployed, had become one of the busiest men in the neighborhood.