to render his life less that of
an outcast, and more tolerable to him. Although Farfrae had never so
passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he had, on the
other hand, never so passionately hated in the same direction as his
former friend had done, and he was therefore not the least indisposed to
assist Elizabeth-Jane in her laudable plan.

But it was by no means easy to set about discovering Henchard. He had
apparently sunk into the earth on leaving Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae's door.
Elizabeth-Jane remembered what he had once attempted; and trembled.

But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed man since
then--as far, that is, as change of emotional basis can justify such
a radical phrase; and she needed not to fear. In a few days Farfrae's
inquiries elicited that Henchard had been seen by one who knew him
walking steadily along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve
o'clock at night--in other words, retracing his steps on the road by
which he had come.

This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have been discovered
driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that direction, Elizabeth-Jane
sitting beside him, wrapped in a thick flat fur--the victorine of the
period--her complexion somewhat richer than formerly, and an incipient
matronly dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one "whose gestures
beamed with mind" made becoming, settling on her face. Having herself
arrived at a promising haven from at least the grosser troubles of her
life, her object was to place Henchard in some similar quietude before
he should sink into that lower stage of existence which was only too
possible to him now.

After driving along the highway for a few miles they made further
inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender, who had been working thereabouts
for weeks, that he had observed such a man at the time mentioned; he had
left the Melchester coachroad at Weatherbury by a forking highway which
skirted the north of Egdon Heath. Into this road they directed the
horse's head, and soon were bowling across that ancient country
whose surface never had been stirred to a finger's depth, save by
the scratchings of rabbits, since brushed by the feet of the earliest
tribes. The tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged with heather,
jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though they were the
full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended there.

They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Fa