Owen resolved to make something of this opportunity. He hurried along towards the church, doubled round a sharp angle, and came back upon the other path, by which Mrs. Manston must arrive.
In about three minutes she appeared in sight without a veil. He discovered, as she drew nearer, a difficulty which had not struck him at first--that it is not an easy matter to particularize the colour of a stranger's eyes in a merely casual encounter on a path out of doors. That Mrs. Manston must be brought close to him, and not only so, but to look closely at him, if his purpose were to be accomplished.
He shaped a plan. It might by chance be effectual; if otherwise, it would not reveal his intention to her. When Mrs. Manston was within speaking distance, he went up to her and said-'Will you kindly tell me which turning will take me to Casterbridge?' 'The second on the right,' said Mrs. Manston.
Owen put on a blank look: he held his hand to his ear--conveying to the lady the idea that he was deaf.
She came closer and said more distinctly-'The second turning on the right.' Owen flushed a little. He fancied he had beheld the revelation he was in search of. But had his eyes deceived him?
Once more he used the ruse, still drawing nearer and intimating by a glance that the trouble he gave her was very distressing to him.
'How very deaf!' she murmured. She exclaimed loudly-'_The second turning to the right_.' She had advanced her face to within a foot of his own, and in speaking mouthed very emphatically, fixing her eyes intently upon his. And now his first suspicion was indubitably confirmed. Her eyes were as black as midnight.
All this feigning was most distasteful to Graye. The riddle having been solved, he unconsciously assumed his natural look before she had withdrawn her face. She found him to be peering at her as if he would read her very soul--expressing with his eyes the notification of which, apart from emotion, the eyes are more capable than any other--inquiry.
Her face changed its expression--then its colour. The natural tint of the lighter portions sank to an ashy gray; the pink of her cheeks grew purpler. It was the precise result which would remain after blood had left the face of one whose skin was dark, and artificially coated with pearl-powder and carmine.
She turned her head and moved away, murmuring a hasty reply to Owen's farewell remark of 'Good-day,' and with a kind of nervous twitch lifting her hand and smoothing her hair, which was of a light-brown colour.