I want you to hear nothing --
not I."
Bathsheba was unable to direct her will into any
definite groove for freeing herself from this fearfully
and was moving on. Boldwood walked up to her heavily
and dully.
"Bathsheba -- darling -- is it final indeed?"
"Indeed it is."
"O, Bathsheba -- have pity upon me!" Boldwood
burst out. "God's sake, yes -- I am come to that low,
lowest stage -- to ask a woman for pity! Still, she is
you -- she is you."
Bathsheba commanded herself well. But she could
hardly get a clear voice for what came instinctively to
her lips: "There is little honour to the woman in that
speech." It was only whispered, for something unutter-
ably mournful no less than distressing in this spectacle
of a man showing himself to be so entirely the vane of a
passion enervated the feminine instinct for punctilios.
"I am beyond myself about this, and am mad." he
said. "I am no stoic at all to he supplicating here; but
I do supplicate to you. I wish you knew what is in
me of devotion to you; but it is impossible, that. In
bare human mercy to a lonely man, don't throw me off
now!"
"I don't throw you off -- indeed, how can I? I never
had you.
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