"You are still a very beautiful woman, said Boldwood.
Honesty and pure conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception that it might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win her.
However, it had not much effect now, for for she said, in a passionless murmur which was in itself a proof of her words:
"I have no feeling in the matter at all.
And I don't at all know what is right to do in my diddicult position, and I have nobody to advise me.
But I give my promise, if I must.
I give it as the rendering of a debt, conditionally, of course, on my being a widow."
"You'll marry me between five and six years hence?"
"Don't press me too hard.
I'll marry nobody else."
"But surely you will name the time, or there's nothing in the promise at all?"
O, I don't know, pray let me go!" she said, her bosom beginning to rise.
"I am afraid what to do! want to be just to you, and to be that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the commandments.
There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it is dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!"
"Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed; a blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage — O Bathsheba, say them!" he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain the forms of mere friendship any longer.
"Promise yourself to me; I deserve it, indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in the world!
And if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know what I said.
You wouldn't let a dog suffer what I have suffered, could you but know it!
Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you, and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you never will know.
Be gracious, and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life for you!"
The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light, showed how agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying.
'And you'll not — press me — about anything more — if I say in five or six years?" she sobbed, when she had power to frame the words.
"Yes, then I'll leave it to time."
"Very well.
If he does not return, I'll marry you in six years from this day, if we both live." she said solemnly.
"And you'll take this as a token from me."
Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her hands in both his own, and lifted it to his breast.
"What is it?
Oh I cannot wear a ring!" she exclaimed, on seeing what he held; "besides, I wouldn't have a soul know that it's an engagement!
Perhaps it is improper?
Besides, we are not engaged in the usual sense, are we?
Don't insist, Mr. Boldwood — don't!"
In her trouble at not being able to get her hand away from him at once, she stamped passionately on the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to her eyes again.
"It means simply a pledge — no sentiment — the seal of a practical compact." he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in his firm grasp.
"Come, now!"
And Boldwood slipped the ring on her finger.
"I cannot wear it." she said, weeping as if her heart would break.
"You frighten me, almost.
So wild a scheme!
Please let me go home!"
"Only tonight: wear it just tonight, to please me!"
Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her handkerchief, though Boldwood kept her hand yet.
At length she said, in a sort of hopeless whisper —
"Very well, then, I will tonight, if you wish it so earnestly.
Now loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night."
"And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six years, with a wedding at the end?"
"It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!" she said, fairly beaten into nonresistance.
Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap.
"I am happy now." he said.
"God bless you!"