any rate,
immediate anguish, he looked again, as he had looked before, at the
chalk writing upon the coffin-lid. The scrawl was this simple one,
"FANNY ROBIN AND CHILD." Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully
rubbed out the two latter words, leaving visible the inscription
"FANNY ROBIN" only. He then left the room, and went out quietly by
the front door.

CHAPTER XLIII

FANNY'S REVENGE

"Do you want me any longer ma'am?" inquired Liddy, at a later hour
the same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick in
her hand and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in the
large parlour beside the first fire of the season.

"No more to-night, Liddy."

"I'll sit up for master if you like, ma'am. I am not at all afraid
of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle. She was
such a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn't appear
to anybody if it tried, I'm quite sure."

"Oh no, no! You go to bed. I'll sit up for him myself till twelve
o'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him up
and go to bed too."

"It is half-past ten now."

"Oh! is it?"

"Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?"

"Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily. "It isn't worth
while--there's a fire here, Liddy." She suddenly exclaimed in an
impulsive and excited whisper, "Have you heard anything strange said
of Fanny?" The words had no sooner escaped her than an expression of
unutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears.

"No--not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman with
astonishment. "What is it makes you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurt
you?" She came to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy.

"No, Liddy--I don't want you any more. I can hardly say why I have
taken to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night."

Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.

Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually than
she had been before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to that
of the present time as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude
of a cave. And within the last day or two had come these disquieting
thoughts about her husband's past. Her wayward sentiment that
evening concerning Fanny's temporary resting-place had been the
result of a strange complication of impulses in Bathsheba's bosom.
Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a determined
rebellion against her preju