He returned to the house half expecting that she would have vanished.  No; there she was—­just coming out from the inner room, the marks of sleep upon her eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshed air.

“O father!” she said smiling.  “I had no sooner lain down than I napped, though I did not mean to.  I wonder I did not dream about poor Mrs. Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but I did not.  How strange it is that we do not often dream of latest events, absorbing as they may be.”

“I am glad you have been able to sleep,” he said, taking her hand with anxious proprietorship—­an act which gave her a pleasant surprise.

They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane’s thoughts reverted to Lucetta.  Their sadness added charm to a countenance whose beauty had ever lain in its meditative soberness.

“Father,” she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the outspread meal, “it is so kind of you to get this nice breakfast with your own hands, and I idly asleep the while.”

“I do it every day,” he replied.  “You have left me; everybody has left me; how should I live but by my own hands.”

“You are very lonely, are you not?”

“Ay, child—­to a degree that you know nothing of!  It is my own fault.  You are the only one who has been near me for weeks.  And you will come no more.”

“Why do you say that?  Indeed I will, if you would like to see me.”

Henchard signified dubiousness.  Though he had so lately hoped that Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as daughter, he would not ask her to do so now.  Newson might return at any moment, and what Elizabeth would think of him for his deception it were best to bear apart from her.

When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered, till the moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to go to his daily work.  Then she arose, and with assurance of coming again soon went up the hill in the morning sunlight.

“At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is towards her, she would live with me here in this humble cottage for the asking!  Yet before the evening probably he will have come, and then she will scorn me!”

This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to himself, accompanied him everywhere through the day.  His mood was no longer that of the rebellious, ironical, reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of one who has lost all that can make life interesting, or even tolerable.  There would remain nobody for him to be proud of, nobody to fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but as a stranger, and worse.  Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth—­all had gone from him, one after one, either by his fault or by his misfortune.

In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire.  If he could have summoned music to his aid his existence might even now have been borne; for with Henchard music was of regal power.  The merest trumpet or organ tone was enough to move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him.  But hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up this Divine spirit in his need.