“No. But she will be leaving soon.
You may possibly meet her at the corner.”
Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to
his former position, where the by-road from Mistover
joined the highway. Here he remained fixed for
nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights
came down the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled
nondescript belonging to the captain, and Thomasin
sat in it alone, driven by Charley.
The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner.
“I beg pardon for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve,”
he said. “But I have something to give
you privately from Mrs. Yeobright.” He handed
a small parcel; it consisted of the hundred guineas
he had just won, roughly twisted up in a piece of
paper.
Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the
packet. “That’s all, ma’am—I
wish you good night,” he said, and vanished from
her view.
Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had
placed in Thomasin’s hands not only the fifty
guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also the
fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake
had been based upon Wildeve’s words at the opening
of the game, when he indignantly denied that the guinea
was not his own. It had not been comprehended
by the reddleman that at half-way through the performance
the game was continued with the money of another person;
and it was an error which afterwards helped to cause
more misfortune than treble the loss in money value
could have done.
The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged
deeper into the heath, till he came to a ravine where
his van was standing—a spot not more than
two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout.
He entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern,
and, before closing his door for the night, stood
reflecting on the circumstances of the preceding hours.
While he stood the dawn grew visible in the north-east
quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared
off, was bright with a soft sheen at this midsummer
time, though it was only between one and two o’clock.
Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung
himself down to sleep.
The Rencounter by the Pool
The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson
heather to scarlet. It was the one season of
the year, and the one weather of the season, in which
the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period
represented the second or noontide division in the
cycle of those superficial changes which alone were
possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown
period, when the heathbells and ferns would wear the
russet tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced
by the dark hue of the winter period, representing
night.
