ck bunches of fruit, and they paused before
emerging from its shade.

A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and then
west, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. The
man was Sergeant Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but
not buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldier
taking his ease.

Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window.

"She has married him!" he said.

Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his
back turned, making no reply.

"I fancied we should know something to-day," continued Coggan. "I
heard wheels pass my door just after dark--you were out somewhere."
He glanced round upon Gabriel. "Good heavens above us, Oak, how
white your face is; you look like a corpse!"

"Do I?" said Oak, with a faint smile.

"Lean on the gate: I'll wait a bit."

"All right, all right."

They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at the
ground. His mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted in
years of leisure the scenes of repentance that would ensue from this
work of haste. That they were married he had instantly decided. Why
had it been so mysteriously managed? It had become known that she
had had a fearful journey to Bath, owing to her miscalculating the
distance: that the horse had broken down, and that she had been more
than two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba's way to do things
furtively. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she
have been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief to
him: it amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding
week in a suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy's meeting
her away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extent
dispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appears
like stillness is infinitely divided in its properties from stillness
itself, so had his hope undistinguishable from despair differed from
despair indeed.

In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant
still looked from the window.

"Morning, comrades!" he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came
up.

Coggan replied to the greeting. "Bain't ye going to answer the man?"
he then said to Gabriel. "I'd say good morning--you needn't spend a
hapenny of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil."

Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put the
best fac