She went off one morning as unostentatiously as could be, and took no maid with her, having, she said, engaged one to meet her at a point farther on in her route.
After that, Hintock House, so frequently deserted, was again to be let.
Spring had not merged in summer when a clinching rumor, founded on the best of evidence, reached the parish and neighborhood.

Mrs.Charmond and Fitzpiers had been seen together in Baden, in relations which set at rest the question that had agitated the little community ever since the winter.
Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther than Grace.
His spirit seemed broken.
But once a week he mechanically went to market as usual, and here, as he was passing by the conduit one day, his mental condition expressed largely by his gait, he heard his name spoken by a voice formerly familiar.

He turned and saw a certain Fred Beaucock--once a promising lawyer's clerk and local dandy, who had been called the cleverest fellow in Sherton, without whose brains the firm of solicitors employing him would be nowhere.

But later on Beaucock had fallen into the mire.

He was invited out a good deal, sang songs at agricultural meetings and burgesses' dinners; in sum, victualled himself with spirits more frequently than was good for the clever brains or body either.