At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, “What, would you exchange with him—­your fortune for me?”

“I certainly would,” said Wildeve.

“As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change the subject?”

“Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care to hear them.  I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a year or so.”

“Travel?  What a bright idea!  Where will you go to?”

“From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring.  Then I shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather comes on.  In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India.  By that time I shall have begun to have had enough of it.  Then I shall probably come back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to.”

“Back to Paris again,” she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.  She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym’s description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position to gratify them.  “You think a good deal of Paris?” she added.

“Yes.  In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world.”

“And in mine!  And Thomasin will go with you?”

“Yes, if she cares to.  She may prefer to stay at home.”

“So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!”

“I suppose you will.  But we know whose fault that is.”

“I am not blaming you,” she said quickly.

“Oh, I thought you were.  If ever you should be inclined to blame me, think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me and did not.  You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as I hope yours never will.  That was one point of divergence.  I then did something in haste...  But she is a good woman, and I will say no more.”

“I know that the blame was on my side that time,” said Eustacia.  “But it had not always been so.  However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in feeling.  O, Damon, don’t reproach me any more—­I can’t bear that.”

They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when Eustacia said suddenly, “Haven’t you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?”

“My way is anywhere tonight.  I will go with you as far as the hill on which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone.”

“Don’t trouble.  I am not obliged to be out at all.  I think I would rather you did not accompany me further.  This sort of thing would have an odd look if known.”

“Very well, I will leave you.”  He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed it—­for the first time since her marriage.  “What light is that on the hill?” he added, as it were to hide the caress.

She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side of a hovel a little way before them.  The hovel, which she had hitherto always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.