now
showed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious
knocking that he began the theme. "Since I have been away today,
Eustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal up this
ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles me."

"What do you propose to do?" said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could
not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve's recent
manoeuvre for an interview.

"You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
much," said Clym, with tolerable warmth.

"You mistake me," she answered, reviving at his reproach. "I am only
thinking."

"What of?"

"Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
the candle," she said slowly. "But you know I always take an interest in
what you say."

"Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her."...He went
on with tender feeling: "It is a thing I am not at all too proud to do,
and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But
I must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to go
on."

"What have you to blame yourself about?"

"She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son."

"She has Thomasin."

"Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse me.
But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her, and
all I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help me--that
is, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be reconciled,
meet her halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by accepting a
welcome to hers?"

At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything
on the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth
softened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened,
and she said, "I will put nothing in your way; but after what has passed
it, is asking too much that I go and make advances."

"You never distinctly told me what did pass between you."

"I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is
sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that
may be the case here." She paused a few moments, and added, "If you had
never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have
been for you!... It has altered the destinies of----"

"Three people."

"Five," Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.

5--The Journey across th