Maumbry's
parish, was where the blow fell most heavily. Yet there was a certain
mercy in its choice of a date, for Maumbry was the man for such an hour.

The spread of the epidemic was so rapid that many left the town and took
lodgings in the villages and farms. Mr. Maumbry's house was close to the
most infected street, and he himself was occupied morn, noon, and night
in endeavours to stamp out the plague and in alleviating the sufferings
of the victims. So, as a matter of ordinary precaution, he decided to
isolate his wife somewhere away from him for a while.

She suggested a village by the sea, near Budmouth Regis, and lodgings
were obtained for her at Creston, a spot divided from the Casterbridge
valley by a high ridge that gave it quite another atmosphere, though it
lay no more than six miles off.

Thither she went. While she was rusticating in this place of safety, and
her husband was slaving in the slums, she struck up an acquaintance with
a lieutenant in the ---st Foot, a Mr. Vannicock, who was stationed with
his regiment at the Budmouth infantry barracks. As Laura frequently sat
on the shelving beach, watching each thin wave slide up to her, and
hearing, without heeding, its gnaw at the pebbles in its retreat, he
often took a walk that way.

The acquaintance grew and ripened. Her situation, her history, her
beauty, her age--a year or two above his own--all tended to make an
impression on the young man's heart, and a reckless flirtation was soon
in blithe progress upon that lonely shore.

It was said by her detractors afterwards that she had chosen her lodging
to be near this gentleman, but there is reason to believe that she had
never seen him till her arrival there. Just now Casterbridge was so
deeply occupied with its own sad affairs--a daily burying of the dead and
destruction of contaminated clothes and bedding--that it had little
inclination to promulgate such gossip as may have reached its ears on the
pair. Nobody long considered Laura in the tragic cloud which overhung
all.

Meanwhile, on the Budmouth side of the hill the very mood of men was in
contrast. The visitation there had been slight and much earlier, and
normal occupations and pastimes had been resumed. Mr. Maumbry had
arranged to see Laura twice a week in the open air, that she might run no
risk from him; and, having heard nothing of the faint rumour, he met her
as usual one dry and windy afternoon on the summit of the dividing