rt; but
recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the evanescence of love,
now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused him to ask himself
a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the quality of
finiteness was not foreign to Eden.

When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed
his reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied
indefatigably, for he wished to enter his new profession with the
least possible delay.

Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on
the probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not
Budmouth, to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home.
Her hopes were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their
marriage, when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and
the lines of her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even
while in the act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the
books, indicating a future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck
her with a positively painful jar. She was hoping for the time when,
as the mistress of some pretty establishment, however small, near a
Parisian Boulevard, she would be passing her days on the skirts at
least of the gay world, and catching stray wafts from those town
pleasures she was so well fitted to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm
in the contrary intention as if the tendency of marriage were rather
to develop the fantasies of young philanthropy than to sweep them
away.

Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on
the subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident
helped her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their
union, and arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of
Venn of the fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.

A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note
to her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of
the amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down
to her late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her
aunt to say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was
natural enough, had not brought himself