Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the kernel to the husks—­dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough weather.  Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin crying as she said, “I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen to her.  I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn’t leave her with Rachel!”

Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the bellows.

“Dry yourself,” he said.  “I’ll go and get some more wood.”

“No, no—­don’t stay for that.  I’ll make up the fire.  Will you go at once—­please will you?”

Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself.  While he was gone another rapping came to the door.  This time there was no delusion that it might be Eustacia’s:  the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy and slow.  Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in answer, descended again and opened the door.

“Captain Vye?” he said to a dripping figure.

“Is my granddaughter here?” said the captain.

“No.”

“Then where is she?”.

“I don’t know.”

“But you ought to know—­you are her husband.”

“Only in name apparently,” said Clym with rising excitement.  “I believe she means to elope tonight with Wildeve.  I am just going to look to it.”

“Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago.  Who’s sitting there?”

“My cousin Thomasin.”

The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her.  “I only hope it is no worse than an elopement,” he said.

“Worse?  What’s worse than the worst a wife can do?”

“Well, I have been told a strange tale.  Before starting in search of her I called up Charley, my stable lad.  I missed my pistols the other day.”

“Pistols?”

“He said at the time that he took them down to clean.  He has now owned that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life, but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing again.  I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who think of that sort of thing once think of it again.”

“Where are the pistols?”

“Safely locked up.  O no, she won’t touch them again.  But there are more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole.  What did you quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this?  You must have treated her badly indeed.  Well, I was always against the marriage, and I was right.”

“Are you going with me?” said Yeobright, paying no attention to the captain’s latter remark.  “If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about as we walk along.”