She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?""You laboured to win her round; I did nothing.I, who was going to teach people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid.""How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia.
"Damon set me down at the end of the lane.He has driven into East Egdon on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by."Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels.
Wildeve had come, and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,"said Thomasin.
"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.
She went down.Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse's head when Eustacia opened the door.
He did not turn for a moment, thinking the comer Thomasin.
Then he looked, startled ever so little, and said one word:
"Well?"
"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper.
"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal.
You are ill yourself."
"I am wretched....O Damon," she said, bursting into tears, "I--I can't tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this.I can tell nobody of my trouble--nobody knows of it but you.""Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at last led on so far as to take her hand.
"It is hard, when you have done nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web as this.
You were not made for these sad scenes.I am to blame most.
If I could only have saved you from it all!""But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all, drives me into cold despair.I don't know what to do.
Should I tell him or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that.O, I want to tell him; and yet Iam afraid.If he find it out he must surely kill me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now.
'Beware the fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him.""Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance.
And when you tell, you must only tell part--for his own sake.""Which part should I keep back?"
Wildeve paused."That I was in the house at the time,"he said in a low tone.
"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered.
How much easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!""If he were only to die--" Wildeve murmured.
"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly a desire even if I hated him.Now I am going up to him again.Thomasin bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes.Good-bye."She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared.When she was seated in the gig with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted his eyes to the bedroom windows.
Looking from one of them he could discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away.It was Eustacia's.
2 - A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out.
His strength returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been seen walking about the garden.
Endurance and despair, equanimity and gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly in his face.
He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking of it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to bring it up anew.When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to speak out;but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank into taciturnity.
One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of the house and came up to him.
"Christian, isn't it?" said Clym."I am glad you have found me out.I shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting the house in order.
I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?""Yes, Mister Clym."
"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?""Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God.But I was coming to tell 'ee of something else which is quite different from what we have lately had in the family.
I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs.Wildeve is doing well of a girl, which was born punctually at one o'clock at noon, or a few minutes more or less;and 'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have kept 'em there since they came into their money.""And she is getting on well, you say?"
"Yes, sir.Only Mr.Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't a boy--that's what they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that.""Christian, now listen to me."
"Yes, sure, Mr.Yeobright."
"Did you see my mother the day before she died?""No, I did not."
Yeobright's face expressed disappointment.
"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died."Clym's look lighted up."That's nearer still to my meaning,"he said.
"Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going to see him, Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.'""See whom?"
"See you.She was going to your house, you understand."Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise.
"Why did you never mention this?" he said."Are you sure it was my house she was coming to?""O yes.I didn't mention it because I've never zeed you lately.And as she didn't get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell.""And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing, Christian, I am very anxious to know.""Yes, Mister Clym.She didn't say it to me, though Ithink she did to one here and there."
"Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?""There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention my name to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams.One night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made me feel so low that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days.
