“I can keep secrets,” said Venn gently.  “You need not fear.  I am the only man who knows of your meetings with him.  There is but one thing more to speak of, and then I will be gone.  I heard you say to him that you hated living here—­that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.”

“I did say so.  There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it is a jail to me.  The man you mention does not save me from that feeling, though he lives here.  I should have cared nothing for him had there been a better person near.”

The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third attempt seemed promising.  “As we have now opened our minds a bit, miss,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I have got to propose.  Since I have taken to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.”

She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the misty vale beneath them.

“And in my travels I go near Budmouth.  Now Budmouth is a wonderful place—­wonderful—­a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like a bow—­thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down—­bands of music playing—­officers by sea and officers by land walking among the rest—­out of every ten folks you meet nine of ’em in love.”

“I know it,” she said disdainfully.  “I know Budmouth better than you.  I was born there.  My father came to be a military musician there from abroad.  Ah, my soul, Budmouth!  I wish I was there now.”

The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on occasion.  “If you were, miss,” he replied, “in a week’s time you would think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he’th-croppers that we see yond.  Now, I could get you there.”

“How?” said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.

“My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea.  This lady has become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and sing to her, but can’t get one to her mind to save her life, though she’ve advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen.  She would jump to get you, and uncle would make it all easy.”

“I should have to work, perhaps?”

“No, not real work:  you’d have a little to do, such as reading and that.  You would not be wanted till New Year’s Day.”

“I knew it meant work,” she said, drooping to languor again.

“I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her; but though idle people might call it work, working people would call it play.  Think of the company and the life you’d lead, miss; the gaiety you’d see, and the gentleman you’d marry.  My uncle is to inquire for a trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don’t like town girls.”

“It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won’t go.  O, if I could live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own doings, I’d give the wrinkled half of my life!  Yes, reddleman, that would I.”