risis
of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much
older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent
maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the
genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that they had always
appeared to be. The risk of endangering a child's strong affection by
disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard
too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed folly to think
of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.

But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by
a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own
part. Her simplicity--the original ground of Henchard's contempt for
her--had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson
had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his
purchase--though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were
vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young
matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were
there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might
scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant
woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
records show.

The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim can be told
in two or three sentences. Absolutely helpless she had been taken off
to Canada where they had lived several years without any great worldly
success, though she worked as hard as any woman could to keep their
cottage cheerful and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about twelve
years old the three returned to England, and settled at Falmouth,
where Newson made a living for a few years as boatman and general handy
shoreman.

He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this period
that Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her history
ridiculed her grave acceptance of her position; and all was over with
her peace of mind. When Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw
that the delusion he had so carefully sustained had vanished for ever.

There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts
if she could live with him longer. Newson left home again on the
Newfoundland trade when the season came round. The vague news of his
loss at sea a little later on solved a problem which had become torture
to her meek c