Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter
downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now
slowly increasing to Nature's meagre allowance at this sickly time of
the year. "O that I had seen his face!" she said again. "'Twas meant
for Mr. Yeobright!"
When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the
dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day
before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the
excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the
modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called
"having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history of the most
gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of
the weakest will.
The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The
fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and
so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might
have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End
at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did
neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have
acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day
upon the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed.
The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
could not have seen him.
At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents,
and she turned back.
The fifth sally was in the afternoon: it was fine, and she remained
out long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End
lay. She saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not
appear. It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with
a sense of shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man
from Paris no more.
But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had
Eustacia formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while
sought, had been entirely withholden.