e
a man's mother could live two or three months without one forgiving
thought? She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?"

"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to teach
people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of
that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid."

"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia.

"Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East Egdon
on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by."

Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had come,
and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.

"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes," said Thomasin.

"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.

She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse's
head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a moment,
thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so little,
and said one word: "Well?"

"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper.

"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are ill
yourself."

"I am wretched....O Damon," she said, bursting into tears, "I--I can't
tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody of
my trouble--nobody knows of it but you."

"Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
last led on so far as to take her hand. "It is hard, when you have done
nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web
as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If
I could only have saved you from it all!"

"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour
after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her
death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
drives me into cold despair. I don't know what to do. Should I tell him
or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to
tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he find it out he must surely kill me,
for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. 'Beware the
fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him."

"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,
you must only tell part--for his own sake."

"Which part should I keep back?"

Wildeve paused. "That I was in the house at the time," he said in a low
t