a path which lay hidden from
Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
woman's face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally
thin as she murmured, "'Tis too much--Clym, how can he bear to do it!
He is at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!"

In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had
diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about
to regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in
a hollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia's stoker
at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate
towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as
she appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible
consciousness of his act.

Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. "'Tis a long
way home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening."

"I shall," said her small companion. "I am going to play marnels
afore supper, and we go to supper at six o'clock, because father comes
home. Does your father come home at six too?"

"No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody."

"What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?"

"I have seen what's worse--a woman's face looking at me through a
window-pane."

"Is that a bad sight?"

"Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
wayfarer and not letting her in."

"Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
anything."

..."If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances half-way how
well it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She
must have set him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without
hearts inside? I think so. I would not have done it against a
neighbour's cat on such a fiery day as this!"

"What is it you say?"

"Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!"

"You must be a very curious woman to talk like that."

"O no, not at all," she said, returning to the boy's prattle. "Most
people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up
your mother wil