“We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.”

“Yes.  But you began that proceeding—­by breaking a promise.”

“It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now.  We have formed other ties since then—­you no less than I.”

“I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill.”

“He is not ill—­only incapacitated.”

“Yes:  that is what I mean.  I sincerely sympathize with you in your trouble.  Fate has treated you cruelly.”

She was silent awhile.  “Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a furze-cutter?” she said in a low, mournful voice.

“It has been mentioned to me,” answered Wildeve hesitatingly.  “But I hardly believed it.”

“It is true.  What do you think of me as a furze-cutter’s wife?”

“I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia.  Nothing of that sort can degrade you:  you ennoble the occupation of your husband.”

“I wish I could feel it.”

“Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?”

“He thinks so.  I doubt it.”

“I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage.  I thought, in common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home in Paris immediately after you had married him.  ’What a gay, bright future she has before her!’ I thought.  He will, I suppose, return there with you, if his sight gets strong again?”

Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely.  She was almost weeping.  Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbours’ suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve’s words, had been too much for proud Eustacia’s equanimity.

Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw her silent perturbation.  But he affected not to notice this, and she soon recovered her calmness.

“You do not intend to walk home by yourself?” he asked.

“O yes,” said Eustacia.  “What could hurt me on this heath, who have nothing?”

“By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours.  I shall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner.”  Seeing that Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, “Perhaps you think it unwise to be seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?”

“Indeed I think no such thing,” she said haughtily.  “I shall accept whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable inhabitants of Egdon.”

“Then let us walk on—­if you are ready.  Our nearest way is towards that holly-bush with the dark shadow that you see down there.”

Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified, brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the strains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance.  The moon had now waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such illumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a dark, rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its zenith to its extremities with whitest light.  To an eye above them their two faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of ebony.