Far from the Madding Crowd (2015 film) opens the coffin, and discovers the mother and baby within. Frank, comes home, and upon seeing Fanny and his dead baby, bends over the coffin and kisses Fanny's lips. Bathsheba protests that she is still his wife, but he coldly responds that even in death Fanny means more to him than Bathsheba ever could mean. In grief Frank goes to the beach, where he strips off his uniform and swims far into the ocean. The next day Bathsheba learns Frank has apparently drowned. Left with Frank's gambling debts, Bathsheba worries she may lose the farm. Boldwood offers to buy it
The Woodlanders gossip (but not before Tangs tries to injure Fitzpiers with a man trap) The Woodlanders also contains many poetic descriptions on the natural world, the countryside and the changing seasons. Florence Emily Hardy, his second wife, recorded that in 1874 Hardy "put aside a woodland story", which ten years later evolved into "The Woodlanders". It was intended to be the successor to his 1874 "Far from the Madding Crowd", but he laid the novel aside to work on other things. Hardy eventually decided to return to his "woodland story" after the editor of "Macmillan's Magazine" asked for a new serial