life than that of others who may actually resemble him
in every particular. Troy had felt, in his transient way, hundreds
of times, that he could not envy other people their condition,
because the possession of that condition would have necessitated a
different personality, when he desired no other than his own. He had
not minded the peculiarities of his birth, the vicissitudes of his
life, the meteor-like uncertainty of all that related to him, because
these appertained to the hero of his story, without whom there would
have been no story at all for him; and it seemed to be only in the
nature of things that matters would right themselves at some proper
date and wind up well. This very morning the illusion completed its
disappearance, and, as it were, all of a sudden, Troy hated himself.
The suddenness was probably more apparent than real. A coral reef
which just comes short of the ocean surface is no more to the horizon
than if it had never been begun, and the mere finishing stroke is
what often appears to create an event which has long been potentially
an accomplished thing.

He stood and meditated--a miserable man. Whither should he
go? "He that is accursed, let him be accursed still," was the
pitiless anathema written in this spoliated effort of his new-born
solicitousness. A man who has spent his primal strength in
journeying in one direction has not much spirit left for reversing
his course. Troy had, since yesterday, faintly reversed his; but the
merest opposition had disheartened him. To turn about would have
been hard enough under the greatest providential encouragement; but
to find that Providence, far from helping him into a new course, or
showing any wish that he might adopt one, actually jeered his first
trembling and critical attempt in that kind, was more than nature
could bear.

He slowly withdrew from the grave. He did not attempt to fill up the
hole, replace the flowers, or do anything at all. He simply threw up
his cards and forswore his game for that time and always. Going out
of the churchyard silently and unobserved--none of the villagers
having yet risen--he passed down some fields at the back, and emerged
just as secretly upon the high road. Shortly afterwards he had gone
from the village.

Meanwhile, Bathsheba remained a voluntary prisoner in the attic. The
door was kept locked, except during the entries and exits of Liddy,
for whom a bed had been arranged in a small adjoining