What a state she must have been
brought to, to say that! and who can have done it but I? It is too
dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished more heavily than I
am. How long was I what they called out of my senses?"

"A week, I think."

"And then I became calm."

"Yes, for four days."

"And now I have left off being calm."

"But try to be quiet--please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
could remove that impression from your mind--"

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But I don't want to get strong. What's
the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I die, and it
would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia there?"

"Yes."

"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?"

"Don't press such a question, dear Clym."

"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are
you going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your
husband?"

"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot get
off till then. I think it will be a month or more."

"Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
trouble--one little month will take you through it, and bring something
to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation will
come!"

"Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly
of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled
with her."

"But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her, before I married, if
she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never have
died saying, 'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.' My door
has always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaited her. But
that she never came to see."

"You had better not talk any more now, Clym," said Eustacia faintly from
the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to
her.

"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,"
Thomasin said soothingly. "Consider what a one-sided way you have of
looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you
had not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been
uttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say things
in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did not come
I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do you suppos