She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.
She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
"Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him," she said serenely. Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.
She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning manner towards her cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind.
"O that she had been married to Damon before this!" she said. "And she would if it hadn't been for me! If I had only known--if I had only known!"
Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and, sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder, entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.