too marked for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found an
artistically happy background.

Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. "Now
come here," he said.

They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than
in Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and
the least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now
that he was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon
him of his recent struggle for life was in his finger-tips, which were
worn and sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the
face of the weir-wall.

Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, "She is
the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
mother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers."

"How?" said Venn.

"I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite
her back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned
myself. It would have been a charity to the living had the river
overwhelmed me and borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought
to have lived lie dead; and here am I alive!"

"But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way," said Venn.
"You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the
child, for without the parents the child would never have been begot."

"Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all the
circumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would
have been a good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror
of my existence. They say that a time comes when men laugh at misery
through long acquaintance with it. Surely that time will soon come
to me!"

"Your aim has always been good," said Venn. "Why should you say such
desperate things?"

"No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great
regret is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!"

BOOK SIXTH
AFTERCOURSES

I

The Inevitable Movement Onward

The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout
Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and m