"Elizabeth, come here!" said Henchard; and she obeyed.

"Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?" he said with suppressed
passion. "Haven't I told you o't fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a
drudge for a common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye'll
disgrace me to the dust!"

Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn
door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character.
Coming to the door she cried regardless of consequences, "Come to that,
Mr. Henchard, I can let 'ee know she've waited on worse!"

"Then she must have had more charity than sense," said Henchard.

"O no, she hadn't. 'Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a
public-house in this town!"

"It is not true!" cried Henchard indignantly.

"Just ask her," said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner that
she could comfortably scratch her elbows.

Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white
from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. "What does this
mean?" he said to her. "Anything or nothing?"

"It is true," said Elizabeth-Jane. "But it was only--"

"Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?"

"At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were
staying there."

Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the barn; for
assuming that she was to be discharged on the instant she had resolved
to make the most of her victory. Henchard, however, said nothing about
discharging her. Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his
own past, he had the look of one completely ground down to the last
indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the house like a culprit; but when
she got inside she could not see him. Nor did she see him again that
day.

Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and position that
must have been caused by such a fact, though it had never before reached
his own ears, Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presence of
this girl not his own, whenever he encountered her. He mostly dined with
the farmers at the market-room of one of the two chief hotels, leaving
her in utter solitude. Could he have seen how she made use of those
silent hours he might have found reason to reserve his judgment on
her quality. She read and took notes incessantly, mastering facts with
painful laboriousness, but never flinching from her self-imposed task.
She began the study of Latin, incited by the Roma