But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be superfluous.  At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.  She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back into the garden.  Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the house to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour.  But hearing none she opened the door and went in.  To her astonishment Clym lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently unbroken.  He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the knocking, but he had not awakened.  Eustacia hastened to the door, and in spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out.  Nobody was to be seen.  There, by the scraper, lay Clym’s hook and the handful of faggot-bonds he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden gate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple heath thrilling silently in the sun.  Mrs. Yeobright was gone.

Clym’s mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill.  Her walk thither from the garden gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter it.  Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were graven—­that of Clym’s hook and brambles at the door, and that of a woman’s face at a window.  Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin as she murmured, “’Tis too much—­Clym, how can he bear to do it!  He is at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!”

In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about to regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a hollow.  The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia’s stoker at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible consciousness of his act.

Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. “’Tis a long way home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening.”

“I shall,” said her small companion.  “I am going to play marnels afore supper, and we go to supper at six o’clock, because father comes home.  Does your father come home at six too?”

“No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody.”

“What have made you so down?  Have you seen a ooser?”

“I have seen what’s worse—­a woman’s face looking at me through a window-pane.”

“Is that a bad sight?”

“Yes.  It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary wayfarer and not letting her in.”