Henchard, if she chose to
tell it. This had brought them hither.
"Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?" said Lucetta
to her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just
looked out of the window.
"Oh, please, ma'am, 'tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A woman has
proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five
guineas in a booth at a fair."
In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from
his wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on,
he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that
separation. The story she now heard for the first time.
A gradual misery overspread Lucetta's face as she dwelt upon the promise
wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was this.
How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his
care.
During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming
in till nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return
indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the
seaside for a few days--to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in
the idea, thinking a change would afford her relief.
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