front, and he saw words written thereon in charcoal, which he read
as follows:


"O Giles, you've lost your dwelling-place,
And therefore, Giles, you'll lose your Grace."


Giles went in-doors. He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of
those lines, but he could not be sure. What suddenly filled his
heart far more than curiosity about their authorship was a
terrible belief that they were turning out to be true, try to see
Grace as he might. They decided the question for him. He sat
down and wrote a formal note to Melbury, in which he briefly
stated that he was placed in such a position as to make him share
to the full Melbury's view of his own and his daughter's promise,
made some years before; to wish that it should be considered as
cancelled, and they themselves quite released from any obligation
on account of it.

Having fastened up this their plenary absolution, he determined to
get it out of his hands and have done with it; to which end he
went off to Melbury's at once. It was now so late that the family
had all retired; he crept up to the house, thrust the note under
the door, and stole away as silently as he had come.

Melbury himself was the first to rise the next morning, and when
he had read the letter his relief was great. "Very honorable of
Giles, very honorable," he kept saying to himself. "I shall not
forget him. Now to keep her up to her own true level."