But nobody came.
It was a critical time in Grace's emotional life that night.

She thought of her husband a good deal, and for the nonce forgot Winterborne.
"How these unhappy women must have admired Edgar!" she said to herself.
"How attractive he must be to everybody; and, indeed, he is attractive." The possibility is that, piqued by rivalry, these ideas might have been transformed into their corresponding emotions by a show of the least reciprocity in Fitzpiers.

There was, in truth, a love-bird yearning to fly from her heart; and it wanted a lodging badly.
But no husband came.

The fact was that Melbury had been much mistaken about the condition of Fitzpiers.

People do not fall headlong on stumps of underwood with impunity.