might possibly decline to use her pen - it was rather her way to work silently and surprise him by appearing at his door. To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced. The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped the eaves-droppings 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 lead-work 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; i 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. 66 "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 iet 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! 0, where is Eustacia?" Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting. 66 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 come home?" "No." She went on breathlessly: "Then they are going to run off together! He came indoors to-night about eight o'clock and said in an off-hand way, Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.' journey. When I said. "To-night,' he said. Where?' I asked him. I cannot tell you at present,' he said; I shall be back again to-morrow." He then went and busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to be ten o'clock, when he said, ' You had better go to bed.' I didn't know what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of something which I believe was bank-notes, though I was not aware that he had 'em there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there the other day. What does he want bank-notes for, if he is only going off for a day? When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the night before I know he did meet her, Clym, for followed him part of the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious. Then I could not stay in bed: I got up and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs without any noise and slipped out." "Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?" "No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go? He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his going on a journey, and will be home to-morrow, and all that; but I don't believe it. I think you could influence him." "I'll go," said Clym. "O, Eustacia!" Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the kernel to the husks-dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin crying as she said, "I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I could n't leave her with Rachel!" Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the bellows. 66 "Dry yourself," he said. "I'll go and get some more wood." "No, no-don't stay for that. I'll make up the fire. Will you go at once-please will you?" Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that it might be Eustacia's: the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy and slow. Yeobright, thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in answer, descended again and opened the door. "Captain Vye?" he said to a dripping figure. "Is my granddaughter here?" said the captain. "Then where is she?" "I don't know." "But you ought to know-you are her husband." ment. "Only in name apparently," said Clym with rising excite"I believe she means to elope to-night with Wildeve. I am just going to look to it." "Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who's sitting there?" "My cousin Thomasin." The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. "I only hope it is no worse than an elopement," he said. W orse? What's worse than the worst a wife can do?" Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her I called up Charley, my stable-lad. I missed my pistols the other day." "Pistols?" "He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life, but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one of them: but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who think of that sort of thing once think of it again." "Where are the pistols?" "Safely locked up. O no, she won't touch them again. But there are more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage, and I was right. "Are you going with me?" said Yeobright, paying no attention to the captain's latter remark. "If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about as we walk along.” “Where to?" "To Wildeve's 99 that was her destination, depend upon it. Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: "He said he was only going on a sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym, what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will soon have no father left to you!" "I am off now," said Yeobright, stepping into the porch. "I would fain go with ye," said the old man doubtfully. "But I begin to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as this. I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their flight she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to receive her. But be it as 't will I can't walk to the Quiet Woman, and that's an end on 't. I'll go straight home." "It will perhaps be best," said Clym. "Thomasin, dry yourself, and be as comfortable as you can." With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track towards the inn. Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried the baby upstairs to Clym's bed, and then came down to the sitting-room again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without, which snapped at the window-panes and breathed into the chimney strange low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy. |