te. Among the other urgent reasons for his
presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a
second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in
a state bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard's
motives.

A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night
wore on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been
much soothed by Donald's arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and
when, immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the
secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest talking
should be dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him
everything.

Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous
illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the
town, and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the
leaders in the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over
all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately around Lucetta
would not venture to add to her husband's distress by alluding to the
subject.

What, and how much, Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to him of her
past entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude of
that sad night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare
facts of her peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from
Farfrae's own statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct--her
motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with Henchard--her
assumed justification in abandoning him when she discovered reasons for
fearing him (though in truth her inconsequent passion for another man
at first sight had most to do with that abandonment)--her method of
reconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when she was
in a measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of these
things remained Farfrae's secret alone.

Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge
that night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less
frequently. It was Henchard's, whose retiring to rest had proved itself
a futility as soon as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and
thither, and make inquiries about the patient every now and then.
He called as much on Farfrae's account as on Lucetta's, and on
Elizabeth-Jane's even more than on either's. Shorn one by one of all
other interests, his life