ther
windy highway--just to winnow the seeds and chaff out of him before
sitting down to tea, as he said. Henchard became aware of this by going
to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure, keeping his eye upon the
road till he saw them meet. His face assumed an expression of extreme
anguish.

"Of her, too, he means to rob me!" he whispered. "But he has the right.
I do not wish to interfere."

The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and matters were by
no means so far advanced between the young people as Henchard's jealous
grief inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he would
have been enlightened thus much:--

HE.--"You like walking this way, Miss Henchard--and is it not so?"
(uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an appraising, pondering
gaze at her).

SHE.--"O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no great reason
for it."

HE.--"But that may make a reason for others."

SHE (reddening).--"I don't know that. My reason, however, such as it is,
is that I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every day."

HE.--"Is it a secret why?"

SHE ( reluctantly ).--"Yes."

HE (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).--"Ah, I doubt there
will be any good in secrets! A secret cast a deep shadow over my life.
And well you know what it was."

Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from confessing why
the sea attracted her. She could not herself account for it fully, not
knowing the secret possibly to be that, in addition to early marine
associations, her blood was a sailor's.

"Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae," she added shyly. "I wonder
if I ought to accept so many!"

"Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you to
have them!"

"It cannot."

They proceeded along the road together till they reached the town, and
their paths diverged.

Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own devices, put
nothing in the way of their courses, whatever they might mean. If he
were doomed to be bereft of her, so it must be. In the situation which
their marriage would create he could see no locus standi for himself
at all. Farfrae would never recognize him more than superciliously; his
poverty ensured that, no less than his past conduct. And so Elizabeth
would grow to be a stranger to him, and the end of his life would be
friendless solitude.

With such a possibility impending he could not help watchfulness.
Indeed, within certain