Gabriel might have been
there an additional half-hour when a dark form walked
slowly by. "Good-night, Gabriel." the passer said.
It was Boldwood. "Good-night, sir." said Gabriel.
Boldwood likewise vanished up the road, and Oak
shortly afterwards turned indoors to bed.
Farmer Boldwood went on towards Miss Everdene's
house. He reached the front, and approaching the
entrance, saw a light in the parlour. The blind was
not drawn down, and inside the room was Bathsheba,
looking over some papers or letters. Her back was
towards Boldwood. He went to the door, knocked,
and waited with tense muscles and an aching brow.
Boldwood had not been outside his garden since
his meeting with Bathsheba in the road to Yalbury.
Silent and alone, he had remained in moody medita-
tion on woman's ways, deeming as essentials of the
whole sex the accidents of the single one of their
number he had ever closely beheld. By degrees a
more charitable temper had pervaded him, and this
was the reason of his sally to-night. He had come to
apologize and beg forgiveness of Bathsheba with some-
thing like a sense of shame at his violence, having but
just now learnt that she had returned -- only from a
visit to Liddy, as he supposed, the Bath escapade
being quite unknown to him.
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