Boldwood Confronts Her on the Road — Far from the Madding Crowd

The next evening Bathsheba sets out for Yalbury, where Liddy's sister lives, to keep out of the way if Boldwood comes to answer her note in person. She leaves just after a thunder-shower, with the earth fresh and the sun lingering in the north-west. Two miles along the road she sees him coming over the hill. He does not walk with his usual reserved tread. He is stunned and slow. Hardy says that a look can reproach better than words, and Boldwood's does.

He asks if her answer is final, then begs her for pity. She tells him there is little honour for the woman in such a speech. He reminds her of the valentine, of her kind words behind the reeds at the sheep-washing, in the barn at the shearing, and on the last evening at her home. She says each pleasure was for the day only. "You were all but mine," he answers, "and the second nothing is worse than the first." When he asks her to deny that Troy came between them and turned her answer from Yes, she is too honest to lie. She whispers that she cannot.

Then anger takes him. He demands that she deny Troy has kissed her. She will not. "He has," she says, and adds that she loves him true. Boldwood curses Troy and swears to horsewhip him, then drops his voice, begs her pardon, and says the real sinner is the man who stole her heart. He is glad Troy has gone back to his regiment, he says, and begs her to keep him away. He fades into the twilight. She sits down on a heap of stones by the road, shaken by the fever she has seen in a man so still. His threats frighten her for one reason that only she knows. Troy has not gone back to barracks. He is in Bath with a week or more of furlough left, and he may be in Weatherbury within a day or two.