Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully.  While he stood there the men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap.  One of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he wished to give for mending the well-tackle.  The captain proved to be away from home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out.  She had lapsed into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity of life in her words of solicitude for Clym’s safety.

“Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?” she inquired.

“No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out.  And as we can do no more now we’ll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.”

“No water,” she murmured, turning away.

“I can send you up some from Blooms-End,” said Clym, coming forward and raising his hat as the men retired.

Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was common to both.  With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed itself to an expression of refinement and warmth:  it was like garish noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.

“Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,” she replied.

“But if you have no water?”

“Well, it is what I call no water,” she said, blushing, and lifting her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring consideration.  “But my grandfather calls it water enough.  I’ll show you what I mean.”

She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed.  When she reached the corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after her listless movement towards the well.  It incidentally showed that her apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.

Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top of the bank.  “Ashes?” he said.

“Yes,” said Eustacia.  “We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of November, and those are the marks of it.”

On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.

“That’s the only kind of water we have,” she continued, tossing a stone into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of an eye without its pupil.  The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there.  “My grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water twice as bad as that,” she went on, “and considers it quite good enough for us here on an emergency.”

“Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these pools at this time of the year.  It has only just rained into them.”