Very few sounds did arise.

But as Grace invisibly breathed in the brown glooms of the chamber, the small remote noise of light wheels came in to her, accompanied by the trot of a horse on the turnpike-road.

There seemed to be a sudden hitch or pause in the progress of the vehicle, which was what first drew her attention to it.
She knew the point whence the sound proceeded--the hill-top over which travellers passed on their way hitherward from Sherton Abbas--the place at which she had emerged from the wood with Mrs.Charmond.

Grace slid along the floor, and bent her head over the window-sill, listening with open lips.

The carriage had stopped, and she heard a man use exclamatory words.