fterwards."

"It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?"

"Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them."

Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from
investigation, even in Casterbridge. For one thing Henchard had never
returned to her the cloud of letters she had written and sent him in
her first excitement. Possibly they were destroyed; but she could have
wished that they had never been written.

The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta had made
the reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable
companion. A few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta's as
the latter was going out, she somehow knew that Miss Templeman was
nourishing a hope of seeing the attractive Scotchman. The fact was
printed large all over Lucetta's cheeks and eyes to any one who could
read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning to do. Lucetta passed on and
closed the street door.

A seer's spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down
by the fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that
they could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally--saw
her encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance--saw him wear his special
look when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was
Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision
of both between their lothness to separate and their desire not to be
observed; depicted their shaking of hands; how they probably parted with
frigidity in their general contour and movements, only in the smaller
features showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all but
themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of these
things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her start.

It was all true as she had pictured--she could have sworn it. Lucetta
had a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced
colour of her cheeks.

"You've seen Mr. Farfrae," said Elizabeth demurely.

"Yes," said Lucetta. "How did you know?"

She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend's hands excitedly in
her own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or
what he had said.

That night she became restless; in the morning she was feverish; and
at breakfast-time she told her companion that she had something on her
mind--something which concerned a person in whom she was interested
much. Elizabeth was