and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me
everything!"

Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae such love
as that, even now. "H'm--I hope so," he said. "But you shall have the
letters without fail. And your secret shall be kept. I swear it."

"How good you are!--how shall I get them?"

He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. "Now don't
doubt me," he added. "I can keep my word."

36.

Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp
nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to
her. It was Jopp.

He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr.
Farfrae had been applied to by a neighbouring corn-merchant to recommend
a working partner; if so he wished to offer himself. He could give good
security, and had stated as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he
would feel much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his favour to her
husband.

"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.

"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma'am,"
said Jopp. "I was in Jersey several years, and knew you there by sight."

"Indeed," she replied. "But I knew nothing of you."

"I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure for me what I
covet very much," he persisted.

She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and cutting
him short, because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband
should miss her, left him on the pavement.

He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got
there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron
dogs, and the wood laid across them for heating the morning kettle.
A movement upstairs disturbed him, and Henchard came down from his
bedroom, where he seemed to have been rummaging boxes.

"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp,
now--to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae's for her.
I should take it myself, of course, but I don't wish to be seen there."

He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had been as good
as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few
belongings, and every scrap of Lucetta's writing that he possessed was
here. Jopp indifferently expressed his willingness.

"Well, how have ye got on to-day?" his lodger asked. "Any prospect of an
opening?"

"I am afraid not," said Jopp, who had no