left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you."

Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, "Well, what
wonderful discovery did you make?"

"There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this any more." She went
across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.

"Nonsense!" he said, "that's how you always back out. We will go on
with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want to
know."

"Don't be like that, Damon!" she murmured. "I didn't see anything. You
vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came
in."

"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
trying to find out something bad about me?"

"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn't have
done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you."

"What DO you mean?" he impatiently asked.

"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it
puts into my mind what I have heard about--"

Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. "Now," he said,
flourishing his hand in the air, "just out with it, madam! I demand to
know what remarks you have heard."

"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more
than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
angry!"

He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. "Well," he said,
"there is nothing new in that, and of course I don't mean to be rough
towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don't let us speak of the subject
any more."

And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening, and his story.

7--The Night of the Sixth of November

Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that
could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory
which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some good
simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and stir a
momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself before her.
But calmly considered it was not likely that such a severance as now
existed would ever close up--she would have to live on as a painful
object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think of the heath
alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole
world.

Towards eve