other, and who is now dead, was her father, and her mother's husband.
What her mother has always felt, she and I together feel now--that we
can't proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know the truth.
Now what would you do?--I want your advice."

"I think I'd run the risk, and tell her the truth. She'll forgive ye
both."

"Never!" said Henchard. "I am not going to let her know the truth. Her
mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us to
keep our child's respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon
herself as the sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as
formerly without another religious ceremony--and she's right."

Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the young Jersey woman was
carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard saying, as
the Scotchman left, "I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some
friend o' this! You see now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so
thriving in his mind as it seems he might be from the state of his
pocket."

"I do. And I'm sorry for ye!" said Farfrae.

When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque,
took it to the post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.

"Can it be that it will go off so easily!" he said. "Poor thing--God
knows! Now then, to make amends to Susan!"

13.

The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan under her
name of Newson--in pursuance of their plan--was in the upper or western
part of the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenue which overshadowed
it. The evening sun seemed to shine more yellowly there than anywhere
else this autumn--stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under
the lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the
dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of radiance which the
foliage screened from the upper parts. Beneath these sycamores on the
town walls could be seen from the sitting-room the tumuli and earth
forts of the distant uplands; making it altogether a pleasant spot, with
the usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked prospect lends.

As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a
white-aproned servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit,
and remained to tea. During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully
hoodwinked by the very general tone of the conversation that
prevailed--a proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to Hencha