 could that be?«
    »By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright.«
    »I hope that visit of mine did you no harm.«
    »None. It was not your fault,« she said quietly.
    By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on together,
without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia broke silence by
saying, »I assume I must congratulate you.«
    »On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I
didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that.«
    »You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me to-day when you
came?« she said in the tone of a neglected person. »I heard of it quite by
accident.«
    »I did mean to tell you,« said Wildeve. »But I - well, I will speak frankly
- I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your star was not
high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work, as your husband lay,
made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you would be greatly out of
place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I could not help feeling too that in
many respects he was a richer man than I.«
    At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, »What, would you
exchange with him - your fortune for me?«
    »I certainly would,« said Wildeve.
    »As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change the
subject?«
    »Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care to
hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one thousand as
ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a year or so.«
    »Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?«
    »From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I shall
go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather comes on. In
the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not yet settled, I shall
go to Australia and round to India. By that time I shall have begun to have had
enough of it. Then I shall probably come back to Paris again, and there I shall
stay as long as I can afford to.«
    »Back to Paris again,« she murmured in a voice that
