aiety. Presently Farfrae
came round, his exuberant Scotch movement making him conspicuous in a
moment. The pair were not dancing together, but Henchard could discern
that whenever the chances of the figure made them the partners of a
moment their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other
times.

By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one
who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange,
and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was
Elizabeth-Jane's partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was
sweeping grandly round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the
form of an X and his back towards the door. The next time he came round
in the other direction, his white waist-coat preceding his face, and his
toes preceding his white waistcoat. That happy face--Henchard's complete
discomfiture lay in it. It was Newson's, who had indeed come and
supplanted him.

Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made no other
movement. He rose to his feet, and stood like a dark ruin, obscured by
"the shade from his own soul up-thrown."

But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses unmoved. His
agitation was great, and he would fain have been gone, but before
he could leave the dance had ended, the housekeeper had informed
Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger who awaited her, and she entered the room
immediately.

"Oh--it is--Mr. Henchard!" she said, starting back.

"What, Elizabeth?" he cried, as she seized her hand. "What do you
say?--Mr. Henchard? Don't, don't scourge me like that! Call me worthless
old Henchard--anything--but don't 'ee be so cold as this! O my maid--I
see you have another--a real father in my place. Then you know all; but
don't give all your thought to him! Do ye save a little room for me!"

She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away. "I could have loved you
always--I would have, gladly," she said. "But how can I when I know you
have deceived me so--so bitterly deceived me! You persuaded me that
my father was not my father--allowed me to live on in ignorance of the
truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real father, came
to find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of my death,
which nearly broke his heart. O how can I love as I once did a man who
has served us like this!"

Henchard's lips half parted to begin an explanation. But he shut them up
like a vice, and uttered not a sound. Ho