“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 of
a reason for not mentioning Clym’s visit to
her that evening, and his story.
The Night of the Sixth of November
Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed
anxious that something should happen to thwart her
own intention. The only event that could really
change her position was the appearance of Clym.
The glory which had encircled him as her lover was
departed now; yet some good simple quality of his
would occasionally return to her memory and stir a
momentary throb of hope that he would again present
himself before her. But calmly considered it
was not likely that such a severance as now existed
would ever close up: she would have to live on
as a painful object, isolated, and out of place.
She had used to think of the heath alone as an uncongenial
spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole world.
Towards evening on the sixth her determination to
go away again revived. About four o’clock
she packed up anew the few small articles she had
brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some
belonging to her which had been left here: the
whole formed a bundle not too large to be carried
in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The
scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied
downwards from the sky like vast hammocks slung across
it, and with the increase of night a stormy wind arose;
but as yet there was no rain.
Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more
to do, and she wandered to and fro on the hill, not
far from the house she was soon to leave. In
these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of
Susan Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather’s.
The door was ajar, and a riband of bright firelight
fell over the ground without. As Eustacia crossed
the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
as a figure in a phantasmagoria—a creature
of light surrounded by an area of darkness: the
moment passed, and she was absorbed in night again.
