The spot seemed now to be quite deserted. The light from South's
window made rays on the fog, but did not reach the tree. A
quarter of an hour passed, and all was blackness overhead. Giles
had not yet come down.

Then the tree seemed to shiver, then to heave a sigh; a movement
was audible, and Winterborne dropped almost noiselessly to the
ground. He had thought the matter out, and having returned the
ladder and billhook to their places, pursued his way homeward. He
would not allow this incident to affect his outer conduct any more
than the danger to his leaseholds had done, and went to bed as
usual. Two simultaneous troubles do not always make a double
trouble; and thus it came to pass that Giles's practical anxiety
about his houses, which would have been enough to keep him awake
half the night at any other time, was displaced and not reinforced
by his sentimental trouble about Grace Melbury. This severance
was in truth more like a burial of her than a rupture with her;
but he did not realize so much at present; even when he arose in
the morning he felt quite moody and stern: as yet the second note
in the gamut of such emotions, a tender regret for his loss, had
not made itself heard.

A load of oak timber was to be sent away that morning to a builder
whose works were in a town many miles off. The proud trunks were
taken up from the silent spot which had known them through the
buddings and sheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred
years; chained down like slaves to a heavy timber carriage with
enormous red wheels, and four of the most powerful of Melbury's
horses were harnessed in front to draw them.