“God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!” said Wildeve.  “I have not slept like that since I was a boy—­years and years ago.”

While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock came to the door.  Eustacia went to a window and looked out.

Her countenance changed.  First she became crimson, and then the red subsided till it even partially left her lips.

“Shall I go away?” said Wildeve, standing up.

“I hardly know.”

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Yeobright.  O, what she said to me that day!  I cannot understand this visit—­what does she mean?  And she suspects that past time of ours.”

“I am in your hands.  If you think she had better not see me here I’ll go into the next room.”

“Well, yes:  go.”

Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.

“No,” she said, “we won’t have any of this.  If she comes in she must see you—­and think if she likes there’s something wrong!  But how can I open the door to her, when she dislikes me—­wishes to see not me, but her son?  I won’t open the door!”

Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.

“Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,” continued Eustacia, “and then he will let her in himself.  Ah—­listen.”

They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the knocking, and he uttered the word “Mother.”

“Yes—­he is awake—­he will go to the door,” she said, with a breath of relief.  “Come this way.  I have a bad name with her, and you must not be seen.  Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but because others are pleased to say so.”

By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open, disclosing a path leading down the garden.  “Now, one word, Damon,” she remarked as he stepped forth.  “This is your first visit here; let it be your last.  We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won’t do now.  Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Wildeve.  “I have had all I came for, and I am satisfied.”

“What was it?”

“A sight of you.  Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.”

Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went along till he became lost in their thickets.  When he had quite gone she slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.