...Yes," he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta's
passionate bundle, "here they be. That ever I should see 'em again! I
hope Mrs. Farfrae is well after her exertions of yesterday?"
"She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that account."
Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest,
Farfrae being seated at the other end of the dining-table. "You don't
forget, of course," he resumed, "that curious chapter in the history of
my past which I told you of, and that you gave me some assistance in?
These letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business. Though,
thank God, it is all over now."
"What became of the poor woman?" asked Farfrae.
"Luckily she married, and married well," said Henchard. "So that these
reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as they
might otherwise have done....Just listen to what an angry woman will
say!"
Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and
bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered attention.
"'For me,'" Henchard read, "'there is practically no future. A creature
too unconventionally devoted to you--who feels it impossible that she
can be the wife of any other man; and who is yet no more to you than the
first woman you meet in the street--such am I. I quite acquit you of any
intention to wrong me, yet you are the door through which wrong has come
to me.
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