, 'how strong we should be! O, what power
is it that he exercises over her, swaying her just as he wishes! She
loves me now. Mrs. Morris in her letter said that Miss Aldclyffe prayed
for me--yes, she heard her praying for me, and crying. Miss Aldclyffe
did not mind an old friend like Mrs. Morris knowing it, either. Yet in
opposition to this, notice her dead silence and inaction throughout this
proceeding.'

'It is a mystery; but never mind that now,' said Owen impressively.
'About where Mrs. Manston has been living. We must get this part of
it first--learn the place of her stay in the early stage of their
separation, during the period of Manston's arrival here, and so on, for
that was where she was first communicated with on the subject of coming
to Knapwater, before the fire; and that address, too, was her point
of departure when she came to her husband by stealth in the night--you
know--the time I visited you in the evening and went home early in the
morning, and it was found that he had been visited too. Ah! couldn't
we inquire of Mrs. Leat, who keeps the post-office at Carriford, if she
remembers where the letters to Mrs. Manston were directed?'

'He never posted his letters to her in the parish--it was remarked at
the time. I was thinking if something relating to her address might not
be found in the report of the inquest in the Casterbridge Chronicle of
the date. Some facts about the inquest were given in the papers to a
certainty.'

Her brother caught eagerly at the suggestion. 'Who has a file of the
Chronicles?' he said.

'Mr. Raunham used to file them,' said Cytherea. 'He was rather
friendly-disposed towards me, too.'

Owen could not, on any consideration, escape from his attendance at the
church-building till Saturday evening; and thus it became necessary,
unless they actually wasted time, that Cytherea herself should assist.
'I act under your orders, Owen,' she said.

XVI. THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEK

1. MARCH THE SIXTH

The next morning the opening move of the game was made. Cytherea, under
cover of a thick veil, hired a conveyance and drove to within a mile or
so of Carriford. It was with a renewed sense of depression that she
saw again the objects which had become familiar to her eye during her
sojourn under Miss Aldclyffe's roof--the outline of the hills, the
meadow streams, the old park trees. She hastened by a lonely path to the
rectory-house, and asked if Mr. Raunham was at home.

Now the