'You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here.'
'I haven't offended you often by love-making?'
'You have sometimes.'
'How many times?'
'You know as well as I--too many times.'
'Every time I have tried?'
She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable
distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows
all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to
hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in
clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or
from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed
the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,
and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every
morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on
this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,
waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,
her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked
a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the
quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now
nearly one o'clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual
drowsiness. In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against
him.
D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,
turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to
support her.
This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those
sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a
little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his
balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,
though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.
'That is devilish unkind!' he said. 'I mean no harm--only to keep
you from falling.'
She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all
be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, 'I beg your pardon,
sir.'
'I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me. Good
God!' he burst out, 'what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like
you? For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings,
eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!'
'I'll leave you to-morrow, sir.'
'No, you will not leave me to-morrow! Will you, I ask once more,
show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm? Come,
between us two and nobody else, now. We know each other well; and
you know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the
world, which you are. Mayn't I treat you as a lover?'
She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on
her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, 'I don't know--I wish--how
