isn't it preposterous, Gabriel? However he came to dream of it, I cannot think. But is it wrong? You know—you are older than I."
"Eight years older, ma'am."
"Yes, eight years—and is it wrong?"
"Perhaps it would be an uncommon agreement for a man and woman to make: I don't see anything really wrong about it," said Oak slowly. "In fact the very thing that makes it doubtful if you ought to marry en under any condition, that is, your not caring about him—for I may suppose———"
"Yes, you may suppose that love is wanting," she said shortly.
"Love is an utterly bygone, sorry, worn-out, miserable thing with me—for him or any one else."
"Well, your want of love seems to me the one thing that takes away harm from such an agreement with him. If wild heat had to do wi' it, making ye long to overcome the awkwardness about your husband's death, it might be wrong; but a cold-hearted agreement to oblige a màn seems different, somehow. The real sin, ma'am, in my mind, lies in thinking of ever wedding with a man you don't love honest and true."
"That I'm willing to pay the penalty of," said Bathsheba, firmly. "You know, Gabriel, this is what I cannot get off my conscience—that I once
