Perhaps it was owing to the perplexity of his mind that, instead of returning by the direct road towards his sister’s obscure lodging in the next county, he followed the highway to Casterbridge, some fifteen miles off, where he remained drinking hard all that afternoon and evening, and where he lay that and two or three succeeding nights, wandering thence along the Anglebury road to some village that way, and lying the Friday night after at his native place of Havenpool.  The sight of the familiar objects there seems to have stirred him anew to action, and the next morning he was observed pursuing the way to Oozewood that he had followed on the Saturday previous, reckoning, no doubt, that Saturday night would, as before, be a time for finding Sir John with his sister again.

He delayed to reach the place till just before sunset.  His sister was walking in the meadows at the foot of the garden, with a nursemaid who carried the baby, and she looked up pensively when he approached.  Anxiety as to her position had already told upon her once rosy cheeks and lucid eyes.  But concern for herself and child was displaced for the moment by her regard of Roger’s worn and haggard face.

’Why—­you are sick, Roger—­you are tired!  Where have you been these many days?  Why not keep me company a bit—­my husband is much away?  And we have hardly spoke at all of dear father and of your voyage to the New Land.  Why did you go away so suddenly?  There is a spare chamber at my lodging.’

‘Come indoors,’ he said.  ’We’ll talk now—­talk a good deal.  As for him [nodding to the child], better heave him into the river; better for him and you!’

She forced a laugh, as if she tried to see a good joke in the remark, and they went silently indoors.

‘A miserable hole!’ said Roger, looking round the room.

’Nay, but ‘tis very pretty!’

’Not after what I’ve seen.  Did he marry ’ee at church in orderly fashion?’

‘He did sure—­at our church at Havenpool.’

‘But in a privy way?’

‘Ay—­because of his friends—­it was at night-time.’

‘Ede, ye fond one—­for all that he’s not thy husband!  Th’ ’rt not his wife; and the child is a bastard.  He hath a wife and children of his own rank, and bearing his name; and that’s Sir John Horseleigh, of Clyfton Horseleigh, and not plain Jack, as you think him, and your lawful husband.  The sacrament of marriage is no safeguard nowadays.  The King’s new-made headship of the Church hath led men to practise these tricks lightly.’

She had turned white.  ‘That’s not true, Roger!’ she said.  ’You are in liquor, my brother, and you know not what you say!  Your seafaring years have taught ‘ee bad things!’

‘Edith—­I’ve seen them; wife and family—­all.  How canst—­’

They were sitting in the gathered darkness, and at that moment steps were heard without.  ‘Go out this way,’ she said.  ’It is my husband.  He must not see thee in this mood.  Get away till to-morrow, Roger, as you care for me.’