“Why, it is Diggory Venn’s van, surely!” she said.

A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn’s chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat.  The question arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into the path.  In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at this place and season.  But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though there was no doubt that it was the reddleman’s.  The fire was burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail.  Round the doorway the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that the door had not long been opened.

While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.

“I thought you went down the slope,” he said, without noticing her face.  “How do you come back here again?”

“Diggory?” said Thomasin faintly.

“Who are you?” said Venn, still unperceiving.  “And why were you crying so just now?”

“O, Diggory! don’t you know me?” said she.  “But of course you don’t, wrapped up like this.  What do you mean?  I have not been crying here, and I have not been here before.”

Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her form.

“Mrs. Wildeve!” he exclaimed, starting.  “What a time for us to meet!  And the baby too!  What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a night as this?”

She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.

“What is it?” he continued when they stood within.

“I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to get home.  Please show me as quickly as you can!  It is so silly of me not to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path.  Show me quickly, Diggory, please.”

“Yes, of course.  I will go with ’ee.  But you came to me before this, Mrs. Wildeve?”

“I only came this minute.”

“That’s strange.  I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago, with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a woman’s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up (for I don’t sleep heavy), and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from the same woman.  I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as far as the light would reach I saw a woman:  she turned her head when the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill.  I hung up the lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few steps, but I could see nothing of her any more.  That was where I had been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same one.”