nd
then it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for
ever and ever."

Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand,
and kissed her.

"Ah! but you don't know what you have got in me," she said.
"Sometimes I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make
a good homespun wife. Well, let it go--see how our time is slipping,
slipping, slipping!" She pointed towards the half eclipsed moon.

"You are too mournful."

"No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even
when I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful... Clym, the eclipsed
moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and
shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you
should be doing better things than this."

"You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet,
far from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper
work to do."

There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as a
solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw
his meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance
"Don't mistake me, Clym: though I should like Paris, I love you for
yourself alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to
me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be
yours at all. It is gain to me either way, and very great gain.
There's my too candid confession."

"Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I'll walk with
you towards your house."

"But must you go home yet?" she asked. "Yes, the sand has nearly
slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more.
Don't go yet! Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not
press you any more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing
in my sleep! Do you ever dream of me?"

"I cannot recollect a clear dream of you."

"I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw
an officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though
he was