Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered her dignity thereby.  “Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,” she said, “so not much attaches to that.”

The reddleman suffered the wound and went on:  “He is a man who notices the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind, if you only had the mind.”

“Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do living up here away from him.”

The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face.  “Miss Vye!” he said.

“Why do you say that—­as if you doubted me?” She spoke faintly, and her breathing was quick.  “The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!” she added, with a forced smile of hauteur.  “What could have been in your mind to lead you to speak like that?”

“Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don’t know this man?—­I know why, certainly.  He is beneath you, and you are ashamed.”

“You are mistaken.  What do you mean?”

The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth.  “I was at the meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,” he said.  “The woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.”

It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of Candaules’ wife glowed in her.  The moment had arrived when her lip would tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept down.

“I am unwell,” she said hurriedly.  “No—­it is not that—­I am not in a humour to hear you further.  Leave me, please.”

“I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you.  What I would put before you is this.  However it may come about—­whether she is to blame, or you—­her case is without doubt worse than yours.  Your giving up Mr. Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?  Now she cannot get off so easily—­everybody will blame her if she loses him.  Then I ask you—­not because her right is best, but because her situation is worst—­to give him up to her.”

“No—­I won’t, I won’t!” she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling.  “Nobody has ever been served so!  It was going on well—­I will not be beaten down—­by an inferior woman like her.  It is very well for you to come and plead for her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble?  Am I not to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of a parcel of cottagers?  She has come between me and my inclination, and now that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for her!”

“Indeed,” said Venn earnestly, “she knows nothing whatever about it.  It is only I who ask you to give him up.  It will be better for her and you both.  People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly meets a man who has ill-used another woman.”

“I have not injured her—­he was mine before he was hers!  He came back—­because—­because he liked me best!” she said wildly.  “But I lose all self-respect in talking to you.  What am I giving way to!”