LITMIR.BIZ

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doubt if I ought, after such strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I have been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. O, it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I ever forget it, or even agree to see her again?”

      “She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and perhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether.”

      “She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her out she did.”

      “Believe her sorry, and send for her.”

      “How if she will not come?”

      “It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish enmity. But I do not think that for a moment.”

      “I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer — not longer than two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he from home?”

      Thomasin blushed a little. “No,” she said. “He is merely gone out for a walk.”

      “Why didn’t he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh air as well as he.”

      “Oh, I don’t care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby.”

      “Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your husband about this as well as you,” said Clym steadily.

      “I fancy I would not,” she quickly answered. “It can do no good.”

      Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that her husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but her countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or thought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in days gone by.

      Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in doubt than when he came.

      “You will write to her in a day or two?” said the young woman earnestly. “I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end.”

      “I will,” said Clym; “I don’t rejoice in my present state at all.”

      And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going to bed he sat down and wrote the following letter:—

      MY DEAR EUSTACIA — I must obey my heart without consulting my reason too closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and the past shall never be mentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You don’t know, you never will know, what those words of anger cost me which you drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise you I promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer anything on this score again. After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I think we had better pass the remainder of our lives in trying to keep them. Come to me, then, even if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and they are as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue. Such hearts as ours would never have been given us but to be concerned with each other. I could not ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was unable to persuade myself that he who was with you was not there as a lover. But if you will come and explain distracting appearances I do not question that you can show your honesty to me. Why have you not come before? Do you think I will not listen to you? Surely not, when you remember the kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. Return then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer think of you to your prejudice — I am but too much absorbed in justifying you. — Your husband as ever,

      CLYM.

      “There,” he said, as he laid it in his desk, “that’s a good thing done. If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.”

      Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily. Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all suspicion that Wildeve’s interest in Eustacia had not ended with his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.

      When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover, Thomasin said, “Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being in the house by myself.”

      “Frightened?” he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic animal. “Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are getting proud, I am sure, and don’t like living here since we have risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a new house; but I couldn’t have set about it sooner, unless our ten thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have afforded to despise caution.”

      “No — I don’t mind waiting — I would rather stay here twelve months longer than run any risk with baby. But I don’t like your vanishing so in the evenings. There’s something on your mind — I know there is, Damon. You go about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody’s gaol instead of a nice wild place to walk in.”

      He looked towards her with pitying surprise. “What, do you like Egdon Heath?” he said.

      “I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.”

      “Pooh, my dear. You don’t know what you like.”

      “I am sure I do. There’s only one thing unpleasant about Egdon.”

      “What’s that?”

      “You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so much in it yourself if you so dislike it?”

      The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat down before replying. “I don’t think you often see me there. Give an instance.”

      “I will,” she answered triumphantly. “When you went out this evening I thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you. You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the bonfires, and then said, ‘Damn it, I’ll go!’ And you went quickly up the left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.”

      Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, “Well, what wonderful discovery did you make?”

      “There — now you are angry, and we won’t talk of this any more.” She went across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.

      “Nonsense!” he said, “that’s how you always back out. We will go on with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want to know.”

      “Don’t be like that, Damon!” she murmured. “I didn’t see anything. You vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came in.”

      “Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you trying to find out something bad about me?”

      “Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn’t have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.”

      “What DO you mean?” he impatiently asked.

      “They say — they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it puts into my mind what I have heard about —”

      Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. “Now,” he said, flourishing his hand in the air, “just out with it, madam! I demand to know what remarks you have heard.”

      “Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia — nothing more than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be angry!”

      He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. “Well,” he said, “there is nothing new in that, and of course I don’t mean to be rough towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don’t let us speak of the subject any more.”

      And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough

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