Editing Far from the Madding Crowd (section)

===Fanny Robin===
[[Image:Fannyrobin.jpg|thumb|right| Fanny Robin on her way to the Casterbridge workhouse. ''Cornhill'' illustration by Helen Paterson Allingham]]
Months later, Troy and Bathsheba encounter the frail Fanny on the road, destitute, as she painfully makes her way toward the Casterbridge [[workhouse]]. Troy sends his wife onward, then gives Fanny all the money in his pocket, telling her he will give her more in a few days. Fanny uses up the last of her strength to reach her destination. Hours later, she dies in childbirth, along with the baby. Mother and child are then placed in a coffin and sent home to Weatherbury to be buried. Gabriel, who knows of Troy's relationship with Fanny, tries to conceal the child's existence – but Bathsheba agrees that the coffin can be left in her house overnight, from her sense of duty towards a former servant.<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Higonnet|editor1-first=Margaret R.|title=Feminist essays on Hardy : the Janus face of gender|date=1992|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana|isbn=0252019407|page=[https://archive.org/details/senseofsexfemini00higo/page/59 59]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/senseofsexfemini00higo/page/59}}</ref> Her servant and confidante, Liddy, repeats the rumour that Fanny had a child; when all the servants are in bed, Bathsheba unscrews the lid and sees the two bodies inside.

Troy then comes home from Casterbridge, where he had gone to keep his appointment with Fanny. Seeing the reason for her failure to meet him a second time, he tenderly kisses the corpse and tells the anguished Bathsheba, "This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be". The next day he spends all his money on a marble tombstone with the inscription: "Erected by Francis Troy in beloved memory of Fanny Robin ..." Then, loathing himself and unable to bear Bathsheba's company, he leaves. After a long walk, he bathes in the sea, leaving his clothes on the beach. A strong current carries him away, but he is rescued by some men in a boat.  He does not return home, however.