Faber had been growing better.  He sat more erect on his horse; his eye was keener, his voice more kindly, though hardly less sad, and his step was firm.  His love to the child, and her delight in his attentions, were slowly leading him back to life.  Every day, if but for a moment, he contrived to see her, and the Wingfolds took care to remove every obstacle from the way of their meeting.  Little they thought why Dorothy let them keep the child so long.  As little did Dorothy know that what she yielded for the sake of the wife, they desired for the sake of the husband.

At length one morning came a break:  Faber received a note from the gate-keeper, informing him that Miss Drake was having the pond at the foot of her garden emptied into the Lythe by means of a tunnel, the construction of which was already completed.  They were now boring for a small charge of gunpowder expected to liberate the water.  The process of emptying would probably be rapid, and he had taken the liberty of informing Mr. Faber, thinking he might choose to be present.  No one but the persons employed would be allowed to enter the grounds.

This news gave him a greater shock than he could have believed possible.  He thought he had “supped full of horrors!” At once he arranged with his assistant for being absent the whole day; and rode out, followed by his groom.  At the gate Polwarth joined him, and walked beside him to the Old House, where his groom, he said, could put up the horses.  That done, he accompanied him to the mouth of the tunnel, and there left him.

Faber sat down on the stump of a felled tree, threw a big cloak, which he had brought across the pommel of his saddle, over his knees, and covered his face with his hands.  Before him the river ran swiftly toward the level country, making a noise of watery haste; also the wind was in the woods, with the noises of branches and leaves, but the only sounds he heard were the blows of the hammer on the boring-chisel, coming dull, and as if from afar, out of the depths of the earth.  What a strange, awful significance they had to the heart of Faber!  But the end was delayed hour after hour, and there he still sat, now and then at a louder noise than usual lifting up a white face, and staring toward the mouth of the tunnel.  At the explosion the water would probably rush in a torrent from the pit, and in half an hour, perhaps, the pond would be empty.  But Polwarth had taken good care there should be no explosion that day.  Ever again came the blow of iron upon iron, and the boring had begun afresh.

Into her lovely chamber Dorothy had carried to Juliet the glad tidings that her husband was within a few hundred yards of the house, and that she might trust Mr. Polwarth to keep him there until all danger was over.

Juliet now manifested far more courage than she had given reason to expect.  It seemed as if her husband’s nearness gave her strength to do without his presence.