There was a certain animal form of refinement in his
nature; and however pleasant a strange condition might
be whilst privations were easily warded off, it was dis-
advantageously coarse when money was short. There
was ever present, too, the idea that he could claim a
home and its comforts did he but chose to return to
England and Weatherbury Farm. Whether Bathsheba
thought him dead was a frequent subject of curious
conjecture. To England he did return at last; but the
but the fact of drawing nearer to Weatherbury abstracted its
fascinations, and his intention to enter his old groove at
the place became modified. It was with gloom he con-
sidered on landing at Liverpool that if he were to go home
his reception would be of a kind very unpleasant to con-
template; for what Troy had in the way of emotion was
an occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes caused
him as much inconvenience as emotion of a strong and
healthy kind. Bathsheba was not a women to be made
a fool of, or a woman to suffer in silence; and how
could he endure existence with a spirited wife to whom
at first entering he would be beholden for food and
lodging? Moreover, it was not at all unlikely that his
wife would fail at her farming, if she had not already
done so; and he would then become liable for her
maintenance: and what a life such a future of poverty
with her would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly be-
tween them, harrowing his temper and embittering her
words! Thus, for reasons touching on distaste, regret,
and shame commingled, he put off his return from day
to day, and would have decided to put it off altogether
if he could have found anywhere else the ready-made
establishment which existed for him there.
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