in six years' time you will be my wife? Unexpected accidents we'll not mention, because those, of course, must be given way to. Now, this time I know you will keep your word."
"That's why I hesitate to give it."
"But do give it! Remember the past, and be kind."
She breathed; and then said mournfully: "Oh what shall I do! I don't love you, and I much fear that I never shall love you as much as a woman ought to love a husband. If you, sir, know that, and I can yet give you happiness by a mere promise without feeling, and just in friendliness, to marry at the end of six years, it is a great honour to me. And if you value such an act of friendship from a woman who doesn't esteem herself as she did, and has little love left, why I—I will———"
"Promise!"
"—Consider, if I cannot promise soon."
"But soon is perhaps never?"
"Oh no, it is not. I mean soon we'll say."
Christmas, "Christmas!" He said nothing further till he added: "Well, I'll say no more to you about it till that time."
Bathsheba was in a very peculiar state of mind,
