Two on a Tower

the marriage was invalid--Sir Blount was alive! And now Swithin has gone away, and will not come back for my calling! How can he? His fortune is left him on condition that he forms no legal tie. O will he--will he, come again?

Secret affection, invalid marriage while Sir Blount lives, legacy forbidding a legal tie, and the tower return form cosmic romance collapsing into ironic fatality, so plot scores 86.

Lady Constantine, wife of the absent Sir Blount Constantine?' 'I am Lady Constantine.' 'Ah, then I agree that it is your ladyship's. But will you allow me to rent it of you for a time, Lady Constantine?' 'You have taken it, whether I allow it or not. However, in the interests of science it is advisable that you continue your tenancy.

Viviette, Swithin, Louis, and Sir Blount stage an age-gap triangle against stellar ambition without flattening into mere allegory, so cast scores 85.

They continued their ramble: Lady Constantine first advancing into rooms with the candle, to assure herself that all was empty, and then calling him forward in a whisper. The stillness was broken only by these whispers, or by the occasional crack of a floor-board beneath their tread.

Observing nights, Greenwich correspondence, and whispered concealments dilate time between the telescope opening and the tower death, so pace scores 83.

A youth was sitting on a stool in the centre of the lead flat which formed the summit of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening.

Star-lore diction fused with Wessex column and lead flat — lyric irony between cosmic instrument and human surprise — so prose scores 88.

I aim at nothing less than the dignity and office of Astronomer Royal, if I live. Perhaps I shall not live.' 'I don't see why you should suppose that,' said she. 'How long are you going to make this your observatory?' 'About a year longer--till I have obtained a practical familiarity with the heavens.

Rings-Hill column, Welland, Greenwich ambition, and the dish-shaped acres make Upper Wessex an outdoor observatory and moral trap, so world scores 87.

A youth was sitting on a stool in the centre of the lead flat which formed the summit of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening.

Lady Constantine finding a youth glued to a telescope instantly sets the age-gap scientific romance — inviting and distinctive, so hook scores 88.

TWO ON A TOWER BY THOMAS HARDY. 'Ah, my heart! her eyes and she Have taught thee new astrology. Howe'er Love's native hours were set, Whatever starry synod met, 'Tis in the mercy of her eye, If poor Love shall live or die.'

Astronomy as erotic and moral stage — two on a tower reading the heavens while marriage law unravels — Hardy's boldest science-romance in Wessex, so innov scores 91.

'Viviette, Viviette,' he said, 'I have come to marry you!' She uttered a shriek--a shriek of amazed joy--such as never was heard on that tower before or since--and fell in his arms, clasping his neck. There she lay heavily. ... 'Mother has gone to sleep.'

Swithin's return to marry and Viviette's collapse — the child saying Mother has gone to sleep — is a bleak cosmic punchline, so ending scores 90.