At last full proof was given him.  He was standing behind a wall close to the place at which Farfrae encountered her.  He heard the young man address her as “Dearest Elizabeth-Jane,” and then kiss her, the girl looking quickly round to assure herself that nobody was near.

When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and mournfully followed them to Casterbridge.  The chief looming trouble in this engagement had not decreased.  Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlike the rest of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual daughter, from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief; and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have no objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they could never be.  Thus would the girl, who was his only friend, be withdrawn from him by degrees through her husband’s influence, and learn to despise him.

Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he had rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit was broken, Henchard would have said, “I am content.”  But content with the prospect as now depicted was hard to acquire.

There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned, unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a moment prior to being sent off whence they came.  One of these thoughts sailed into Henchard’s ken now.

Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed was not the child of Michael Henchard at all—­legally, nobody’s child; how would that correct and leading townsman receive the information?  He might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire’s own again.

Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, “God forbid such a thing!  Why should I still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so hard to keep him away?”

43.

What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little later date by other people.  That Mr. Farfrae “walked with that bankrupt Henchard’s step-daughter, of all women,” became a common topic in the town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who had each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off going to the church Farfrae attended, left off conscious mannerisms, left off putting him in their prayers at night amongst their blood relations; in short, reverted to their normal courses.

Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice of the Scotchman’s gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the philosophic party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and the like.  The Three Mariners having been, years before, the house in which they had witnessed the young man and woman’s first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they