this...
Bathsheba,
you are
the first
woman of
any shade
or nature
that I
have ever
looked at
to love,
and it is
the having
been so
near
claiming
you for my
own that
makes this
denial so
hard to
bear. How
nearly you
promised
me! But I
don’t
speak now
to move
your
heart, and
make you
grieve
because of
my pain;
it is no
use, that.
I must
bear it;
my pain
would get
no less by
paining
you.” “But
I do pity
you –
deeply –
O, so
deeply!”
she
earnestly
