us all?"

"It mid be so, and yet it mid not. However, th' 'lt miss thy prayers
for such an honest knight's welfare, and I have to traipse seaward
many miles."

He went onward, and, as he walked, continued saying to himself, "Now
to that poor wronged fool Edy. The fond thing! I thought it; 'twas too
quick--she was ever amorous. What's to become of her? God wot! How be
I going to face her with the news, and how be I to hold it from her?
To bring this disgrace on my father's honored name, a double-tongued
knave!" He turned and shook his fist at the chapel and all in it, and
resumed his way.

Perhaps it was owing to the perplexity of his mind that, instead of
returning by the direct road towards his sister's obscure lodging in
the next county, he followed the highway to Casterbridge, some fifteen
miles off, where he remained drinking hard all that afternoon and
evening, and where he lay that and two or three succeeding nights,
wandering thence along the Anglebury road to some village that way,
and lying the Friday night after at his native place of Havenpool. The
sight of the familiar objects there seems to have stirred him anew to
action, and the next morning he was observed pursuing the way to
Oozewood that he had followed on the Saturday previous, reckoning, no
doubt, that Saturday night would, as before, be a time for finding Sir
John with his sister again.

He delayed to reach the place till just before sunset. His sister was
walking in the meadows at the foot of the garden, with a nursemaid who
carried the baby, and she looked up pensively when he approached.
Anxiety as to her position had already told upon her once rosy cheeks
and lucid eyes. But concern for herself and child was displaced for
the moment by her regard of Roger's worn and haggard face.

"Why, you are sick, Roger! You are tired! Where have you been these
many days? Why not keep me company a bit? My husband is much away. And
we have hardly spoke at all of dear father and of your voyage to the
New Land. Why did you go away so suddenly? There is a spare chamber at
my lodging."

"Come indoors," he said. "We'll talk now--talk a good deal. As for him
(nodding to the child), better heave him into the river; better for
him and you!"

She forced a laugh, as if she tried to see a good joke in the remark,
and they went silently indoors.

"A miserable hole!" said Roger, looking around the room.

"Nay, but 'tis very pretty!"

"Not after what I've see