he fire was burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail.
Round the doorway the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not
saturated, which told her that the door had not long been opened.

While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern
beams falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.

"I thought you went down the slope," he said, without noticing her
face. "How do you come back here again?"

"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly.

"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving. "And why were you
crying so just now?"

"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she. "But of course you don't,
wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here,
and I have not been here before."

Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
form.

"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting. "What a time for us to meet!
And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such
a night as this?"

She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.

"What is it?" he continued when they stood within.

"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry
to get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of
me not to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the
path. Show me quickly, Diggory, please."

"Yes, of course. I will go with 'ee. But you came to me before this,
Mrs. Wildeve?"

"I only came this minute."

"That's strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
woman's clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up (for I
don't sleep heavy), and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying
from the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and
just as far as the light would reach I saw a woman: she turned her
head when the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I
hung up the lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and
dog her a few steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That
was where I had been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought
you were the same one."

"Perhaps it was one of the heath-folk going home?"

"No, it couldn't be. 'Tis t