a moment credited her with possessing. The
meeting with the lonely woman on the previous Saturday night had been
unwitnessed and unspoken of. Oak may have had the best of intentions
in withholding for as many days as possible the details of what had
happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's perceptions had
already been exercised in the matter, he would have done nothing to
lengthen the minutes of suspense she was now undergoing, when the
certainty which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspected
after all.

She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one stronger than
herself, and so get strength to sustain her surmised position with
dignity and her lurking doubts with stoicism. Where could she find
such a friend? nowhere in the house. She was by far the coolest of
the women under her roof. Patience and suspension of judgement for
a few hours were what she wanted to learn, and there was nobody to
teach her. Might she but go to Gabriel Oak!--but that could not be.
What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood,
who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than
Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple
lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look he
gave--that among the multitude of interests by which he was
surrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not the
most absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively looked
upon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to his
own standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be. But
then Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his
bosom, as she was at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny that he
wished to know--she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to him
now at once and say no more than these few words, "What is the truth
of the story?" he would feel bound in honour to tell her. It would
be an inexpressible relief. No further speech would need to be
uttered. He knew her so well that no eccentricity of behaviour in
her would alarm him.

She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and opened it. Every
blade, every twig was still. The air was yet thick with moisture,
though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steady
smack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost
musical in its soothing regularity. It seemed better to be out of
the house than within