re her
death, and it was not altogether desirable to make much ado about her
history, alike for her sake, for Henchard's, and for his own. To
regard the event as an untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest
consideration for the dead one's memory, as well as best philosophy.

Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For Elizabeth's sake the
former had fettered his pride sufficiently to accept the small seed and
root business which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had
purchased to afford him a new opening. Had he been only personally
concerned Henchard, without doubt, would have declined assistance even
remotely brought about by the man whom he had so fiercely assailed. But
the sympathy of the girl seemed necessary to his very existence; and on
her account pride itself wore the garments of humility.

Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives Henchard
anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in which paternal regard
was heightened by a burning jealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson
would ever now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there
was little reason to suppose. He was a wanderer and a stranger, almost
an alien; he had not seen his daughter for several years; his affection
for her could not in the nature of things be keen; other interests would
probably soon obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any such
renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a discovery that she
was still a creature of the present. To satisfy his conscience somewhat
Henchard repeated to himself that the lie which had retained for him
the coveted treasure had not been deliberately told to that end, but
had come from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no
thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within himself that no
Newson could love her as he loved her, or would tend her to his life's
extremity as he was prepared to do cheerfully.

Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard, and nothing
occurred to mark their days during the remainder of the year. Going out
but seldom, and never on a marketday, they saw Donald Farfrae only at
rarest intervals, and then mostly as a transitory object in the distance
of the street. Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations, smiling
mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with bargainers--as
bereaved men do after a while.

Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to estimate his