Hardy makes the oppressive heat of the late August day a tangible factor in Mrs. Yeobright's journey to her son's house. He shows how it affects the plant and animal life that she encounters on the way. It takes its toll of the older woman, literally slowing her pace and placing a great strain on her constitution. Hardy demonstrates this effectively through the eyes of Johnny Nunsuch, with his comments about her "white and wet" face, her head "hanging-down-like," her movements like the "jerk and limp of an invalid," and her breathing like that of "a lamb when you drive him till he's nearly done for." The heat is virtually a character in these chapters, even almost a symbol.
Wildeve's arrival just before Mrs. Yeobright is ready to appear at her son's house after an exhausting walk is a coincidence like many others in the novel. It is convenient for Hardy to have some excuse available for Eustacia so that she doesn't admit Mrs. Yeobright but is not clearly at fault. On the other hand, Wildeve's appearance may be meant to suggest the operation of chance, or something more malign, in human life.
The scene between Eustacia and Wildeve here makes an instructive comparison with their encounter in Book First, chapters 6–7. In both scenes, Eustacia and Wildeve are meeting after a long separation; however, the second scene occurs after Eustacia's marriage. In the first, Eustacia is trying to make Wildeve measure up to the image she wants to have of him, knowing all along she doesn't really desire him. Here, Hardy reveals her acutely aware of the disadvantage to which Clym shows simply by physical description of the two men: beside the sleeping Clym are his "leggings, thick boots, leather gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat"; Wildeve is "elegantly dressed in a new summer suit and light hat." At a superficial glance, Wildeve appears to Eustacia more nearly to satisfy her desire in life: "what is called life — music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that is going on in the great arteries of the world." No amount of rationalization of what Clym is, not even calling him a St. Paul, eases Eustacia's sharp sense of having lost out by marrying him. In fact, neither Clym nor Wildeve is what she wants.
