a wind. "No, Elizabeth, I don't.
I'll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then
I'll show 'ee papers to prove my words. There, I am gone, and won't
disturb you any more....'Twas I that chose your name, my daughter; your
mother wanted it Susan. There, don't forget 'twas I gave you your name!"
He went out at the door and shut her softly in, and she heard him go
away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she had moved, or in
any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he reappeared.

"One word more, Elizabeth," he said. "You'll take my surname now--hey?
Your mother was against it, but it will be much more pleasant to me.
'Tis legally yours, you know. But nobody need know that. You shall take
it as if by choice. I'll talk to my lawyer--I don't know the law of it
exactly; but will you do this--let me put a few lines into the newspaper
that such is to be your name?"

"If it is my name I must have it, mustn't I?" she asked.

"Well, well; usage is everything in these matters."

"I wonder why mother didn't wish it?"

"Oh, some whim of the poor soul's. Now get a bit of paper and draw up a
paragraph as I shall tell you. But let's have a light."

"I can see by the firelight," she answered. "Yes--I'd rather."

"Very well."

She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at
his dictation words which he had evidently got by heart from some
advertisement or other--words to the effect that she, the writer,
hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herself
Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was done, and fastened up, and
directed to the office of the Casterbridge Chronicle.

"Now," said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always
emitted when he had carried his point--though tenderness softened it
this time--"I'll go upstairs and hunt for some documents that will
prove it all to you. But I won't trouble you with them till to-morrow.
Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!"

He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all
meant, or adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was
thankful that he had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down
over the fire. Here she remained in silence, and wept--not for her
mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed
doing a wrong.

Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature
he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he