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However, what she heard came from the hitherto silent side, and was intelligible in a moment as being the footsteps of men. She tried to think they were some late stragglers from Budmouth. Alas! no; the tramp was too regular for that of villagers. She hastily turned, extinguished the candle, and listened again.
Hitherward Henchard often resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgeless Via for it was the original track laid out by the legions of the Empire to a distance of two or three miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs between Farfrae and his charmer. One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along the road from Budmouth, and lingered.
The wings of her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth, entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things. She uttered words aloud.
'But I am going to set about it. He hesitated, as if ashamed of some weakness he was about to betray. 'My object in calling was to ask if you had heard any tidings from Budmouth of my Cytherea. You used to speak of her as one you were interested in. There was, at any rate, real sadness in Manston's tone now, and the rector paused to weigh his words ere he replied.
They breathed rather than spoke their thankfulness and relief, the miller's eyes being moist as he turned aside to calm himself; while Anne, having first jumped up wildly from her seat, sank back again under the almost insupportable joy that trembled through her limbs to her utmost finger. 'I've come from Spithead to Pos'ham, the sailor continued, 'and now I am going on to father at Budmouth.
He looked, 'We understand each other ah, we do, darling! turned the boat, and pulled back into the Bay once more. 'Now steer wherever you will, he said, in a low voice. 'Never mind the directness of the course wherever you will. 'Shall it be Creston Shore? she said, pointing to a stretch of beach northward from Budmouth Esplanade. 'Creston Shore certainly, he responded, grasping the sculls.
So, when the pathetic procession came out of the church and moved round into the graveyard, a hired vehicle from Budmouth was seen coming at great speed along the open road from Top-o'-Hill. It stopped at the churchyard gate, and a young man and woman alighted and entered, the vehicle waiting. They glided along the path and reached Pierston's side just as the body was deposited by the grave.
Contrary to the opinion of the doctors, the wound had healed after the first surgical operation, and his leg was gradually acquiring strength, though he could only as yet get about on crutches, or ride, or be dragged in a chair. Miss Aldclyffe had arranged that Cytherea should be married from Knapwater House, and not from her brother's lodgings at Budmouth, which was Cytherea's first idea.
At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors one evening to Grace more briskly than usual. "They have written to me again about that practice in Budmouth that I once negotiated for," he said to her. "The premium asked is eight hundred pounds, and I think that between your father and myself it ought to be raised. Then we can get away from this place forever."
The broad steely sea, marked only by faint lines, which had a semblance of being etched thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its general evenness, stretched the whole width of his front and round to the right, where, near the town and port of Budmouth, the sun bristled down upon it, and banished all colour, to substitute in its place a clear oily polish.
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