She was
thankful that he had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down
over the fire. Here she remained in silence, and wept--not for her
mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed
doing a wrong.
Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature
he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning
them over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was
his at last and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that
she would be sure to like him. He was the kind of man to whom some
human object for pouring out his heart upon--were it emotive or were
it choleric--was almost a necessity. The craving for his heart for the
re-establishment of this tenderest human tie had been great during
his wife's lifetime, and now he had submitted to its mastery without
reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer again, and
proceeded in his search.
Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife's little
desk, the keys of which had been handed to him at her request. Here was
the letter addressed to him with the restriction, "NOT TO BE OPENED TILL
ELIZABETH-JANE'S WEDDING-DAY."
Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no
practical hand at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded
and tucked in without an envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had
overlaid the junction with a large mass of wax without the requisite
under-touch of the same.
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