Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings.
In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured.
Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city.

At any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf.

But the arrival of the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs.
March 1883.
THE WITHERED ARM.