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"I don't admit that!" said Lucetta passionately. "Admit it or not, it is true!" Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no more, holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane. "Why, you HAVE married him!" cried the latter, jumping up with pleasure after a glance at Lucetta's fingers. "When did you do it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasing me like this?
Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the firelight. "I have come to see you," she said breathlessly. "I did not stop to knock forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window is open." Without waiting for Lucetta's reply she crossed quickly to the window and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side.
But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta's image still lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only the gentlest criticism, and her sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealments to a momentary spark now and then.
That her absence, rather than her services or instruction, was in request, had been readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and difficult as it was to attribute a motive for the desire. She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta's servants was sent to Henchard's with a note. The contents were briefly:
She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of the story she had told. "O yes I remember the story of YOUR FRIEND," said Elizabeth drily, regarding the irises of Lucetta's eyes as though to catch their exact shade.
Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of High-Place Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude and incessant rain Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed to hear of Lucetta's absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he went away handling his beard with a nettled mien. The next day he called again. "Is she come now?" he asked.
"Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in the past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife if she can, even if she were not the sinning party." Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle. "He turned out to be a man I should be afraid to marry," she pleaded. "Really afraid! And it was not till after my renewed promise that I knew it."
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