but there's nothing so refreshing as a cup of tea, though I should never have got one if you hadn't helped me."
Troy scrutinized her cheek as lit by the candles, and watched each varying shade thereon, and the white shell-like sinuosities of her little ear. She took out her purse and was insisting to Boldwood on paying for her tea for herself, when at this moment Pennyways entered the tent. Troy trembled here was his scheme for respectability endangered at once. He was about to leave his hole of espial, attempt to follow Pennyways, and I find out if the ex-bailiff had recognized him, when he was arrested by the conversation, and found he was too late.
"Excuse me, ma'am," said Pennyways; "I've some private information for your ear alone."
"I cannot hear it now," she said, coldly. That Bathsheba could not endure this man was evident; in fact, he was continually coming to her with some tale or other, by which he might creep into favour at the expense of persons maligned.
"I'll write it down," said Pennyways, confidently. He stooped over the table, pulled a leaf from a warped pocket-book, and wrote upon the paper, in a round hand—
"Your husband is here. I've seen him. Who's the fool now?"
