A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING—CONCLUSION

“The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to have.”

Those had been Bathsheba’s words to Oak one evening, some time after the event of the preceding chapter, and he meditated a full hour by the clock upon how to carry out her wishes to the letter.

“A license—O yes, it must be a license,” he said to himself at last. “Very well, then; first, a license.”

On a dark night, a few days later, Oak came with mysterious steps from the surrogate’s door, in Casterbridge. On the way home he heard a heavy tread