"How can you expect war from such a helpless, wretched being as I!" "And I'll do my best not to see him.

I am his slave; but I'll try." Grace was naturally kind; but she could not help using a small dagger now.
"Pray don't distress yourself," she said, with exquisitely fine scorn.
"You may keep him--for me." Had she been wounded instead of mortified she could not have used the words; but Fitzpiers's hold upon her heart was slight.
They parted thus and there, and Grace went moodily homeward.

Passing Marty's cottage she observed through the window that the girl was writing instead of chopping as usual, and wondered what her correspondence could be.

Directly afterwards she met people in search of her, and reached the house to find all in serious alarm.

She soon explained that she had lost her way, and her general depression was attributed to exhaustion on that account.
Could she have known what Marty was writing she would have been surprised.
The rumor which agitated the other folk of Hintock had reached the young girl, and she was penning a letter to Fitzpiers, to tell him that Mrs.Charmond wore her hair.