e her.

She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have
told any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of
him.

"How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. "I thought
you were at home."

"I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have
come back again: that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?"

She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I am going to meet
my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you
were with me today."

"How could that be?"

"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright."

"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm."

"None. It was not your fault," she said quietly.

By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
broke silence by saying, "I assume I must congratulate you."

"On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since
I didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that."

"You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today
when you came?" she said in the tone of a neglected person. "I heard
of it quite by accident."

"I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve. "But I--well, I will speak
frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard
work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune
to you would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside
him, I could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a
richer man than I."

At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, "What, would
you exchange with him--your fortune for me?"

"I certainly would," said Wildeve.

"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
the subject?"

"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you
care to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds,
keep one thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand
travel for a year or so."

"Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?"

"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then
I shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot
weather comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a
plan not yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By
that time I shall have begun to h