rown ace. "Well done!--I said it would turn, and it
has turned." Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.

He threw ace also.

"O!" said Wildeve. "Curse me!"

The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked
gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft
sides uppermost.

"I've thrown nothing at all," he said.

"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your money.
Blank is less than one."

"I don't wish it."

"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes against
the reddleman's chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from
the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.

When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood
still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one
direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise
of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the
hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.

The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,
and behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.

Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,
whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression
with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.
Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he
followed the opposite way towards the inn.

About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When
he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute
or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the
road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point where
the turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now again in
front of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking pace. Venn
stepped forward and showed himself.

Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's arm was
involuntarily withdrawn from her wai