"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence."

"Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through the
garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours."

The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her
telescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket
towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.

Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash was
audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would have
said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound
would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustacia
stepped upon the bank.

"Yes?" she said, and held her breath.

Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escaped
her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The
first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the
second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was one
of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him without
speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.

"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve. "You give me no peace. Why
do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening."