Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under thecomposing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultorycorrespondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quiteknowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her brother'sdeath, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her children remainedat the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed itadvisable to stay away.

One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his farm,twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She thankedhim for his kind offer about her children, which her mother-in-law hadduly communicated, and stated that she would be glad to accept it asregarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to do so,for her uncle had left her penniless, and all application to somerelatives in the north had failed. There was, besides, as she said, nogood school near Hintock to which she could send the child.

On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sallyand his mother--to the 'White Horse,' at Chalk Newton--where he washanded over to Darton's bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met themthere.

He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge,three or four miles from Darton's, having first been taught by Darton toride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fountof knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful ofthe same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity intowhich Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the presence ofthis boy.

When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spendthem with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other,performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in persontook the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode onhorseback.

Reaching the renowned 'White Horse,' Darton inquired if Miss and youngMrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be). Hewas answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door.

'At the last moment Sally would not come,' she faltered.

That meeting practically settled the point towards which theselong-severed persons were converging. But nothing was broached about itfor some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisivemotion to events by refusing to accompany Helena. She soon gave them asecond move by writing the following note

'[Private.]

'DEAR CHARLES,--Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I have naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time, and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it wasn't) that night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at all for what I said then.--Yours sincerely, SALLY HALL.'

Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton's heart back to its originalquarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Dartonwent to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil the bridal officewhich had been in abeyance since the previous January twelvemonths.

'With all my heart, man o' constancy!' said Dairyman Johns warmly. 'I'velost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot weather, 'tistrue, but I'll do your business as well as them that look better. Therebe scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, and they'll takeoff the roughest o' my edge. I'll compliment her. "Better late thannever, Sally Hall," I'll say.'

'It is not Sally,' said Darton hurriedly. 'It is young Mrs. Hall.'

Japheth's face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture ofreproachful dismay. 'Not Sally?' he said. 'Why not Sally? I can'tbelieve it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well--where's your wisdom?'

Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be reconciled.'She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,' he cried. 'And now tolet her go!'

'But I suppose I can marry where I like,' said Darton.

'H'm,' replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. 'Thisdon't become you, Charles--it really do not. If I had done such a thingyou would have sworn I was a curst no'thern fool to be drawn off thescent by such a red-herring doll-oll-oll.'

Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion thatthe two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before.Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatlydeclined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, particularly asJapheth was about to leave that side of the county, so that the wordswhich had divided them were not likely to be explained away or softeneddown.

A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a simplematter-of fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined the boy whohad already grown to look on Darton's house as home.

For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness andsatisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatlymended as was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of eventsfollowed less clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena wasa fragile woman, of little staying power, physically or morally, andsince the time that he had originally known her--eight or ten yearsbefore--she had been severely tried. She had loved herself out, inshort, and was now occasionally given to moping. Sometimes she spokeregretfully of the gentilities of her early life, and instead ofcomparing her present state with her condition as the wife of the unluckyHall, she mused rather on what it had been before she took the firstfatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did not care to pleasesuch people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving farmer'swife. She allowed the pretty trifles of agricultural domesticity toglide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for the childrenDarton's house would have seemed but little brighter than it had beenbefore.

This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared tohimself that such endeavours as his to rectify early deviations of theheart by harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. 'PerhapsJohns was right,' he would say. 'I should have gone on with Sally.Better go with the tide and make the best of its course than stem it atthe risk of a capsize.' But he kept these unmelodious thoughts tohimself, and was outwardly considerate and kind.

This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a yearand a half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of the womanthey concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her thanwhen she had been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than withher, after all. No woman short of divine could have gone through such anexperience as hers with her first husband without becoming a littlesoured. Her stagnant sympathies, her sometimes unreasonable manner, hadcovered a heart frank and well meaning, and originally hopeful and warm.She left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To make life as easyas possible to this touching object became at once his care.

As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility ina scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he hadhitherto made upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from hismistakes and caution from his miscarriages.

What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he hadopportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by returningto Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother's roof atHintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement to ahome; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as Helena did,despise the rural simplicities of a farmer's fireside. Moreover, she hada pre-eminent qualification for Darton's household; no other woman couldmake so desirable a mother to her brother's two children and Darton's oneas Sally--while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promisinghusband for Sally than he had ever been when liable to reminders from anuncured sentimental wound.

Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of hisreparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there camea winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over thatformer ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should postponelonger, when the very landscape called for a repetition of that attempt.

He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with ayounger horseman's nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rodeoff. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fainhave had his old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas!was missing. His removal to the other side of the county had leftunrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and thoughDarton had forgiven him a hundred times, as Johns had probably forgivenDarton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was one not likelyto be made.

He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without hisformer crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode,instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughsappeared scratched in like an etching against the sky; old crooked menwith faggots at their backs said 'Good-night, sir,' and Darton replied'Good-night' right heartily.

By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it hadbeen on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton madeno mistake this time. 'Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven,when I arrive,' he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to thinkthat the proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of settingin order things long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy.

Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half itsformer length. Though dark, it was only between five and six o'clockwhen the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall's residence appeared in view behindthe sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put up at the ale-house as in former time; and when he had plumed himself before the innmirror, called for something to drink, and smoothed out the incipientwrinkles of care, he walked on to the Knap with a quick step.