.

The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor.
At last Newson said: "My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as
well go as I came! It has served me right. I'll trouble you no longer."

Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded floor,
the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and closing of the
door that was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn
his head. Newson's shadow passed the window. He was gone.

Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose
from his seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a
moment. The regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung
hope of his loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he
could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still believed herself
to be, had been stimulated by the unexpected coming of Newson to a
greedy exclusiveness in relation to her; so that the sudden prospect of
her loss had caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockery
of consequences. He had expected questions to close in round him, and
unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such questioning had not
come. But surely they would come; Newson's departure could be but
momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in the town; and return to
curse him, and carry his last treasure away!

He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the direction that Newson had
taken. Newson's back was soon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake.
Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where
the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour for another
coach which crossed there. The coach Newson had come by was now about to
move again. Newson mounted, his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes
the vehicle disappeared with him.

He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith
in Henchard's words--faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young
sailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the
faith of a glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still
living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller who had taken
Henchard's words on trust so absolute as to shame him as he stood.

Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy invention of a
moment? "Perhaps not for long," said he. Newson might converse with his
fellow-travellers, some of whom might