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 ought I? I have no right to you—no right to seek out where you are, or to walk with you! Honestly, Tess, do you love any other man?’

‘How can you ask?’ she said, with continued self-suppression.

‘I almost know that you do not. But then, why do you repulse me?’

‘I don’t repulse you. I like you to—tell me you love me; and you may always tell me so as you go about with me—and never offend me.’

‘But you will not accept me as a husband?’

‘Ah—that’s different—it is for your good, indeed my dearest! O, believe me, it is only for your sake! I don’t like to give myself the great happiness o’ promising to be yours in that way—because—because I am sure I ought not to do it.’

‘But you will make me happy!’

‘Ah—you think so, but you don’t know.’

At such times as this, apprehending the grounds of her refusal to be her sense of incompetence for the position of wife to a man like himself, he would say that she was wonderfully well-informed and versatile—which was certainly true, her natural quickness, and her admiration for him, having led