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The sudden change threw the window into relief, an oblong of grayish light, and showed us a figure standing close, peering in. As I looked it darted across the veranda and out of sight in the darkness. Liddy's knees seemed to give away under her. Without a sound she sank down, leaving me staring at the window in petrified amazement.
"A woman's good name is such a perishable article that " Bathsheba laughed with a flushed cheek, and whispered in Liddy's ear, although there was nobody present. Then Liddy stared and exclaimed, " Souls alive, what news! It makes my heart go quite bumpity-bump" "It makes mine rather furious, too." said Bathsheba. "However, there's no getting out of it now!" It was a damp disagreeable morning.
They did not talk much their hearts were too full of love's young dream although he told her of his visit to a deserted house a year before, and how he heard ghostly footsteps in the house, and saw a closet door swing half open in a shadowy room, and he was sure there was a ghost in that closet; at which Liddy's arm clasped his a little closer. Maybe he enlarged a trifle upon that spook.
Liddy's manner was odd, but he did not notice it. She went in, leaving him standing there, and in her absence the blind of the room containing Bathsheba was pulled down. Boldwood augured ill from that sign. Liddy came out. "My mistress cannot see you, sir," she said. The farmer instantly went out by the gate. He was unforgiven that was the issue of it all.
Duc, with a rough gentleness, wiped off the blood and put the whisky-and-herbs to the sick man's lips, saying, in a fatherly way: "For why you do like that? You're a fool, Jimmy!" "I be, I be," said the old man in a whisper, and let his hand rest on Duc's shoulder. "I'll fix the bread sweet next time, Jimmy." "No, no," said the husky voice peevishly. "She'll do it Liddy'll do it. Liddy's comin'."
"Uh-uh," put in Mandy Meacham slowly, speaking over the shoulders of the two, "but I'd a heap ruther take care of my own child ef I had one. An' ef the mills can afford to pay for it the one way, they can afford to pay for it t'other way. Miss Liddy's schemes is all for the showin' off of the swells and the rich folks. I reckon that, with her, hit'll end in talk, anyhow hit always does."
I don't know what terrible thoughts came to me in the minute I stood there. Through the door I could hear Liddy grumbling, with a squeal now and then when the pain stabbed harder. Then, automatically, I got the laudanum and went back to her. It was fully a half-hour before Liddy's groans subsided. At intervals I went to the door into the hall and looked out, but I saw and heard nothing suspicious.
I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. "No," I said sharply, "I'm not going to use bluing at my time of life, or starch, either." Liddy's nerves are gone, she says, since that awful summer, but she has enough left, goodness knows!
CONCLUSION Bathsheba, however, awoke voluntarily at four, nor could she by any contrivance get to sleep again. About six, being quite positive that her watch had stopped during the night, she could wait no longer. She went and tapped at Liddy's door, and after some labour awoke her. "But I thought it was I who had to call you?" said the bewildered Liddy. "And it isn't six yet."
Still, it was faintly depressing that the most dignified and valuable man in the parish should withhold his eyes, and that a girl like Liddy should talk about it. So Liddy's idea was at first rather harassing than piquant. "No, I won't do that. He wouldn't see any humour in it." "He'd worry to death," said the persistent Liddy.
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