y she had not before taken since her marriage. On
this Saturday Bathsheba was passing slowly on foot through the crowd
of rural business-men gathered as usual in front of the market-house,
who were as usual gazed upon by the burghers with feelings that
those healthy lives were dearly paid for by exclusion from possible
aldermanship, when a man, who had apparently been following her,
said some words to another on her left hand. Bathsheba's ears were
keen as those of any wild animal, and she distinctly heard what the
speaker said, though her back was towards him.

"I am looking for Mrs. Troy. Is that she there?"

"Yes; that's the young lady, I believe," said the the person
addressed.

"I have some awkward news to break to her. Her husband is drowned."

As if endowed with the spirit of prophecy, Bathsheba gasped out, "No,
it is not true; it cannot be true!" Then she said and heard no more.
The ice of self-command which had latterly gathered over her was
broken, and the currents burst forth again, and overwhelmed her. A
darkness came into her eyes, and she fell.

But not to the ground. A gloomy man, who had been observing her from
under the portico of the old corn-exchange when she passed through
the group without, stepped quickly to her side at the moment of her
exclamation, and caught her in his arms as she sank down.

"What is it?" said Boldwood, looking up at the bringer of the big
news, as he supported her.

"Her husband was drowned this week while bathing in Lulwind Cove.
A coastguardsman found his clothes, and brought them into Budmouth
yesterday."

Thereupon a strange fire lighted up Boldwood's eye, and his face
flushed with the suppressed excitement of an unutterable thought.
Everybody's glance was now centred upon him and the unconscious
Bathsheba. He lifted her bodily off the ground, and smoothed down
the folds of her dress as a child might have taken a storm-beaten
bird and arranged its ruffled plumes, and bore her along the
pavement to the King's Arms Inn. Here he passed with her under the
archway into a private room; and by the time he had deposited--so
lothly--the precious burden upon a sofa, Bathsheba had opened her
eyes. Remembering all that had occurred, she murmured, "I want to go
home!"

Boldwood left the room. He stood for a moment in the passage to
recover his senses. The experience had been too much for his
consciousness to keep up with, and now that he had grasped it it had
g