intolerable!"

Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a
single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered
far more by thought than by physical ills. "If I could only get one
assurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful," he
said one day when in this mood, "it would be better to think of than a
hope of heaven. But that I cannot do."

"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair," said Eustacia.
"Other men's mothers have died."

"That doesn't make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss than
the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that account
there is no light for me."

"She sinned against you, I think."

"No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be
upon my head!"

"I think you might consider twice before you say that," Eustacia
replied. "Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as much
as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they pray
down."

"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on," said
the wretched man. "Day and night shout at me, 'You have helped to kill
her.' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my poor
wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do."

Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such
a state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene
was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a
worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and she
shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright himself
when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he endured
infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a tense, brooding
mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it was
imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might in
some degree expend itself in the effort.

Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when
a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the
woman downstairs.

"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight," said Clym when she entered
the room. "Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I, that I
shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you."

"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym," said Thomasin earnestly, in
that sweet voice of hers which came to a