ntagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him,
his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid
nature could not afford to relinquish one of these, though two of the
three were as many as he could hope to preserve. Though his love was
as chaste as that of Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of
what previously was only a difficulty. A position which was not
too simple when he stood wholehearted had become indescribably
complicated by the addition of Eustacia. Just when his mother was
beginning to tolerate one scheme he had introduced another still
bitterer than the first, and the combination was more than she could
bear.

V

Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues

When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over
his books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings
were carried on with the greatest secrecy.

One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin.
He could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that
something had happened.

"I have been told an incomprehensible thing," she said mournfully.
"The captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are
engaged to be married."

"We are," said Yeobright. "But it may not be yet for a very long
time."

"I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You will
take her to Paris, I suppose?" She spoke with weary hopelessness.

"I am not going back to Paris."

"What will you do with a wife, then?"

"Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you."

"That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have
no special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as
you?"

"There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
fellow-creatures."

"Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
would have found it out at the universities long before this time."

"Never, mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don't
come in contact with the class which demands such a system--that
is, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for
instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins."

"I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
entanglements; but this woman--if