“No. You shall be given one. Yes—you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene—a gift.”
And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand.
“It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess,” he quietly said. “That watch has a history. Press the spring and open the back.”
She did so.
“What do you see?”
“A crest and a motto.”
“A coronet with five points, and beneath, Cedit amor rebus—‘Love yields to circumstance.’ It’s the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother’s husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time—the stately ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours.”
“But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this—I cannot!” she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. “A gold watch! What are you doing? Don’t be such a dissembler!”
The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired.
“Keep it—do, Miss Everdene—keep it!” said the erratic child of impulse. “The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against—well, I won’t speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before.”