Chapter: <CHAPTER>
BOOK FOUR -- THE CLOSED DOOR
1--The Rencounter by the Pool


The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.
It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,
in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the
second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes
which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the
heathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in
turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.

Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The
heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for
the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all
things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because
they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason;
when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on
the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and
round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The absolute
solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts; yet
some might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their
mutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear
for his own part; but recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the
evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused
him to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the
quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.

When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his
reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,
for he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible delay.

Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the
probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,
to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. Her hopes
were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their marriage,
when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of
her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the
act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books, indicating a
future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a positively
painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of some
pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she
would be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and
catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted
to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary intention as if
the tendency of marriage were rather to develop the fantasies of young
philanthropy than to sweep them away.

Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the
subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped
her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and
arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the
fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.

A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to
her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the
amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her
late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to
say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural
enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single
particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian's terror,
in like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that
proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving
details.

Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to
wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;
and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment
might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but
why did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion in his
answers would at once have led her to believe that something was wrong,
had not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin's note.

Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
one morning that her son's wife was visiting her grandfather at
Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips whether the family guineas,
which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
dowagers, had miscarried or not.

When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,
and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew
it--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.

"What, is he going to keep them?" Mrs. Yeobright cried.

"I hope and trust not!" moaned Christian. "He's a good man, and perhaps
will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym's share to
Eustacia, and that's perhaps what he'll do himself."

To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course
of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve's
fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve
should have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange
the disposal of them, placing Clym's share in Clym's wife's hands,
because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as
irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.

She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer
if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an
hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire
in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was
to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
intended as a sacred gift to Clym.

She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
bordered her grandfather's premises, where she stood surveying the
scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed
in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with
the calm stare of a stranger.

The mother-in-law was the first to speak. "I was coming to see you," she
said.

"Indeed!" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
girl's mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. "I did
not at all expect you."

"I was coming on business only," said the visitor, more coldly than at
first. "Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from
Thomasin's husband?"

"A gift?"

"I mean money!"

"What--I myself?"

"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it in
that way."

"Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?"
Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old
attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion
that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse her
of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.

"I simply ask the question," said Mrs. Yeobright. "I have been----"

"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against me
from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia.

"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
emphasis in her earnestness. "It is the instinct of everyone to look
after their own."

"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?" cried
Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. "I have not injured him by
marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
you."

"I only did what was fair under the circumstances," said Mrs. Yeobright
more softly. "I would rather not have gone into this question at
present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest
truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore
I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done
now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome
you."

"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of view,"
murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. "But why should you
think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit
as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a
condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not a manoeuvre, let me
remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it
becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. "I
have never heard anything to show that my son's lineage is not as
good as the Vyes'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
condescension."

"It was condescension, nevertheless," said Eustacia vehemently. "And if
I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild
heath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice before
agreeing."

"It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I
am not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was
not--whatever might have been the case on the other side."

"This is too exasperating!" answered the younger woman huskily, her face
crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. "How can you dare to speak to me
like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life
would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have
said NO. I don't complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing
to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be
silent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself."

"Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?"

"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
secretly favouring another man for money!"

"I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside
my house."

"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse."

"I did my duty."

"And I'll do mine."

"A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
me!"

"I understand you," said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. "You
think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who
encourages a lover, and poisons her husband's mind against his relative?
Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag
him out of my hands?"

Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.

"Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not worth
the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor
old woman who has lost a son."

"If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still."
Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. "You have
brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be
healed!"

"I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
can bear."

"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I
have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away
from me? You are no friend!"

"I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to
question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly.
If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest
means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an
evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably
my son's happiness does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a
foolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand
on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only show my son one-half
the temper you have shown me today--and you may before long--and you
will find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be
as hard as steel!"

The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
into the pool.


</CHAPTER>
<CHAPTER>
2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song


The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead
of passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to
Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.

She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had
never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She
passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so
concerned that he immediately followed her.

"What is the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the
hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in
front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;
and then she replied in a low voice--

"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!"

A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish
that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-
law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a
reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.

"Why is this?" he asked.

"I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never
meet her again."

"Why?"

"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinions
passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I
had received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
sort--I don't exactly know what!"

"How could she have asked you that?"

"She did."

"Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
besides?"

"I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both said
words which can never be forgiven!"

"Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
meaning was not made clear?"

"I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot
help expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placed
me in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all
now! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I
don't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,
and not Egdon Heath."

"But I have quite given up that idea," said Yeobright, with surprise.
"Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?"

"I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your
wife and the sharer of your doom?"

"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement."

"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear," she said in a low voice; and her
eyes drooped, and she turned away.

This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosom
disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted
the fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards her desire.
But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the
effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more
closely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal
to substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.

Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them
a hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her own
hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.

"Then this is what my mother meant," exclaimed Clym. "Thomasin, do you
know that they have had a bitter quarrel?"

There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's manner
towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several
directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. "Your mother
told me," she said quietly. "She came back to my house after seeing
Eustacia."

"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
when she came to you, Thomasin?"

"Yes."

"Very much indeed?"

"Yes."

Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
eyes with his hand.

"Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends."

He shook his head. "Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.
Well, what must be will be."

"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost."

"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen."


Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
indispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during
many nights.

One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a
strange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about
him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating
tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his brow
while dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustacia
was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the next
morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.

Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.

Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would
have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the
glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that although
he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a
month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any
description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.

One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but
she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to
her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into
substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed
by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful
groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
despairing tears.

Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
to learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to
take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the
third week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first
time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and
Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with
added surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his
labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state
which, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not
admit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring
the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.

Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not
to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face
of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
spirit as it might otherwise have done.

He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.

Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added, "Now, if
yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
same."

"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get for
cutting these faggots?"

"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
the wages."

During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to
the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across
to her.

"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciled
to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."

"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautiful
stormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"

"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get
a living at, in this time of misfortune."

"Yes?"

"I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter."

"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her
face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.

"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
little money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that
in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"

"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."

"We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
off."

"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not
see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no
absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.

The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of
him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be
able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new
fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the
furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His
sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand
purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little
practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be
able to work with ease.

Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
o'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at
its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
out again and working till dusk at nine.

This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a
brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing
more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,
owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,
when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.

His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being
limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were
creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.
Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the
heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them
down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon
produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of
his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the
glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of
emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on
their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might
rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without
knowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided
in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season
immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their
colours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their
forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the
delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red
transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them feared
him.

The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself
a pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have
allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.
Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany
Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his
companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while
away the time.

On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
direction of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping away
at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to
hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however
satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-
wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went
on singing:--

            "Le point du jour
          A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
            Flore est plus belle a son retour;
            L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
            Tout celebre dans la nature
              Le point du jour.

            "Le point du jour
          Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;
            Que l'espace des nuits est court
            Pour le berger brulant d'amour,
            Force de quitter ce qu'il aime
              Au point du jour!"

It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick
despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood
and condition in him. Then she came forward.

"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. "And you
can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"

"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," he
said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
took her hand. "Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now
just applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,
because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?"

"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
love you."

"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?"

"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine when
I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,
and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!"

"I know what that tone means."

"What tone?"

"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,
worse luck.'"

"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,' it
was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that at
any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were
married, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?"

"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you."

"You are my husband. Does not that content you?"

"Not unless you are my wife without regret."

"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
matter on your hands."

"Yes, I saw that."

"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won't like your speaking so
at all."

"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. How
cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a
warmer heart than yours."

"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you," she sighed
mournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired
of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought
then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,
nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,
'tis too true!"

"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
sign."

"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,
or any other woman in my place."

"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
unfortunate man?"

"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud
as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish
and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless
about your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out
of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would
curse rather than sing."

Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, my
inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in
its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of
furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when
they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost
all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?"

"I have still some tenderness left for you."

"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good
fortune!"

"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in a
broken voice. "I will go home."


</CHAPTER>

 Clym and Eustacia are living in their little house at Alderworth, and Clym spends his time studying. Eustacia is still hopeful that he will decide to return to Paris. Mrs. Yeobright is puzzled as to why Clym has said nothing to her about the money she has sent him. Then she learns from Christian that he has lost it all to Wildeve. When Mrs. Yeobright is in Mistover Knap, she visits Eustacia and asks a lot of questions. Eustacia grows irritated at the quizzing, and they wind up fighting with one another. Eustacia longs to leave the heath more than ever. When she tells Clym about her argument with his mother, she again asks Clym to consider going back to Paris. Clym's reading results in an "acute inflammation" of the eye, which puts an end to his study. To keep his mind and body busy, Clym takes up furze cutting with Humphrey. Eustacia is bothered by this kind of work, but Clym seems to enjoy it. One day Eustacia hears him singing while at work, and they have a quarrel. It is apparent to both of them that their feelings for one another are beginning to change.

