came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh
escaped her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in
tonight. The first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed
anxiety; the second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the
present was one of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest
upon him without speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created
out of chaos.

"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve. "You give me no peace.
Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the
evening." The words were not without emotion, and retained their
level tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.

At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to
repress herself also. "Of course you have seen my fire," she answered
with languid calmness, artificially maintained. "Why shouldn't I have
a bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?"

"I knew it was meant for me."

"How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you
chose her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if
I had never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!"

"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the
month and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a
signal for me to come and see you? Why should there have been a
bonfire again by Captain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?"

"Yes, yes--I own it," she cried under her breath, with a drowsy
fervour of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. "Don't
begin speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words
I would not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not
to think of you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out
and got the fire ready because I thought that you had been faithful to
me."

"What have you heard to make you think that?" said Wildeve,
astonished.

"That you did not marry her!" she murmured exultingly. "And I knew it
was because you loved me best, and couldn't do it... Damon, you have
been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive
you. I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too
much for a woman of any spirit to quite overlook."

"If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
wouldn't have come."

"But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not
married her, and have come ba