ether blind to the obvious fact that the support
of a lover's arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a
resolve to renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a
thrill of pleasure, that by adopting this course for getting rid of
him she was ensuring a meeting with him, at any rate, once more?

It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only
way to accomplish her purpose was to give up her idea of visiting
Liddy at Yalbury, return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into
the gig, and drive at once to Bath. The scheme seemed at first
impossible: the journey was a fearfully heavy one, even for a strong
horse, at her own estimate; and she much underrated the distance.
It was most venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone.

But could she go on to Liddy's and leave things to take their course?
No, no; anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating
turbulence, beside which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She
turned back towards the village.

Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the
cottagers were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure.
Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy
in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell,
and dismiss him: then to rest the horse thoroughly (herself to weep
the while, she thought), starting early the next morning on her
return journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently
all the day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to
Weatherbury with her whenever they chose--so nobody would know she
had been to Bath at all. Such was Bathsheba's scheme. But in her
topographical ignorance as a late comer to the place, she misreckoned
the distance of her journey as not much more than half what it really
was.

This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what initial success we
have already seen.

CHAPTER XXXIII

IN THE SUN--A HARBINGER

A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there
any explanation of her Gilpin's rig.

Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had
called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she
hoped to return in the course of another week.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were
a-field under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air
and short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save
the