is."

"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?" said Thomasin,
with a heavy sigh. "I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but
don't pain me by talking like that, aunt! You would not have had me
stay there with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I
have to return to. He says we can be married in a day or two."

"I wish he had never seen you."

"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
let him see me again. No, I won't have him!"

"It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to
see if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this
story at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon
me, or any belonging to me."

"It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn't get another
the same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes."

"Why didn't he bring you back?"

"That was me!" again sobbed Thomasin. "When I found we could not be
married I didn't like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then
I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will."

"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well
known to frequenters of the inn:--

SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET
LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.

The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose
dark shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was
a neglected brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, "Mr.
Wildeve, Engineer"--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when
he had been started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by
those who had hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The
garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still deep stream,
forming the margin of the heath in that direction, meadow-land
appearing beyond the stream.

But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of
any scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be
heard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
produced by