“How—comes it to be you—you?” she asked, not heeding his reply.
“I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you something these two or three days; but you have been away, and I could not. Perhaps you cannot talk now?”
“Oh—no! Where is Elizabeth?”
“Here am I!” cried the missing one cheerfully; and without waiting for the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to the floor.
Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane on the other, they went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top and were descending again when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected that she had dropped her muff in the barn.
“I’ll run back,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “I don’t mind it at all, as I am not tired as you are.” She thereupon hastened down again to the barn, the others pursuing their way.
Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small at that time. Coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull, now rather to be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather intended a practical joke than a murder. Henchard had secured him by jamming the staff into the hinge of the barn-door, and wedging it there with a stake. At length she turned to hasten onward after her contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig approaching from the contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by Farfrae.
His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta’s walk that way. Donald saw her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred. At Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from any she had seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was doing to think of helping her up beside him.
“She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?” he inquired at last.
“Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time.”