hadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
romantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was
immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that
she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity
now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery
that she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in
the manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.

The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though
not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her
lover was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove
for, and herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a
superfluity.

She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the
latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that
the end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come,
is one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along
the course between the beginning of a passion and its end.

Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to
the Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in
hand, tell remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under
the water-line of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives,
who hoped too earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit
any doubts of his truth.

He had been there this evening. "I suppose you have heard the Egdon
news, Eustacia?" he said, without looking up from the bottles. "The
men have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
importance."

"I have heard none," she said.

"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
seems. I suppose you remember him?"

"I never saw him in my life."

"Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
promising boy."

"Where has he been living all these years?"

"In that rookery of pomp