Chapter 42 - Page 2

could not in the nature
of things be keen; other interests would probably soon
obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any such
renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a
discovery that she was still a creature of the present. To
satisfy his conscience somewhat Henchard repeated to himself
that the lie which had retained for him the coveted treasure
had not been deliberately told to that end, but had come
from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no
thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within
himself that no Newson could love her as he loved her, or
would tend her to his life's extremity as he was prepared to
do cheerfully.

Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard,
and nothing occurred to mark their days during the remainder
of the year. Going out but seldom, and never on a market-
day, they saw Donald Farfrae only at rarest intervals, and
then mostly as a transitory object in the distance of the
street. Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations,
smiling mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with
bargainers--as bereaved men do after a while.

Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to
estimate his experience of Lucetta--all that it was, and all
that it was not. There are men whose hearts insist upon a
dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into
their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it
no rarity--even the reverse, indeed, and without them the
band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of
those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and
rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank
which his loss threw about him. He could not but perceive
that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming
misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her
history, which must have come sooner or later in any
circumstances, it was hard to believe that life with her
would have been productive of further happiness.

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.

By the end of a year Henchard's little retail seed and grain
shop, not much larger than a cupboard, had developed its
trade considerably, and the stepfather and daughter enjoyed
much serenity in the pleasant, sunny corner in which it
stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an inner
activity characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She
took long walks into the country two or three times a week,
mostly in the direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it occurred