sighed
mournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never
tired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have
thought then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright
to yours, nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it
possible? Yes, 'tis too true!"

"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
sign."

"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh
for, or any other woman in my place."

"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
unfortunate man?"

"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing!
It would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a
cloud as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would
astonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you
felt careless about your own affliction, you might have refrained from
singing out of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a
position I would curse rather than sing."

Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, my
inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great
in its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small
in mine of furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings
vouchsafed to us are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any
great hardship when they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time.
Have you indeed lost all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a
few cheerful moments?"

"I have still some tenderness left for you."

"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with
good fortune!"

"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in a
broken voice. "I will go home."

III

She Goes Out to Battle against Depression

A few days later, before the month of August had expired, Eustacia
and Yeobright sat together at their early dinner. Eustacia's manner
had become of late almost apathetic. There was a forlorn look about
her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or not, would have
excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her during the full
flush of her love