When Eustacia next meets Venn, she finds out that he is not really going to marry Thomasin and agrees to encourage the young woman's marriage to Wildeve. Venn volunteers to deliver a letter for Eustacia to Wildeve on Rainbarrow that night, and after reading its contents Wildeve is determined to marry Thomasin to make Eustacia suffer. Encouraged by Eustacia's remark, Venn calls on Thomasin to ask her to marry him, but Wildeve has got there first and already has her promise.
Thomasin is firm in her decision to marry Wildeve, partly because of a letter from Clym, away visiting friends, who is shocked by hearing rumors of scandal in the relationship between his cousin and the innkeeper. Thomasin does not want Mrs. Yeobright to give her away, and she prefers the marriage to be over and done with before Clym returns. On the day of her wedding, shortly after she has gone off to meet Wildeve at the church, Clym returns home. When he hears an account of the abortive earlier attempt at marriage, Clym is annoyed at his mother for withholding news of Thomasin's affairs. He finally decides to walk to the church, but before he can Venn arrives with a report of the wedding.
Venn tells them that Thomasin and Wildeve are indeed married and that Eustacia gave her away. But he does not tell them that Eustacia was there at his request.
