she said, "I am only a girl--do not
speak to me so!"

"All the time you knew--how very well you knew--that your new freak
was my misery. Dazzled by brass and scarlet--Oh, Bathsheba--this is
woman's folly indeed!"

She fired up at once. "You are taking too much upon yourself!" she
said, vehemently. "Everybody is upon me--everybody. It is unmanly
to attack a woman so! I have nobody in the world to fight my battles
for me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and
say things against me, I WILL NOT be put down!"

"You'll chatter with him doubtless about me. Say to him, 'Boldwood
would have died for me.' Yes, and you have given way to him, knowing
him to be not the man for you. He has kissed you--claimed you as
his. Do you hear--he has kissed you. Deny it!"

The most tragic woman is cowed by a tragic man, and although Boldwood
was, in vehemence and glow, nearly her own self rendered into another
sex, Bathsheba's cheek quivered. She gasped, "Leave me, sir--leave
me! I am nothing to you. Let me go on!"

"Deny that he has kissed you."

"I shall not."

"Ha--then he has!" came hoarsely from the farmer.

"He has," she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear, defiantly. "I
am not ashamed to speak the truth."

"Then curse him; and curse him!" said Boldwood, breaking into a
whispered fury. "Whilst I would have given worlds to touch your hand,
you have let a rake come in without right or ceremony and--kiss you!
Heaven's mercy--kiss you! ... Ah, a time of his life shall come
when he will have to repent, and think wretchedly of the pain he has
caused another man; and then may he ache, and wish, and curse, and
yearn--as I do now!"

"Don't, don't, oh, don't pray down evil upon him!" she implored in a
miserable cry. "Anything but that--anything. Oh, be kind to him,
sir, for I love him true!"

Boldwood's ideas had reached that point of fusion at which outline
and consistency entirely disappear. The impending night appeared to
concentrate in his eye. He did not hear her at all now.

"I'll punish him--by my soul, that will I! I'll meet him, soldier or
no, and I'll horsewhip the untimely stripling for this reckless theft
of my one delight. If he were a hundred men I'd horsewhip him--"
He dropped his voice suddenly and unnaturally. "Bathsheba, sweet,
lost coquette, pardon me! I've been blaming you, threatening you,
behaving like a churl to you, when he's the greatest sinner. He
stole you