The candle was standing on a bureau close by them,
and the light slanted down, distinctly enkindling the
cold features of both mother and babe. Troy looked
in, dropped his wife's hand, knowledge of it all came
over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.
So still he remained that he could be imagined to
have left in him no motive power whatever. The
clashes of feeling in all directions confounded one
another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion in
none.
"Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small
enclosed echo, as from the interior of a cell.
"I do." said Troy.
"Is it she?"
"It is."
He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now,
in the wellnigh congealed immobility of his frame
could be discerned an incipient movement, as in the
darkest night may be discerned light after a while.
He was gradually sinking forwards. The lines of his
features softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable
sadness. Bathsheba was regarding him from the other
side, still with parted lips and distracted eyes. Capacity
for intense feeling is proportionate to the general
intensity of the nature ,and perhaps in all Fanny's
sufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there
never was a time she suffered in an absolute sense
what Bathsheba suffered now.
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