e who had
half fainted, and could neither recover nor complete the swoon. In words
he could blame his wife, but not in his heart; and had he obeyed the
wise directions outside her letter this pain would have been spared him
for long--possibly for ever, Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no ambition
to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for the speculative path of
matrimony.

The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the necessity
for a plan. He was far too self-willed to recede from a position,
especially as it would involve humiliation. His daughter he had asserted
her to be, and his daughter she should always think herself, no matter
what hyprocrisy it involved.

But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new situation. The
moment he came into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced with open
confidence to him and took him by the arm.

"I have thought and thought all night of it," she said frankly. "And I
see that everything must be as you say. And I am going to look upon you
as the father that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more.
It is so plain to me now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you
would not have done half the things you have done for me, and let me
have my own way so entirely, and bought me presents, if I had only been
your step-daughter! He--Mr. Newson--whom my poor mother married by such
a strange mistake" (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters
here), "was very kind--O so kind!" (she spoke with tears in her eyes);
"but that is not the same thing as being one's real father after all.
Now, father, breakfast is ready!" she said cheerfully.

Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had
prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than
a miserable insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of
her mother had been chiefly for the girl's sake, and the fruition of the
whole scheme was such dust and ashes as this.

20.

Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can have been
seldom one like that which followed Henchard's announcement of himself
to Elizabeth as her father. He had done it in an ardour and an agitation
which had half carried the point of affection with her; yet, behold,
from the next morning onwards his manner was constrained as she had
never seen it before.

The coldness soon broke out into open chiding. One grievous failing of
Elizabeth's was her occasional pre