t do for the
place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a
tone which I don't at all like."

"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
you!"

"Nonsense; do not be so passionate....Eustacia, how we roved among these
bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the
hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"

She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used to
laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
suffer for that since."

"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."

"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely
that a feather would turn them."

"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?" she
said slowly.

"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest," replied the young
man languidly. "No, all that's past. I find there are two flowers where
I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
number as good as the first....Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
thought that all this could happen to me?"

She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"

"Who can say?"

"Tell me; I will know it!"

"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have my times
and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too
do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don't
know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that you used
to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."

Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice
of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk, and this is my way."

"Well, I can do worse than follow you."

"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!" she
answered defiantly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
me all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me all your
life long. You would jump to marry me!"

"So I would!" said Wildeve. "Such strange thoughts as I've