Suppose
he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to
her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into
substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed
by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful
groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
despairing tears.

Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
to learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to
take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the
third week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first
time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and
Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with
added surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his
labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state
which, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not
admit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring
the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.

Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not
to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face
of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
spirit as it might otherwise have done.

He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
learnt from the vo