lines, he had the right to keep an eye upon her
as his charge. The meetings seemed to become matters of course with them
on special days of the week.

At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a wall close
to the place at which Farfrae encountered her. He heard the young man
address her as "Dearest Elizabeth-Jane," and then kiss her, the girl
looking quickly round to assure herself that nobody was near.

When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and
mournfully followed them to Casterbridge. The chief looming trouble
in this engagement had not decreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane,
unlike the rest of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual
daughter, from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief;
and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have no objection
to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they could never be. Thus would
the girl, who was his only friend, be withdrawn from him by degrees
through her husband's influence, and learn to despise him.

Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he had
rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit was
broken, Henchard would have said, "I am content." But content with the
prospect as now depicted was hard to acquire.

There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned,
unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a
moment prior to being sent off whence they came. One of these thoughts
sailed into Henchard's ken now.

Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed
was not the child of Michael Henchard at all--legally, nobody's child;
how would that correct and leading townsman receive the information?
He might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her
step-sire's own again.

Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing! Why should
I still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so hard
to keep him away?"

43.

What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little
later date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae "walked with that bankrupt
Henchard's step-daughter, of all women," became a common topic in the
town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a
wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who
had each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the
merchan