“Set your mind at ease,” he observed unexpectedly. “You never offended me. Believe me, you could not do so even if you tried; believe me, you are too sweet and gentle to do such a thing. Put all the blame on to me. I am capricious and wayward, you know; any one in the village will tell you as much and a dozen worse things besides. You must believe them all. You have my word on it that they are all true. But as for blaming yourself, never dream of doing so. Think only that I am not fit for you to associate with, and let me go my way without looking for me any more.”
“Is this your only reason?” said Clare.
He hesitated. He was still standing motionless and every moment she felt that he was being farther and farther withdrawn from her.
“No, it is not my only reason,” he said at last, “but it is the only one I choose to give to you. It is enough surely. I come of a family with a very ill-name, and I myself would see the inside of a prison over and over again if the guardians of the law were as cute at their work as I, perhaps, am at mine. I think it is sufficient reason.”
“Have you robbed, or even murdered, Lovel?” she asked.
“Would you be convinced if I told you that I had?” he replied with idle curiosity. “I have robbed crowded coverts, if you call that robbing, but as for the rest, although I have taken the lives of pheasants and partridges, I have not taken the life of man or made away with the property of any of my employers while it was in my charge.”
“Your reason is a very insufficient one,” she said, “you are telling me nothing that I did not know already. Will you come outside the trees? I cannot talk to you in here, I feel trapped.”
“No,” he said, retreating a step. “I came in here to avoid you, but since you have followed me we stay in the place I chose. And my other reason is fully adequate,—oh, fully, fully!” he said with great feeling, “so now leave me, Clare, and think of me as harshly as you can. If you meet me anywhere, pass me by; I ask that of you as earnestly as ever a favour was asked.”
“You ask me to pass you by even on the Downs?” she said slowly.