Chapter 41 - Page 2

said at last,
looking on the floor.

"I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I've been
looking for 'ee this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool
and went through Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and
when I got there, they told me you had some years before
been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long
and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. 'He lives
down by the mill,' says they. So here I am. Now--that
transaction between us some twenty years agone--'tis that
I've called about. 'Twas a curious business. I was younger
then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it, in
one sense, the better."

"Curious business! 'Twas worse than curious. I cannot even
allow that I'm the man you met then. I was not in my
senses, and a man's senses are himself."

"We were young and thoughtless," said Newson. "However,
I've come to mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor
Susan--hers was a strange experience."

"She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not
what they call shrewd or sharp at all--better she had been."

"She was not."

"As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough
to think that the sale was in a way binding. She was as
guiltless o' wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in
the clouds."

"I know it, I know it. I found it out directly," said
Henchard, still with averted eyes. "There lay the sting o't
to me. If she had seen it as what it was she would never
have left me. Never! But how should she be expected to
know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her
own name, and no more.

"Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed
was done," said the sailor of former days. "I thought, and
there was not much vanity in thinking it, that she would be
happier with me. She was fairly happy, and I never would
have undeceived her till the day of her death. Your child
died; she had another, and all went well. But a time came--
mind me, a time always does come. A time came--it was some
while after she and I and the child returned from America--
when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my
claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her belief in
my right. After that she was never happy with me. She
pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must
leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a
man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it
was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went off to sea.
When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a
storm, and it was supposed that a lot of us, including
myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at
Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should