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Updated: June 21, 2025
Newson's back was soon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake. Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour for another coach which crossed there. The coach Newson had come by was now about to move again. Newson mounted, his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the vehicle disappeared with him.
Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning them over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was his at last and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that she would be sure to like him.
O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help knowing almost everybody in Casterbridge, living in such a gazebo over the centre and arena of the town. "Pleasant young fellow," said Henchard. "Yes," said Lucetta. "We both know him," said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her companion's divined embarrassment.
"Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week." "And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He's sharp in trade, but he wouldn't do anything so underhand as what you hint at." Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her white figure disappeared from her doorway inward, and the door was shut before Henchard could reach it to converse with her further.
"But don't dwell on it just now," entreated Elizabeth, holding Lucetta's hand. "I don't wish to, if she promises," said Henchard. "I have, I have," groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid, from very misery and faintness. "Michael, please don't argue it any more!" "I will not," he said. And taking up his hat he went away. Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta. "What is this?" she said.
"Is it quite fair to this young woman's memory to read at such length to a stranger what was intended for your eye alone?" "Well, yes," said Henchard. "By not giving her name I make it an example of all womankind, and not a scandal to one." "If I were you I would destroy them," said Farfrae, giving more thought to the letters than he had hitherto done.
Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in front, saw what it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear. Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly to be off.
The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of this region impressed Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects scenes, and adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, and he exclaimed, "Why the deuce did I come here!"
Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he swore; the solitary life he led during the years which followed. "I have kept my oath for nineteen years," he went on; "I have risen to what you see me now." "Ay!"
She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?" As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad, I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby." "It did; but they alter so," replied Susan. "Their hair gets darker, I know but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?"
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