t us walk on."

Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favourite
way with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through the
ferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as
they walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down
on their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as
poplar trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with
her head thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of
triumph pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man
who was her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On
the young man's part, the paleness of face which he had brought with
him from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were
less perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic
sturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its
original proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the
nether margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in
moorland.

"I must part from you here, Clym," said Eustacia.

They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything
before them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon
line, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and
lilac clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green.
All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread
by a purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out,
rising upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.

"O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!" exclaimed Eustacia in a
sudden whisper of anguish. "Your mother will influence you too much;
I shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good
girl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!"

"They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me."

"Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not be
able to desert me anyhow!"

Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was
passionate, and he cut the knot.

"You shall be sure of me, darling," he said, folding her in his arms.
"We will be married at once."

"O Clym!"

"Do you agree to it?"

"If--if we can."

"We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if
you will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere