ishap occurred when she was descending an open slope
about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and
thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread, she went
straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of the
contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym's or by that of the
heath-croppers themselves.

At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.

"Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!" she said.

A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn's
chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal
to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at
this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin
reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though
there was no doubt that it was the reddleman's. The fire was burning in
the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway the floor
was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that
the door had not long been opened.

While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.

"I thought you went down the slope," he said, without noticing her face.
"How do you come back here again?"

"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly.

"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving. "And why were you crying
so just now?"

"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she. "But of course you don't,
wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here, and
I have not been here before."

Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
form.

"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting. "What a time for us to meet!
And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a
night as this?"

She could not immediately answer; and without asking her p