There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it instantly, and went outside.
`Mrs Troy is wanted,' he said, on returning.
`Quite ready,' said Bathsheba. `Though I didn't tell them to send.'
`It is a stranger, ma'am,' said the man by the door.
`A stranger?' she said.
`Ask him to come in,' said Boldwood.
The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have seen him, stood in the doorway.
There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer. Those who had just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized him instantly; those who did not were perplexed. Nobody noted Bathsheba. She was leaning on the stairs. Her brow had heavily contracted; her whole face was pallid, her lips apart, her eyes rigidly staring at their visitor.
Boldwood was among those who did not notice that he was Troy. `Come in, come in!' he repeated, cheerfully, `and drain a Christmas beaker with us, stranger!'
Troy next advanced into the middle of the room, took off his cap, turned down his coat-collar, and looked Boldwood in the face. Even then Boldwood did not recognize that the impersonator of Heaven's persistent irony towards him, who had once before broken in upon his bliss, scourged him, and snatched his delight away, had come to do these things a second time. Troy began to laugh a mechanical laugh: Boldwood recognized him now.
Troy turned to Bathsheba. The poor girl's wretchedness at this time was beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest stair; and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes fixed vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were not all a terrible illusion.
Then Troy spoke. `Bathsheba, I come here for you!'
She made no reply.
`Come home with me: come!'
Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise.
Troy went across to her.
`Come, madam, do you hear what I say?' he said, peremptorily.
A strange voice came from the fireplace - a voice sounding far off and confined, as if from a dungeon. Hardly a soul in the assembly recognized the thin tones to be those of Boldwood. Sudden despair had transformed him.
`Bathsheba, go with your husband!'
Nevertheless, she did not move. The truth was that Bathsheba was beyond the pale of activity - and yet not in a swoon. She was in a state of mental gutta serena ; her mind was for the minute totally deprived of light at the same time that no obscuration was apparent from without.
Troy stretched out his hand to pull her towards him, when she quickly shrank back. This visible dread of him seemed to irritate Troy, and he seized her arm and pulled it sharply. Whether his grasp pinched her, or whether his mere touch was the cause, was never known, but at the moment of his seizure she writhed, and gave a quick, low scream.
The scream had been heard but a few seconds when it was followed by a sudden deafening report that echoed through the room and stupefied them all. The oak partition shook with the concussion, and the place was filled with grey smoke.
In bewilderment they turned their eyes to Boldwood. At this back, as he stood before the fireplace, was a gun-rack, as is usual in farmhouses, constructed to hold two guns. When Bathsheba had cried out in her husband's grasp, Boldwood's face of gnashing despair had changed. The veins had swollen, and a frenzied look had gleamed in his eye. He had turned quickly, taken one of the guns, cocked it, and at once discharged it at Troy.
Troy fell. The distance apart of the two men was so small that the charge of shot did not spread in the least, but passed like a bullet into his body. He uttered a long guttural sigh - there was a contraction - an extension - then his muscles relaxed, and he lay still.
Boldwood was seen through the smoke to be now again engaged with the gun. It was double-barrelled, and he had, meanwhile, in some way fastened his handkerchief to the trigger, and with his foot on the other end was in the act of turning the second barrel upon himself Samway his man was the first to see this, and in the midst of the general horror darted up to him. Boldwood had already twitched the handkerchief, and the gun exploded a second time, sending its contents, by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam which crossed the ceiling.
`Well, it makes no difference!' Boldwood gasped. `There is another way for me to die.'
Then he broke from Samway, crossed the room to Bathsheba, and kissed her hand. He put on his hat, opened the door, and went into the darkness, nobody thinking of preventing him.
