“I’ve no wish to complain of him.”
“There has been a disagreement?”
“A little.”
“Perhaps you were to blame,” suggested the stranger.
“I was—in many ways,” sighed the meek Elizabeth. “I swept up the coals when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was leery;—and he was angry with me.”
The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply. “Do you know the impression your words give me?” she said ingenuously. “That he is a hot-tempered man—a little proud—perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man.” Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was curious.
“O no; certainly not bad,” agreed the honest girl. “And he has not even been unkind to me till lately—since mother died. But it has been very much to bear while it has lasted. All is owing to my defects, I daresay; and my defects are owing to my history.”
“What is your history?”
Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed compelled to look back again. “My history is not gay or attractive,” she said. “And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know.”
The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane told the tale of her life as she understood it, which was in general the true one, except that the sale at the fair had no part therein.