preoccupation they did not see each other, and she went out of the station alone.
She walked mechanically homewards without calling a fly.8 Entering, she could not bear the silence of the house, and went up in the dark to where Anna had slept, where she remained thinking awhile. She then returned to the drawing-room, and not knowing what she did, crouched down upon the floor.
'I have ruined him!' she kept repeating. 'I have ruined him; because I would not deal treacherously towards her!'
In the course of half an hour a figure opened the door of the apartment.
'Ah?who's that?' she said, starting up, for it was dark.
'Your husband?who should it be?' said the worthy merchant.
'Ah?my husband!?I forgot I had a husband!' she whispered to herself.
'I missed you at the station,' he continued. 'Did you see Anna safely tied up? I hope so, for 'twas time.' 'Yes?Anna is married.' Simultaneously with Edith's journey home Anna and her husband were sit
ting at the opposite windows of a second-class carriage which sped along to Knollsea. In his hand was a pocket-book full of creased sheets closely written over. Unfolding them one after another he read them in silence, and sighed.
'What are you doing, dear Charles?' she said timidly from the other window, and drew nearer to him as if he were a god. 'Reading over all those sweet letters to me signed 'Anna,' ' he replied with dreary resignation.
1891
Hap1
If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: 'Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!'
Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire? unmerited; anger
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted? me the tears I shed. allotted, given
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
?Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
10
8. Carriage. 1. I.e., chance (as also 'Casualty,' line 11).
.
I LOOK INTO MY GLASS / 1869
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . These purblind Doomsters2 had as readily strown Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
1866 1898
Neutral Tones We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of? God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;? ?They had fallen from an ash, and were gray. rebuked, by turf 5 Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove Over tedious riddles of years ago; And some words played between us to and fro On which lost the more by our love. ioThe smile on your mouth was the deadest thing Alive enough to have strength to die; And a grin of bitterness swept thereby Like an ominous bird a-wing . . . 15Since then, keen lessons that love deceives, And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree, And a pond edged with grayish leaves. 1867 1898
I Look into My Glass1
I look into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, 'Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!'
5 For then, I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
io Part steals, lets part abide; And shakes this fragile frame at eve With throbbings of noontide.
2. Half-blind judges. 1. Mirror.
.
187 0 / THOMAS HARDY
A Broken Appointment
You did not come. And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.? Yet less for loss of your dear presence there Than that I thus found lacking in your make
5 That high compassion which can overbear Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.
You love not me,
io And love alone can lend you loyalty; ?I know and knew it. But, unto the store Of human deeds divine in all
