At Grace's first remark he had not recognized or suspected her presence; but as she went on, he was awakened to the great resemblance of the speaker's voice to his wife's.

He had taken in such good faith the statement of the household on his arrival, that she had gone on a visit for a time because she could not at once bring her mind to be reconciled to him, that he could not quite actually believe this comer to be she.

It was one of the features of Fitzpiers's repentant humor at this date that, on receiving the explanation of her absence, he had made no attempt to outrage her feelings by following her; though nobody had informed him how very shortly her departure had preceded his entry, and of all that might have been inferred from her precipitancy.
Melbury, after much alarm and consideration, had decided not to follow her either.

He sympathized with her flight, much as he deplored it; moreover, the tragic color of the antecedent events that he had been a great means of creating checked his instinct to interfere.

He prayed and trusted that she had got into no danger on her way (as he supposed) to Sherton, and thence to Exbury, if that were the place she had gone to, forbearing all inquiry which the strangeness of her departure would have made natural.