ldn't have been surprised,"
murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
serious.

TO MR. WILDEVE.

After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold
no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am
convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been
uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have
some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider
what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put
up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I
think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come
back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may,
perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.

The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are
returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been
sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.

EUSTACIA.

By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. "I
am made a great fool of, one way and another," he said pettishly. "Do
you know what is in this letter?"

The reddleman hummed a tune.

"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.

Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he allowed
his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as illuminated by the
candle, to his head and face. "Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
considering how I have played with them both," he said at last, as much
to himself as to Venn. "But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to
bring this to me."

"My interests?"

"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like it.
Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true, then?"

"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did she
say so?"

Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.

"I don't believe it now," cried Venn.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve.

"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. "I'll have this
out. I'll go straight to her."