right to do in my difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But I give my promise, if I must. I give it as the rendering of a debt."
"You'll marry me between five and six years hence."
"Don't press me too hard. I'll marry nobody else."
"But surely you will name the time, or there's nothing in the promise at all."
"Oh I don't know, pray let me go!" she said, her bosom beginning to rise. "I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and to be that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the commandments. There is a shadow of a doubt of his death, and then it is dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!"
"Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed; a blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage—O Bathsheba, say them!" he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain the forms of mere friendship any longer. "Promise yourself to me; I deserve it, indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in the world. And if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know
