n't reproach you. Indeed I don't reproach you.
You have not felt this as I feel it, being so different from me, and
beginning from another point of view. You have not thought. But I
entreat you to think now, think now!'

'What am I to think of?' asked Eugene, bitterly.

'Think of me.'

'Tell me how NOT to think of you, Lizzie, and you'll change me
altogether.'

'I don't mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to another station,
and quite cut off from you in honour. Remember that I have no protector
near me, unless I have one in your noble heart. Respect my good name.
If you feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a lady,
give me the full claims of a lady upon your generous behaviour. I am
removed from you and your family by being a working girl. How true a
gentleman to be as considerate of me as if I was removed by being a
Queen!'

He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by her appeal.
His face expressed contrition and indecision as he asked:

'Have I injured you so much, Lizzie?'

'No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak of the past, Mr
Wrayburn, but of the present and the future. Are we not here now,
because through two days you have followed me so closely where there
are so many eyes to see you, that I consented to this appointment as an
escape?'

'Again, not very flattering to my self-love,' said Eugene, moodily; 'but
yes. Yes. Yes.'

'Then I beseech you, Mr Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave this
neighbourhood. If you do not, consider to what you will drive me.'

He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then retorted,
'Drive you? To what shall I drive you, Lizzie?'

'You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, and I am
well employed here. You will force me to quit this place as I quitted
London, and--by following me again--will force me to quit the next place
in which I may find refuge, as I quitted this.'

'Are you so determined, Lizzie--forgive the word I am going to use, for
its literal truth--to fly from a lover?'

'I am so determined,' she answered resolutely, though trembling, 'to fly
from such a lover. There was a poor woman died here but a little while
ago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying on
the wet earth. You may have heard some account of her?'

'I think I have,' he answered, 'if her name was Higden.'

'Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true to
on