isn't a note in you which I don't know; and that
hot little bosom couldn't play such a coldblooded trick to save its
life. I saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my
house. I think I drew out you before you drew out me."

The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now;
and he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.

"O no," she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed
fire. "What did you mean by that?"

"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?"

"No, you may not."

"Then I may shake your hand?"

"No."

"Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
good-bye."

She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.

Eustacia sighed: it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which
shook her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
electric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his
imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and
she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on.
She scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up
to her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to
be undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and
the same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten
minutes later, she lay on her bed asleep.

VII

Queen of Night

Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind
to be entirely in her grasp for a while, had she handled the distaff,
the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world
would have noticed the change of government. There would have been
the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here,
of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same
perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows
that we endure now.

She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness,
as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair
was to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough
to form its shadow: it closed over her forehead like nightfall
extinguishing the western