Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

31. CHAPTER XXXI: TAKING POSSESSION (continued)

'I suppose so, Will. Don't now. I will not have it again. Does not that satisfy you?'

'Tell me that you love me.'

'You know that I love you.'

'Better than anybody in the world?'

'Yes better than anybody in the world.'

'And after all you will be my wife?'

'Oh, Will how you question one!'

'You shall say it, and then it will all be fair and honest.'

'Say what? I'm sure I thought I had said everything.'

'Say that you mean to be my wife.'

'I suppose so if you wish it.'

'Wish it!' said he, getting up from his seat, and throwing his hat into the bushes on one side; 'wish it! I don't think you have ever understood howl have wished it. Look here, Clara; I found when I got down to Norfolk that I couldn't live without you. Upon my word it is true. I don't suppose you'll believe me.'

'I didn't think it could be so bad with you as that.'

'No I don't suppose women ever do believe. And I wouldn't have believed it of myself. I hated myself for it. By George, I did. That is when I began to think it was all up with me.'

'All up with you! Oh, Will!'

'I had quite made up my mind to go to New Zealand. I had, indeed. I couldn't have kept my hands off that man if we had been living in the same country. I should have wrung his neck.'