Meanwhile he loved her, and her heart inclined to as much of him as she could detach from that past.

Why not, as he had suggested, bury memories, and inaugurate a new era by this union?
In other words, why not indulge her tenderness, since its nullification could do no good.
'Thus she held self-communion in her seat in the coach, passing through Casterbridge, and Shottsford, and on to the White Hart at Melchester, at which place the whole fabric of her recent intentions crumbled down.
Better be staunch having got so far; let things take their course, and marry boldly the man who had so impressed her.

How great he was; how small was she! And she had presumed to judge him! Abandoning her place in the coach with the precipitancy that had characterized her taking it, she waited till the vehicle had driven off, something in the departing shapes of the outside passengers against the starlit sky giving her a start, as she afterwards remembered.

Presently the down coach, "The Morning Herald," entered the city, and she hastily obtained a place on the top.
'"I'll be firm--I'll be his--if it cost me my immortal soul!" she said.
And with troubled breathings she journeyed back over the road she had just traced.
'She reached our royal watering-place by the time the day broke, and her first aim was to get back to the hired room in which her last few days had been spent.

When the landlady appeared at the door in response to Mademoiselle V--'s nervous summons, she explained her sudden departure and return as best she could; and no objection being offered to her re- engagement of the room for one day longer she ascended to the chamber and sat down panting.