CHAPTER XXVI.
SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD "Ah, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap.
"Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night.
And yet, if I had reflected, the 'Queen of the Corn-market' (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), the 'Queen of the Corn-market.' I say, could be no other woman.

I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger.

To be sure I am no stranger to the place--I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad.

I have been doing the same for you to-day." "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said the Queen of the Corn-market, in an indifferently grateful tone.
The sergeant looked hurt and sad.

"Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene," he said.