They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level of the ground.  Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions, and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the heavily-berried boughs.

“Don’t scratch your face,” said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and scarlet masses of the tree.  “Will you walk with me to meet him this evening?”

“I should like to.  Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,” said Thomasin, tossing out a bough.  “Not that that would matter much; I belong to one man; nothing can alter that.  And that man I must marry, for my pride’s sake.”

“I am afraid—­” began Mrs. Yeobright.

“Ah, you think, ’That weak girl—­how is she going to get a man to marry her when she chooses?’ But let me tell you one thing, aunt:  Mr. Wildeve is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman.  He has an unfortunate manner, and doesn’t try to make people like him if they don’t wish to do it of their own accord.”

“Thomasin,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece, “do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?”

“How do you mean?”

“I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and that you act a part to me.”

“He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.”

“Now, I put it to you:  would you at this present moment agree to be his wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?”

Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed.  “Aunt,” she said presently, “I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that question.”

“Yes, you have.”

“You may think what you choose.  I have never implied to you by word or deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will.  And I shall marry him.”

“Well, wait till he repeats his offer.  I think he may do it, now that he knows—­something I told him.  I don’t for a moment dispute that it is the most proper thing for you to marry him.  Much as I have objected to him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure.  It is the only way out of a false position, and a very galling one.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.”

“Aunt,” said Thomasin, with round eyes, “what do you mean?”

“Don’t be alarmed; it was my duty.  I can say no more about it now, but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it.”

Thomasin was perforce content.

“And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the present?” she next asked.