Part 60

“Well, let us only think that here we are.”

Then, holding each other’s hand, they were again silent, and the shadow on the moon’s disc grew a little larger.

“Has it seemed long since you last saw me?” she asked.

“It has seemed sad.”

“And not long? That’s because you occupy yourself, and so blind yourself to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like living under stagnant water.”

“I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by such means as have shortened mine.”

“In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not love me.”

“How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.”

“Men can, women cannot.”

“Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain—I do love you—past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness—I, who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I knew you; yet what a difference—the difference between everything and nothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and there. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia.”

“No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.”

“You don’t feel it now?”

“No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so I feel full of fears.”

“You need not.”

“Ah, you don’t know. You have seen more than I, and have been into cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man once, and now I love you.”

“In God’s mercy don’t talk so, Eustacia!”

“But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and she will influence you against me!”

“That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.”

“And she speaks against me?”

“I will not say.”

“There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you to meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever—do you hear?—forever!”

“Not I.”

“It is your only chance. Many a man’s love has been a curse to him.”

“You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand. I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you. For though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel with you in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.”

“Oh! ’tis your mother. Yes, that’s it! I knew it.”

“Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest—you must be my wife.”

She started—then endeavoured to say calmly, “Cynics say that cures the anxiety by curing the love.”

“But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day—I don’t mean at once?”