<P> A year later, with Troy presumed drowned, Boldwood renews his suit . Burdened with guilt over the pain she has caused him, Bathsheba reluctantly consents to marry him in six years, long enough to have Troy declared dead . </P> <P> Troy, however, is not dead . When he learns that Boldwood is again courting Bathsheba, he returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve to claim his wife . He goes to Boldwood's house, where a party is under way, and orders Bathsheba to come with him; when she shrinks back in surprise, he seizes her arm, and she screams . At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the gun on himself . Although Boldwood is condemned to hang for murder, his friends petition the Home Secretary for mercy, citing insanity . This is granted, and Boldwood's sentence is changed to "confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure". Bathsheba, profoundly chastened by guilt and grief, buries her husband in the same grave as Fanny and the child, and adds a suitable inscription . </P> <P> Throughout her tribulations, Bathsheba comes to rely increasingly on her oldest and, as she admits to herself, only real friend, Gabriel . When he gives notice that he is leaving her employ, she realises how important he has become to her well - being . That night, she goes alone to visit him in his cottage, to find out why he is deserting her . Pressed, he reluctantly reveals that it is because people have been injuring her good name by gossiping that he wants to marry her . She exclaims that it is "...too absurd--too soon--to think of, by far!" He bitterly agrees that it is absurd, but when she corrects him, saying that it is only "too soon", he is emboldened to ask once again for her hand in marriage . She accepts, and the two are quietly wed . </P> <P> Hardy took the title from Thomas Gray's poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751). </P>

Who does bathsheba choose in far from the madding crowd