"He tried me too sorely; and now perhaps I've murdered him!" He turned round in the saddle and looked towards the spot on which Fitzpiers had fallen.

To his great surprise he beheld the surgeon rise to his feet with a bound, as if unhurt, and walk away rapidly under the trees.
Melbury listened till the rustle of Fitzpiers's footsteps died away.
"It might have been a crime, but for the mercy of Providence in providing leaves for his fall," he said to himself.

And then his mind reverted to the words of Fitzpiers, and his indignation so mounted within him that he almost wished the fall had put an end to the young man there and then.
He had not ridden far when he discerned his own gray mare standing under some bushes.

Leaving Darling for a moment, Melbury went forward and easily caught the younger animal, now disheartened at its freak.
He then made the pair of them fast to a tree, and turning back, endeavored to find some trace of Fitzpiers, feeling pitifully that, after all, he had gone further than he intended with the offender.
But though he threaded the wood hither and thither, his toes ploughing layer after layer of the little horny scrolls that had once been leaves, he could not find him.

He stood still listening and looking round.