view. She staggered across to the first post, clung to it, and looked around. Another milestone was on the opposite side of the road.
The Casterbridge lights were now individually visible. It was getting towards morning, and vehicles might be hoped for if not expected soon. She listened. There was not a sound of life save that acme and sublimation of all dismal sounds, the bark of a fox, its three hollow notes being rendered at intervals of a minute with the precision of a funeral bell.
"One mile more," the woman murmured. "No; less," she added, after a pause. "The mile is to the Town Hall, and my resting-place is on this side Casterbridge. Three-quarters of a mile, and there I am!" After an interval she again spoke. "Five or six steps to a yard—six perhaps. I have to go twelve hundred yards. A hundred times six, six hundred. Twelve times that. Oh, pity me, Lord!"
Holding to the rails she advanced, thrusting one hand forward upon the rail, then the other, then leaning over it whilst she dragged her feet on beneath.
This woman was not given to soliloquy; but extremity of feeling lessens the individuality of the weak, as it increases that of the strong. She said again in the same tone, "I'll believe that the
