“I don’t quite feel anxious to.  I have not much love for my fellow-creatures.  Sometimes I quite hate them.”

“Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an interest in it.  There is no use in hating people—­if you hate anything, you should hate what produced them.”

“Do you mean Nature?  I hate her already.  But I shall be glad to hear your scheme at any time.”

The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was for them to part.  Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.  Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.

“We have met before,” he said, regarding her with rather more interest than was necessary.

“I do not own it,” said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.

“But I may think what I like.”

“Yes.”

“You are lonely here.”

“I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season.  The heath is a cruel taskmaster to me.”

“Can you say so?” he asked.  “To my mind it is most exhilarating, and strengthening, and soothing.  I would rather live on these hills than anywhere else in the world.”

“It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.”

“And there is a very curious Druidical stone just out there.”  He threw a pebble in the direction signified.  “Do you often go to see it?”

“I was not even aware there existed any such curious Druidical stone.  I am aware that there are boulevards in Paris.”

Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground.  “That means much,” he said.

“It does indeed,” said Eustacia.

“I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle.  Five years of a great city would be a perfect cure for that.”

“Heaven send me such a cure!  Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and plaster my wounded hand.”

They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade.  She seemed full of many things.  Her past was a blank, her life had begun.  The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till some time after.  During his walk home his most intelligible sensation was that his scheme had somehow become glorified.  A beautiful woman had been intertwined with it.

On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books from the boxes and arranging them on shelves.  From another box he drew a lamp and a can of oil.  He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and said, “Now, I am ready to begin.”

He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the light of his lamp—­read all the morning, all the afternoon.  Just when the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his chair.