pronounced the disease to be acute
inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.

Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition
would have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by
the glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be
over; but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that
although he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course
of a month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of
any description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.

One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia,
but she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial
to her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling
among the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to
cohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after
day passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in
this mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the garden
and weep despairing tears.

Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought
he would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more
unhappy; and the seclusion of their life was such that she would
hardly be likely to learn the news except through a special messenger.
Endeavouring to take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he
waited on till the third week had arrived, when he went into the open
air for the first time since the attack. The surgeon visited him
again at this stage, and Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion.
The young man learnt with added surprise that the date at which he
might expect to resume his labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes
being in that peculiar state which, though affording him sight enough
for walking about, would not admit of their being strained upon any
definite object without incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmia
in its acute form.

Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but n