So, as a matter of ordinary precaution, he decided to isolate his wife somewhere away from him for a while.
She suggested a village by the sea, near Budmouth Regis, and lodgings were obtained for her at Creston, a spot divided from the Casterbridge valley by a high ridge that gave it quite another atmosphere, though it lay no more than six miles off.
Thither she went.

While she was rusticating in this place of safety, and her husband was slaving in the slums, she struck up an acquaintance with a lieutenant in the -- -st Foot, a Mr.Vannicock, who was stationed with his regiment at the Budmouth infantry barracks.

As Laura frequently sat on the shelving beach, watching each thin wave slide up to her, and hearing, without heeding, its gnaw at the pebbles in its retreat, he often took a walk that way.
The acquaintance grew and ripened.

Her situation, her history, her beauty, her age--a year or two above his own--all tended to make an impression on the young man's heart, and a reckless flirtation was soon in blithe progress upon that lonely shore.
It was said by her detractors afterwards that she had chosen her lodging to be near this gentleman, but there is reason to believe that she had never seen him till her arrival there.

Just now Casterbridge was so deeply occupied with its own sad affairs--a daily burying of the dead and destruction of contaminated clothes and bedding--that it had little inclination to promulgate such gossip as may have reached its ears on the pair.