vanced.
The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped
the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly
about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and
doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and crevices,
and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it had become
loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when cracks in the
walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings of
decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size of a man's
hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings before
his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but when he
looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes of
the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.

Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody
else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon
fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the
expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking
which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out
of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of
heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too
dark to see anything at all.

"Who's there?" he cried.

Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, "O Clym, come down
and let me in!"

He flushed hot with agitation. "Surely it is Eustacia!" he murmured. If
so, she had indeed come to him unawares.

He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
up, who at once came forward.

"Thomasin!" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment. "It
is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?"

Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.

"Eustacia? I don't know, Clym; but I can think," she said with much
perturbation. "Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There is a
great trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!"

"What, what?"

"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I
don't know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
you; Eustacia has not yet come home?"

"No."

She went on breathlessly: "Then they are go