he knew a queer
thing or two about their great local man Mr. Henchard, if she chose to
tell it. This had brought them hither.

"Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?" said Lucetta
to her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just
looked out of the window.

"Oh, please, ma'am, 'tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A woman has
proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five
guineas in a booth at a fair."

In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from
his wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on,
he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that
separation. The story she now heard for the first time.

A gradual misery overspread Lucetta's face as she dwelt upon the promise
wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was this.
How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his
care.

During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming
in till nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return
indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the
seaside for a few days--to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.

Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in
the idea, thinking a change would afford her relief. She could not help
suspecting that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge
in Lucetta's eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was
away from home.

Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of
High-Place Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude and
incessant rain Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed to
hear of Lucetta's absence and though he nodded with outward indifference
he went away handling his beard with a nettled mien.

The next day he called again. "Is she come now?" he asked.

"Yes. She returned this morning," replied his stepdaughter. "But she
is not indoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road to
Port-Bredy. She will be home by dusk."

After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience,
he left the house again.

29.

At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-Bredy just as
Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the
road along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier
in a c