Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that he showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and flowers, and onward into the house.
She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was close to the margin of the pool. She started up, and hastened back to his side. "Well," said Henchard; "what do you say now?" "Let us go home." "But tell me do what is it floating there?" "The effigy," she answered hastily.
The densest point of the avenue of sycamores had been selected, where the boughs made a closely interlaced vault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had been hung, and a barrel roof was the result. The end towards the wind was enclosed, the other end was open. Henchard went round and saw the interior.
"This promise will leave him free for you, if you want him, won't it?" At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start. "Him? Who are you talking about?" she said wildly. "Nobody, as far as I am concerned," said Elizabeth firmly. "Oh well. Then it is my mistake," said Henchard. "But the business is between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife."
I have done wrong in coming to 'ee I see my error. But it is only for once, so forgive it. I'll never trouble 'ee again, Elizabeth-Jane no, not to my dying day! Good-night. Good-bye!" Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went out from her rooms, and departed from the house by the back way as he had come; and she saw him no more.
While pausing in this half-stupefied state the conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies reached his ears; and he distinctly heard her deny him deny that he had assisted Donald, that he was anything more than a common journeyman. He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. "So you've had a snub," said Jopp. "And what if I have?" answered Henchard sternly.
Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed was not the child of Michael Henchard at all legally, nobody's child; how would that correct and leading townsman receive the information? He might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire's own again. Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing!
He then inquired into the circumstances; and seeing the state of his waggon and its load began hotly rating Farfrae's man. Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the street corner, whence they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the moon's rays, and passed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and the waggoners.
But inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; his sense of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas; and he leant against the parapet as before. When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself.
Why, if I were to show that to her dear husband pooh!" He threw the letter into the fire. Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider every day.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking