"There," he said, as he laid it in his desk, "that's a good thing
done. If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to
her."
Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing
uneasily. Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to
conceal all suspicion that Wildeve's interest in Eustacia had not
ended with his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though
Clym was her well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
Thomasin said, "Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike
being in the house by myself."
"Frightened?" he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
animal. "Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you
are getting proud, I am sure, and don't like living here since we have
risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting
a new house; but I couldn't have set about it sooner, unless our
ten thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have
afforded to despise caution."
"No--I don't mind waiting--I would rather stay here twelve months
longer than run any risk with baby. But I don't like your vanishing
so in the evenings. There's something on your mind--I know there is,
Damon. You go about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were
somebody's gaol instead of a nice wild place to walk in."
He looked towards her with pitying surprise. "What, do you like Egdon
Heath?" he said.
"I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face."
"Pooh, my dear. You don't know what you like."
"I am sure I do. There's only one thing unpleasant about Egdon."
"What's that?"
"You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
much in it yourself if you so dislike it?"
The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he
sat down before replying. "I don't think you often see me there.
Give an instance."
"I will," she answered triumphantly. "When you went out this evening
I thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to
so mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind
you. You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at
the bonfires, and then said, 'Damn it, I'll go!' And you went quickly
up the left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you."
Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, "Well, what
wonderful discovery did you make?"
"There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this any more." She
went across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
"Nonsense!" he said, "that's how you always back out. We will go on
with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly
want to know."
"Don't be like that, Damon!" she murmured. "I didn't see anything.
You vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and
came in."
"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
trying to find out something bad about me?"
"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn't
have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you."
"What DO you mean?" he impatiently asked.
"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and
it puts into my mind what I have heard about--"
Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. "Now," he said,
flourishing his hand in the air, "just out with it, madam! I demand to
know what remarks you have heard."
"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more
than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
angry!"
He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. "Well," he said,
"there is nothing new in that, and of course I don't mean to be rough
towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don't let us speak of the
subject any more."
And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening, and his story.