arm excitement,
and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was sure to
come."

She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form
unfolded itself from the brake.

"Only you here?" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low
laugh. "Where is Mrs. Yeobright?"

"She has not come," he replied in a subdued tone.

"I wish I had known that you would be here alone," she said seriously,
"and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.
Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone."

"It is indeed."

"Poor Clym!" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. "You are
sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let us
only look at what seems."

"But, darling, what shall we do?" said he.

"Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting,
never minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of
that--I can see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?"

"You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their
lives on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would
fain make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a
subject I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the
wisdom of _Carpe diem_ does not impress me today. Our present mode of
life must shortly be brought to an end."

"It is your mother!"

"It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
should know."

"I have feared my bliss," she said, with the merest motion of her
lips. "It has been too intense and consuming."

"There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
wouldn't be so ready to think that there is no progress without
uniformity."

"Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these
sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable
us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves
to indulge in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into
happiness, have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy
it. I felt myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I
shall be spared it now. Le