y excruciating energy. Probably as many as
fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into
the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of
the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.

She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
her lips a murmur of words.

It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards--the
incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished.
As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot,
and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further into its
substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers
heated it red as it lay.

8--Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers

While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End.
He had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had cautioned
Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was
to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without
troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.

But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and
surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to
do otherwise he did not know.

To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening ad