`I don't know,' said Bathsheba.

`I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am,' said two or three.

`It is hardly likely, either,' continued Bathsheba. `For any lover of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable lad. The most mysterious matter connected with her absence - indeed, the only thing which gives me serious alarm - is that she was seen to go out of the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown on - not even a bonnet.'

`And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman would hardly go to see her young man without dressing up,' said Jacob, turning his mental vision upon past experiences. `That's true - she would not, ma'am.'

`She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very well,' said a female voice from another window, which seemed that of Maryann. `But she had no young man about here. Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I believe he's a soldier.'

`Do you know his name?' Bathsheba said.

`No, mistress; she was very close about it.'

`Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge barracks,' said William Smallbury.

`Very well; if she doesn't return tomorrow, mind you go there and try to discover which man it is, and see him. I feel more responsible than I should if she had had any friends or relations alive. I do hope she has come to no harm through a man of that kind. And then there's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff - but I can't speak of him now.'

Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she did not think it worth while to dwell upon any particular one. `Do as I told you, then,' she said in conclusion, closing the casement.

`Ay, ay, mistress; we will,' they replied, and moved away.

That night at Coggan's Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed eyelids, was busy with fancies, and fill of movement, like a river flowing rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded her image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness, hut they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the delight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception of the great difference between seeing and possessing.

He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe. The Young Man's Best Companion The Farriers Sure Guide, The Veterinary Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The Pilgrims Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Ash's Dictionary, and Walkingame's Arithmetic, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves.