The chief hotel at Sherton-Abbas was an old stone-fronted inn with a yawning arch, under which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen to back premises of wonderful commodiousness.

The windows to the street were mullioned into narrow lights, and only commanded a view of the opposite houses; hence, perhaps, it arose that the best and most luxurious private sitting-room that the inn could afford over-looked the nether parts of the establishment, where beyond the yard were to be seen gardens and orchards, now bossed, nay incrusted, with scarlet and gold fruit, stretching to infinite distance under a luminous lavender mist.

The time was early autumn, "When the fair apples, red as evening sky, Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground, When juicy pears, and berries of black dye, Do dance in air, and call the eyes around." The landscape confronting the window might, indeed, have been part of the identical stretch of country which the youthful Chatterton had in his mind.
In this room sat she who had been the maiden Grace Melbury till the finger of fate touched her and turned her to a wife.

It was two months after the wedding, and she was alone.

Fitzpiers had walked out to see the abbey by the light of sunset, but she had been too fatigued to accompany him.