Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which
he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,
staring at nothingness.  He went on eating and drinking unconsciously
till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his
dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,
and went out.

At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few
words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his
address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to
and been accepted by Mercy Chant.

Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;
reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an
hour and more.  He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of
an hour felt that he could wait there no longer.  Broken in heart and
numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a
town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to
walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up
there.

The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance
dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge
to edge.  He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and
was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he
unconsciously looked back.  Why he did so he could not say, but
something seemed to impel him to the act.  The tape-like surface of
the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he
gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.

It was a human figure running.  Clare waited, with a dim sense that
somebody was trying to overtake him.

The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was
his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even
when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally
changed attire in which he now beheld her.  It was not till she was
quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.

"I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and
I have been following you all this way!"

She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he
did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling
it within his arm, he led her along.  To avoid meeting any possible
wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some
fir-trees.  When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped
and looked at her inquiringly.

"Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have
been running after you for?  To tell you that I have killed him!"
A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.

"What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she
was in some delirium.

"I have done it--I don't know how," she continued.  "Still, I owed it
to you, and to myself, Angel.  I feared long ago, when I struck him
on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap
he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.
He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any
more.  I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you.  You know it,
don't you?  You believe it?  You didn't come back to me, and I was
obliged to go back to him.  Why did you go away--why did you--when I
loved you so?  I can't think why you did it.  But I don't blame you;
only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have
killed him?  I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to
forgive me now I have done that.  It came to me as a shining light
that I should get you back that way.  I could not bear the loss of
you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your
not loving me!  Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I
have killed him!"

"I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said,
tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure.  "But how do you
mean--you have killed him?"

"I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie.

"What, bodily?  Is he dead?"

"Yes.  He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and
called you by a foul name; and then I did it.  My heart could not
bear it.  He had nagged me about you before.  And then I dressed
myself and came away to find you."

By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted,
at least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse
was mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for
himself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently
extinguished her moral sense altogether.  Unable to realize the
gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked
at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and
wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to
this aberration--if it were an aberration.  There momentarily flashed
through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder
might have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do
these things.  As well as his confused and excited ideas could
reason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she
spoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this
abyss.

It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad.  But,
anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond
woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything
to her but a protector.  He saw that for him to be otherwise was
not, in her mind, within the region of the possible.  Tenderness was
absolutely dominant in Clare at last.  He kissed her endlessly with
his white lips, and held her hand, and said--

"I will not desert you!  I will protect you by every means in my
power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!"

They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now
and then to look at him.  Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it
was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.
To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and
mentally.  He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly
face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on
this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the
face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had
believed in her as pure!

With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had
intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged
still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles.  Each
clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed
of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the
consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between
them; ignoring that there was a corpse.  Thus they proceeded for
several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and
said, timidly--

"Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"I don't know, dearest.  Why?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find
lodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps.  Can you
walk well, Tessy?"

"O yes!  I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!"

Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do.  Thereupon they
quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure
paths tending more or less northward.  But there was an unpractical
vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them
seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or
long concealment.  Their every idea was temporary and unforefending,
like the plans of two children.

At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have
entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded
her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland,
half-moorland part of the country till he should come back.  Her
clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that
she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they
had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted
attention in the settle of a tavern.  He soon returned, with food
enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to
last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.

They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal.  Between
one and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again.

"I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she.

"I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior
of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to
be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked.  "Later
on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port."

She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly,
and straight inland they went.  Though the season was an English May,
the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was
quite warm.  Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath
had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards
evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook
and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This
desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with
directions to apply to some London agents.  Passing through the gate
they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and
large accommodation.

"I know it," said Clare.  "It is Bramshurst Court.  You can see that
it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive."

"Some of the windows are open," said Tess.

"Just to air the rooms, I suppose."

"All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!"

"You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said.  "We'll stop soon."  And
kissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards.

He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or
fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should
do for rest.  They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little
inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their
hearts failed them, and they sheered off.  At length their gait
dragged, and they stood still.

"Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked.

He thought the season insufficiently advanced.

"I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said.
"Let us go back towards it again."

They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood
without the entrance-gate as earlier.  He then requested her to stay
where she was, whilst he went to see who was within.

She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept
towards the house.  His absence lasted some considerable time, and
when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for
him.  He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in
charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the
hamlet near, to open and shut the windows.  She would come to shut
them at sunset.  "Now, we can get in through one of the lower
windows, and rest there," said he.

Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose
shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility
of watchers.  The door was reached a few steps further, and one of
the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess
in after him.

Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended
the staircase.  Up here also the shutters were tightly closed,
the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least,
by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.
Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across
it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches.
A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy,
old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous
four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running
figures, apparently Atalanta's race.

"Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of
viands.

They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come
to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total
darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should
open the door of their chamber for any casual reason.  Between six
and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they
were in.  They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the
door, and go away.  Then Clare again stole a chink of light from
the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they
were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to
disperse.

The night was strangely solemn and still.  In the small hours she
whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep
with her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of
both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined
abbey.  He had never known of that till now.

"Why didn't you tell me next day?" he said.  "It might have prevented
much misunderstanding and woe."

"Don't think of what's past!" said she.  "I am not going to think
outside of now.  Why should we!  Who knows what to-morrow has in
store?"

But it apparently had no sorrow.  The morning was wet and foggy, and
Clare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows
on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the
house, leaving Tess asleep.  There was no food on the premises, but
there was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the
mansion and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop in a little
place two miles beyond, as also a small tin kettle and spirit-lamp,
that they might get fire without smoke.  His re-entry awoke her; and
they breakfasted on what he had brought.

They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the
night following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their
being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a
sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such
as it was.  The changes of the weather were their only events, the
birds of the New Forest their only company.  By tacit consent they
hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their
wedding-day.  The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos,
over which the present and prior times closed as if it never had
been.  Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter,
and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange
unwillingness to move.

"Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she
deprecated.  "What must come will come."  And, looking through the
shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content."

He peeped out also.  It was quite true; within was affection, union,
error forgiven: outside was the inexorable.

"And--and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I fear that
what you think of me now may not last.  I do not wish to outlive your
present feeling for me. I would rather not.  I would rather be dead
and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may
never be known to me that you despised me."

"I cannot ever despise you."

"I also hope that.  But considering what my life has been, I cannot
see why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising
me....  How wickedly mad I was!  Yet formerly I never could bear to
hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to
make me cry."

They remained yet another day.  In the night the dull sky cleared,
and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early.
The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open
the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such
a day.  Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower
rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was
about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay.  At that moment
she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within.  Her
slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one
so far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her
hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and
softly tried the handle.  The lock was out of order, but a piece of
furniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her
opening the door more than an inch or two.  A stream of morning light
through the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in
profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower
near his cheek.  The caretaker was so struck with their innocent
appearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a
chair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the
other habits in which she had arrived because she had none else, that
her first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave
way to a momentary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it
seemed.  She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come,
to go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery.

Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess
woke, and then Clare.  Both had a sense that something had disturbed
them, though they could not say what; and the uneasy feeling which
it engendered grew stronger.  As soon as he was dressed he narrowly
scanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink.

"I think we will leave at once," said he.  "It is a fine day. And I
cannot help fancying somebody is about the house.  At any rate, the
woman will be sure to come to-day."

She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up
the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly.
When they had got into the Forest she turned to take a last look at
the house.

"Ah, happy house--goodbye!" she said.  "My life can only be a
question of a few weeks.  Why should we not have stayed there?"

"Don't say it, Tess!  We shall soon get out of this district
altogether.  We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep
straight north.  Nobody will think of looking for us there.  We shall
be looked for at the Wessex ports if we are sought at all.  When we
are in the north we will get to a port and away."

Having thus persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a
bee-line northward.  Their long repose at the manor-house lent them
walking power now; and towards mid-day they found that they were
approaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in
their way.  He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the
afternoon, and push onward under cover of darkness.  At dusk Clare
purchased food as usual, and their night march began, the boundary
between Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock.

To walk across country without much regard to roads was not new
to Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance.  The
intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass
through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a
large river that obstructed them.  It was about midnight when they
went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps,
keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps.
The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left
hand, but it was lost upon them now.  Once out of the town they
followed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across an
open plain.

Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some
fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little.  But the moon
had now sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and
the night grew as dark as a cave.  However, they found their way
along, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might
not resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence
of any kind.  All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over
which a stiff breeze blew.

They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further when
on a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in
his front, rising sheer from the grass.  They had almost struck
themselves against it.

"What monstrous place is this?" said Angel.

"It hums," said she.  "Hearken!"

He listened.  The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming
tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.  No other
sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or
two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure.  It seemed to
be of solid stone, without joint or moulding.  Carrying his fingers
onward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal
rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a
similar one adjoining.  At an indefinite height overhead something
made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast
architrave uniting the pillars horizontally.  They carefully entered
beneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they
seemed to be still out of doors.  The place was roofless.  Tess drew
her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said--

"What can it be?"

Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square
and uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another.  The
place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous
architraves.

"A very Temple of the Winds," he said.

The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others
were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a
carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of
monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain.  The couple
advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in
its midst.

"It is Stonehenge!" said Clare.

"The heathen temple, you mean?"

"Yes.  Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles!  Well,
what shall we do, darling?  We may find shelter further on."

But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong
slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a
pillar.  Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the
stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill
grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.

"I don't want to go any further, Angel," she said, stretching out her
hand for his.  "Can't we bide here?"

"I fear not.  This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does
not seem so now."

"One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of
it.  And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen.  So now
I am at home."

He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon
hers.

"Sleepy are you, dear?  I think you are lying on an altar."

"I like very much to be here," she murmured.  "It is so solemn and
lonely--after my great happiness--with nothing but the sky above my
face.  It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two;
and I wish there were not--except 'Liza-Lu."

Clare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little
lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her
side.

"Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for
my sake?" she asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind
among the pillars.

"I will."

"She is so good and simple and pure.  O, Angel--I wish you would
marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly.  O, if you would!"

"If I lose you I lose all!  And she is my sister-in-law."

"That's nothing, dearest.  People marry sister-laws continually about
Marlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing
so beautiful.  O, I could share you with her willingly when we are
spirits!  If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her
up for your own self! ...  She had all the best of me without the bad
of me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if
death had not divided us...  Well, I have said it.  I won't mention
it again."

She ceased, and he fell into thought.  In the far north-east sky he
could see between the pillars a level streak of light.  The uniform
concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot,
letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the
towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.

"Did they sacrifice to God here?" asked she.

"No," said he.

"Who to?"

"I believe to the sun.  That lofty stone set away by itself is in the
direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it."

"This reminds me, dear," she said.  "You remember you never would
interfere with any belief of mine before we were married?  But I knew
your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought--not from any
reasons of my own, but because you thought so.  Tell me now, Angel,
do you think we shall meet again after we are dead?  I want to know."

He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.

"O, Angel--I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob.
"And I wanted so to see you again--so much, so much!  What--not even
you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?"

Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical
time he did not answer; and they were again silent.  In a minute or
two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed,
and she fell asleep.  The band of silver paleness along the east
horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark
and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of
reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day.
The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against
the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the
Stone of Sacrifice midway.  Presently the night wind died out, and
the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay
still.  At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the
dip eastward--a mere dot.  It was the head of a man approaching them
from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone.  Clare wished they had gone
onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet.  The figure
came straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were.

He heard something behind him, the brush of feet.  Turning, he saw
over the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware,
another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on
the left.  The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and
Clare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if
trained.  They all closed in with evident purpose.  Her story then
was true!  Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon,
loose stone, means of escape, anything.  By this time the nearest
man was upon him.

"It is no use, sir," he said.  "There are sixteen of us on the Plain,
and the whole country is reared."

"Let her finish her sleep!" he implored in a whisper of the men as
they gathered round.

When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they
showed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars
around.  He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor
little hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a
lesser creature than a woman.  All waited in the growing light, their
faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their
figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a
mass of shade.  Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her
unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her.

"What is it, Angel?" she said, starting up.  "Have they come for me?"

"Yes, dearest," he said.  "They have come."

"It is as it should be," she murmured.  "Angel, I am almost glad--yes,
glad!  This happiness could not have lasted.  It was too much.  I
have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!"

She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men
having moved.

"I am ready," she said quietly.

The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital
of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
brightness and warmth of a July morning.  The gabled brick, tile, and
freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping
High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and from
the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping
was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.

From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind.  Up this road
from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through
preoccupation and not through buoyancy.  They had emerged upon this
road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower
down.  They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and
of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means
of doing so.  Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,
which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.

One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding
creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,
slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's
sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu.  Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk
to half their natural size.  They moved on hand in hand, and never
spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's
"Two Apostles".

When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the
clocks in the town struck eight.  Each gave a start at the notes,
and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first
milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and
backed by the down, which here was open to the road.  They entered
upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their
will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense
beside the stone.

The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited.  In the valley
beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings
showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral
tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,
the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,
more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice,
where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;
further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost
in the radiance of the sun hanging above it.

Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other
city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs,
and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole
contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities
of the Gothic erections.  It was somewhat disguised from the road in
passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up
here.  The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the
wall of this structure.  From the middle of the building an ugly
flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and
viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it
seemed the one blot on the city's beauty.  Yet it was with this blot,
and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.

Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed.  Their eyes
were riveted on it.  A few minutes after the hour had struck
something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the
breeze.  It was a black flag.

"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean
phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.  And the d'Urberville knights
and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.  The two speechless
gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued
to wave silently.  As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined
hands again, and went on.

Angel hears from his parents via telegram that his brother Cuthbert is engaged to Mercy Chant. He leaves his hotel to go to the train station for a return trip home. At the station, Tess finds him and confesses to murdering Alec. Immediately, Angel formulates a plan to walk to the north of England, avoiding the more traveled roads, until they can reach a port city after the events surrounding the murder are forgotten. The two walk for miles, finally happy to be in each other's company. Along the way, they discover a vacant house, with only a caretaker occasionally stopping by. The great house, called Bramshurst Court, is empty of a renter, so the couple takes up residence. They spend five days in the house until the local caretaker sees them sleeping in the large bedrooms. Once discovered, Angel and Tess move directly north until they reach the ancient monoliths of Stonehenge. Tess feels that her freedom is limited and her end is near, so she has Angel promise to marry Liza Lu after her death. Now that it is night and the two are tired, Tess sleeps on one of the "altars" of stone. Near daybreak, the two are surrounded by police who take Tess into custody. For her part, Tess is glad that the end has come, and she goes with the police willingly. In the final chapter, Angel and Liza Lu journey together to Wintoncester to see that Tess' sentence, death by hanging, is carried out. They do not actually witness the deed, but know the enterprise is done when a black flag is hoisted over the town's tower. The two then return the way they came, "As soon as they arose, joined hands again, and went on."

Hardy has brought the story full circle. Four years have passed since the day in May, in the beginning of the novel, when Tess and Angel met. At the story's end it is May again. Angel is in the process of leaving Sandbourne when he receives news that his brother, Cuthbert, has become engaged to Mercy Chant. As he is leaving town awaiting the next train, Tess appears with the tale that she had killed Alec. Angel is unsure about her story, but now that she is finally his, he takes no chances of her being discovered. One of their stops takes them to a vacant house, called Bramshurst Court. Their week together is uneventful in that Tess and Angel finally become a married couple. She seems to know that her time with Angel is limited, because she will soon be wanted for Alec's murder; "My life can only be a question of a few weeks," she says. Her last wishes are for Angel to marry her sister, Liza Lu for "'She had all the best of me without the bad of me." In Chapter 59, when Angel and Liza Lu join hands after Tess' execution, we understand that Angel will fulfill this request. The chase from Sandbourne ends at the historic site of Stonehenge, a collection of giant stones arranged in a circular form, dating from 2,800 to 1,500 B.C. The purposes for the monuments were to serve as an astrological calendar and a ceremonial place for religious or tribal worship. Because the original purposes of the ancient monuments have been shrouded in mystery, especially in Hardy's time, experts could only speculate as to the purpose of the megaliths. Tess and Angel stop in Stonehenge after they have traveled a long way and need rest. The stones are still warm from the sun, radiating heat all during the cool night. Tess realizes that her mother's family is from the area, "One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home." Angel recognizes that Tess is "lying on an altar" -- like a sacrifice to the ancient pagans who used to practice there. In a modern sense, Tess is sacrificed to the laws and morals of the nineteenth century. Hardy ends Tess' tale with the words "'Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals, in the Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess." A bit of background is needed to understand this phrase. First, Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright who lived from 525-546 b.c. Aeschylus wrote plays that centered on individual will and the influence of divine power over mortals. In his play called Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is chained to a rock, and an eagle comes to devour his liver every day; each night, Prometheus' liver grows back. Hercules destroys the eagle and sets Prometheus free. Tess is like Prometheus in that she seems to have been a "toy" of the gods of morality and religion in Victorian England, and she had to be sacrificed for the good of mankind. All of Tess' life is the result of either an accident, fate, or the intervention of the gods. In fact, some critics feel that the circumstances leading to Tess' tragic life and death are too contrived, are unrealistic, and unbelievable. Whether realistic or not, Fate has intervened in Tess' world and shaped the course of her life. Glossary "her Antinous . . . " a favorite of the Roman Emperor Hadrian; like Apollo, the Greek god of sun and of music, Antinous was a figure of male beauty. Atalanta's race Atalanta was a Grecian huntress who refused to marry any suitor who could not outrun her; the penalty for those who lost was death. deprecated expressed disapproval of; depreciated; belittled. antiquity the quality of being ancient or old. "Temple of the Winds" also known as the "tower of the winds," a temple in Athens used for telling time. Trilithon a monument consisting of two upright megaliths with a third stone serving as the lintel. taciturnity the condition of being silent or uncommunicative. integument a natural outer covering of the body or of a plant, including skin, shell, hide, husk, or rind. "Giotto's 'Two Apostles'" Hardy probably had in mind the fresco in the National Gallery in London that is now attributed to Spinello Aretino . wicket a small door or gate, esp. one set in or near a larger door or gate. Aeschylean phrase "President of the Immortals" translates a phrase from Prometheus Bound , by Aeschylus; Hardy finishes the novel by suggesting that the highest power in the universe uses human beings for "sport."


On a thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in May, between two and
three years after the return from Trantridge--silent, reconstructive
years for Tess Durbeyfield--she left her home for the second time.

Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later,
she started in a hired trap for the little town of Stourcastle,
through which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a
direction almost opposite to that of her first adventuring.  On the
curve of the nearest hill she looked back regretfully at Marlott and
her father's house, although she had been so anxious to get away.

Her kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily
lives as heretofore, with no great diminution of pleasure in their
consciousness, although she would be far off, and they deprived of
her smile.  In a few days the children would engage in their games as
merrily as ever, without the sense of any gap left by her departure.
This leaving of the younger children she had decided to be for the
best; were she to remain they would probably gain less good by her
precepts than harm by her example.

She went through Stourcastle without pausing and onward to a junction
of highways, where she could await a carrier's van that ran to the
south-west; for the railways which engirdled this interior tract of
country had never yet struck across it.  While waiting, however,
there came along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately
in the direction that she wished to pursue.  Though he was a stranger
to her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him, ignoring that
its motive was a mere tribute to her countenance.  He was going to
Weatherbury, and by accompanying him thither she could walk the
remainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of
Casterbridge.

Tess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, further than
to make a slight nondescript meal at noon at a cottage to which the
farmer recommended her.  Thence she started on foot, basket in hand,
to reach the wide upland of heath dividing this district from the
low-lying meads of a further valley in which the dairy stood that was
the aim and end of her day's pilgrimage.

Tess had never before visited this part of the country, and yet she
felt akin to the landscape.  Not so very far to the left of her she
could discern a dark patch in the scenery, which inquiry confirmed
her in supposing to be trees marking the environs of Kingsbere--in
the church of which parish the bones of her ancestors--her useless
ancestors--lay entombed.

She had no admiration for them now; she almost hated them for the
dance they had led her; not a thing of all that had been theirs did
she retain but the old seal and spoon.  "Pooh--I have as much of
mother as father in me!" she said.  "All my prettiness comes from
her, and she was only a dairymaid."

The journey over the intervening uplands and lowlands of Egdon,
when she reached them, was a more troublesome walk than she had
anticipated, the distance being actually but a few miles.  It was
two hours, owing to sundry wrong turnings, ere she found herself
on a summit commanding the long-sought-for vale, the Valley of the
Great Dairies, the valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness,
and were produced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her
home--the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom.

It was intrinsically different from the Vale of Little Dairies,
Blackmoor Vale, which, save during her disastrous sojourn at
Trantridge, she had exclusively known till now.  The world was drawn
to a larger pattern here.  The enclosures numbered fifty acres
instead of ten, the farmsteads were more extended, the groups of
cattle formed tribes hereabout; there only families.  These myriads
of cows stretching under her eyes from the far east to the far west
outnumbered any she had ever seen at one glance before. The green
lea was speckled as thickly with them as a canvas by Van Alsloot
or Sallaert with burghers.  The ripe hue of the red and dun kine
absorbed the evening sunlight, which the white-coated animals
returned to the eye in rays almost dazzling, even at the distant
elevation on which she stood.

The bird's-eye perspective before her was not so luxuriantly
beautiful, perhaps, as that other one which she knew so well; yet it
was more cheering.  It lacked the intensely blue atmosphere of the
rival vale, and its heavy soils and scents; the new air was clear,
bracing, ethereal.  The river itself, which nourished the grass
and cows of these renowned dairies, flowed not like the streams in
Blackmoor.  Those were slow, silent, often turbid; flowing over
beds of mud into which the incautious wader might sink and vanish
unawares.  The Froom waters were clear as the pure River of Life
shown to the Evangelist, rapid as the shadow of a cloud, with
pebbly shallows that prattled to the sky all day long.  There the
water-flower was the lily; the crow-foot here.

Either the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light, or
the sense of being amid new scenes where there were no invidious eyes
upon her, sent up her spirits wonderfully.  Her hopes mingled with
the sunshine in an ideal photosphere which surrounded her as she
bounded along against the soft south wind.  She heard a pleasant
voice in every breeze, and in every bird's note seemed to lurk a
joy.

Her face had latterly changed with changing states of mind,
continually fluctuating between beauty and ordinariness, according as
the thoughts were gay or grave.  One day she was pink and flawless;
another pale and tragical.  When she was pink she was feeling less
than when pale; her more perfect beauty accorded with her less
elevated mood; her more intense mood with her less perfect beauty.
It was her best face physically that was now set against the south
wind.

The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet
pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the
highest, had at length mastered Tess.  Being even now only a young
woman of twenty, one who mentally and sentimentally had not finished
growing, it was impossible that any event should have left upon her
an impression that was not in time capable of transmutation.

And thus her spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose
higher and higher.  She tried several ballads, but found them
inadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her eyes had so often
wandered over of a Sunday morning before she had eaten of the tree
of knowledge, she chanted: "O ye Sun and Moon ... O ye Stars ... ye
Green Things upon the Earth ... ye Fowls of the Air ... Beasts and
Cattle ... Children of Men ... bless ye the Lord, praise Him and
magnify Him for ever!"

She suddenly stopped and murmured: "But perhaps I don't quite know
the Lord as yet."

And probably the half-unconscious rhapsody was a Fetishistic
utterance in a Monotheistic setting; women whose chief companions
are the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far
more of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the
systematized religion taught their race at later date.  However, Tess
found at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old
_Benedicite_ that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough.
Such high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that
of having started towards a means of independent living was a part of
the Durbeyfield temperament.  Tess really wished to walk uprightly,
while her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in
being content with immediate and small achievements, and in having no
mind for laborious effort towards such petty social advancement as
could alone be effected by a family so heavily handicapped as the
once powerful d'Urbervilles were now.

There was, it might be said, the energy of her mother's unexpended
family, as well as the natural energy of Tess's years, rekindled
after the experience which had so overwhelmed her for the time. Let
the truth be told--women do as a rule live through such humiliations,
and regain their spirits, and again look about them with an
interested eye.  While there's life there's hope is a conviction not
so entirely unknown to the "betrayed" as some amiable theorists would
have us believe.

Tess Durbeyfield, then, in good heart, and full of zest for life,
descended the Egdon slopes lower and lower towards the dairy of her
pilgrimage.

The marked difference, in the final particular, between the rival
vales now showed itself.  The secret of Blackmoor was best discovered
from the heights around; to read aright the valley before her it was
necessary to descend into its midst.  When Tess had accomplished this
feat she found herself to be standing on a carpeted level, which
stretched to the east and west as far as the eye could reach.

The river had stolen from the higher tracts and brought in particles
to the vale all this horizontal land; and now, exhausted, aged, and
attenuated, lay serpentining along through the midst of its former
spoils.

Not quite sure of her direction, Tess stood still upon the hemmed
expanse of verdant flatness, like a fly on a billiard-table of
indefinite length, and of no more consequence to the surroundings
than that fly.  The sole effect of her presence upon the placid
valley so far had been to excite the mind of a solitary heron, which,
after descending to the ground not far from her path, stood with neck
erect, looking at her.

Suddenly there arose from all parts of the lowland a prolonged and
repeated call--"Waow! waow! waow!"

From the furthest east to the furthest west the cries spread as if by
contagion, accompanied in some cases by the barking of a dog.  It was
not the expression of the valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess
had arrived, but the ordinary announcement of milking-time--half-past
four o'clock, when the dairymen set about getting in the cows.

The red and white herd nearest at hand, which had been phlegmatically
waiting for the call, now trooped towards the steading in the
background, their great bags of milk swinging under them as they
walked.  Tess followed slowly in their rear, and entered the barton
by the open gate through which they had entered before her.  Long
thatched sheds stretched round the enclosure, their slopes encrusted
with vivid green moss, and their eaves supported by wooden posts
rubbed to a glossy smoothness by the flanks of infinite cows
and calves of bygone years, now passed to an oblivion almost
inconceivable in its profundity.  Between the post were ranged
the milchers, each exhibiting herself at the present moment to a
whimsical eye in the rear as a circle on two stalks, down the centre
of which a switch moved pendulum-wise; while the sun, lowering itself
behind this patient row, threw their shadows accurately inwards upon
the wall.  Thus it threw shadows of these obscure and homely figures
every evening with as much care over each contour as if it had been
the profile of a court beauty on a palace wall; copied them as
diligently as it had copied Olympian shapes on marble _facades_ long
ago, or the outline of Alexander, Caesar, and the Pharaohs.

They were the less restful cows that were stalled.  Those that would
stand still of their own will were milked in the middle of the yard,
where many of such better behaved ones stood waiting now--all prime
milchers, such as were seldom seen out of this valley, and not always
within it; nourished by the succulent feed which the water-meads
supplied at this prime season of the year.  Those of them that were
spotted with white reflected the sunshine in dazzling brilliancy,
and the polished brass knobs of their horns glittered with something
of military display.  Their large-veined udders hung ponderous as
sandbags, the teats sticking out like the legs of a gipsy's crock;
and as each animal lingered for her turn to arrive the milk oozed
forth and fell in drops to the ground.

The dairymaids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out
of the dairy-house with the arrival of the cows from the meads; the
maids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep
their shoes above the mulch of the barton.  Each girl sat down on
her three-legged stool, her face sideways, her right cheek resting
against the cow, and looked musingly along the animal's flank at Tess
as she approached.  The male milkers, with hat-brims turned down,
resting flat on their foreheads and gazing on the ground, did not
observe her.

One of these was a sturdy middle-aged man--whose long white "pinner"
was somewhat finer and cleaner than the wraps of the others, and
whose jacket underneath had a presentable marketing aspect--the
master-dairyman, of whom she was in quest, his double character as
a working milker and butter maker here during six days, and on the
seventh as a man in shining broad-cloth in his family pew at church,
being so marked as to have inspired a rhyme:

             Dairyman Dick
             All the week:--
     On Sundays Mister Richard Crick.

Seeing Tess standing at gaze he went across to her.

The majority of dairymen have a cross manner at milking time, but it
happened that Mr Crick was glad to get a new hand--for the days were
busy ones now--and he received her warmly; inquiring for her mother
and the rest of the family--(though this as a matter of form merely,
for in reality he had not been aware of Mrs Durbeyfield's existence
till apprised of the fact by a brief business-letter about Tess).

"Oh--ay, as a lad I knowed your part o' the country very well," he
said terminatively.  "Though I've never been there since.  And a aged
woman of ninety that use to live nigh here, but is dead and gone long
ago, told me that a family of some such name as yours in Blackmoor
Vale came originally from these parts, and that 'twere a old ancient
race that had all but perished off the earth--though the new
generations didn't know it.  But, Lord, I took no notice of the old
woman's ramblings, not I."

"Oh no--it is nothing," said Tess.

Then the talk was of business only.

"You can milk 'em clean, my maidy? I don't want my cows going azew at
this time o' year."

She reassured him on that point, and he surveyed her up and down.
She had been staying indoors a good deal, and her complexion had
grown delicate.

"Quite sure you can stand it?  'Tis comfortable enough here for rough
folk; but we don't live in a cowcumber frame."

She declared that she could stand it, and her zest and willingness
seemed to win him over.

"Well, I suppose you'll want a dish o' tay, or victuals of some sort,
hey?  Not yet?  Well, do as ye like about it.  But faith, if 'twas I,
I should be as dry as a kex wi' travelling so far."

"I'll begin milking now, to get my hand in," said Tess.

She drank a little milk as temporary refreshment--to the
surprise--indeed, slight contempt--of Dairyman Crick, to whose mind
it had apparently never occurred that milk was good as a beverage.

"Oh, if ye can swaller that, be it so," he said indifferently, while
holding up the pail that she sipped from.  "'Tis what I hain't
touched for years--not I.  Rot the stuff; it would lie in my innerds
like lead.  You can try your hand upon she," he pursued, nodding to
the nearest cow.  "Not but what she do milk rather hard.  We've hard
ones and we've easy ones, like other folks.  However, you'll find out
that soon enough."

When Tess had changed her bonnet for a hood, and was really on her
stool under the cow, and the milk was squirting from her fists
into the pail, she appeared to feel that she really had laid a new
foundation for her future.  The conviction bred serenity, her pulse
slowed, and she was able to look about her.

The milkers formed quite a little battalion of men and maids, the
men operating on the hard-teated animals, the maids on the kindlier
natures.  It was a large dairy.  There were nearly a hundred
milchers under Crick's management, all told; and of the herd the
master-dairyman milked six or eight with his own hands, unless away
from home.  These were the cows that milked hardest of all; for his
journey-milkmen being more or less casually hired, he would not
entrust this half-dozen to their treatment, lest, from indifference,
they should not milk them fully; nor to the maids, lest they should
fail in the same way for lack of finger-grip; with the result that in
course of time the cows would "go azew"--that is, dry up.  It was not
the loss for the moment that made slack milking so serious, but that
with the decline of demand there came decline, and ultimately
cessation, of supply.

After Tess had settled down to her cow there was for a time no talk
in the barton, and not a sound interfered with the purr of the
milk-jets into the numerous pails, except a momentary exclamation
to one or other of the beasts requesting her to turn round or stand
still. The only movements were those of the milkers' hands up and
down, and the swing of the cows' tails.  Thus they all worked on,
encompassed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope
of the valley--a level landscape compounded of old landscapes long
forgotten, and, no doubt, differing in character very greatly from
the landscape they composed now.

"To my thinking," said the dairyman, rising suddenly from a cow
he had just finished off, snatching up his three-legged stool in
one hand and the pail in the other, and moving on to the next
hard-yielder in his vicinity, "to my thinking, the cows don't gie
down their milk to-day as usual.  Upon my life, if Winker do begin
keeping back like this, she'll not be worth going under by
midsummer."

"'Tis because there's a new hand come among us," said Jonathan Kail.
"I've noticed such things afore."

"To be sure.  It may be so.  I didn't think o't."

"I've been told that it goes up into their horns at such times," said
a dairymaid.

"Well, as to going up into their horns," replied Dairyman Crick
dubiously, as though even witchcraft might be limited by anatomical
possibilities, "I couldn't say; I certainly could not.  But as nott
cows will keep it back as well as the horned ones, I don't quite
agree to it.  Do ye know that riddle about the nott cows, Jonathan?
Why do nott cows give less milk in a year than horned?"

"I don't!" interposed the milkmaid, "Why do they?"

"Because there bain't so many of 'em," said the dairyman.
"Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep back their milk
to-day.  Folks, we must lift up a stave or two--that's the only cure
for't."

Songs were often resorted to in dairies hereabout as an enticement
to the cows when they showed signs of withholding their usual yield;
and the band of milkers at this request burst into melody--in purely
business-like tones, it is true, and with no great spontaneity; the
result, according to their own belief, being a decided improvement
during the song's continuance.  When they had gone through fourteen
or fifteen verses of a cheerful ballad about a murderer who was
afraid to go to bed in the dark because he saw certain brimstone
flames around him, one of the male milkers said--

"I wish singing on the stoop didn't use up so much of a man's wind!
You should get your harp, sir; not but what a fiddle is best."

Tess, who had given ear to this, thought the words were addressed to
the dairyman, but she was wrong.  A reply, in the shape of "Why?"
came as it were out of the belly of a dun cow in the stalls; it had
been spoken by a milker behind the animal, whom she had not hitherto
perceived.

"Oh yes; there's nothing like a fiddle," said the dairyman. "Though
I do think that bulls are more moved by a tune than cows--at least
that's my experience.  Once there was an old aged man over at
Mellstock--William Dewy by name--one of the family that used to do
a good deal of business as tranters over there--Jonathan, do ye
mind?--I knowed the man by sight as well as I know my own brother, in
a manner of speaking.  Well, this man was a coming home along from a
wedding, where he had been playing his fiddle, one fine moonlight
night, and for shortness' sake he took a cut across Forty-acres, a
field lying that way, where a bull was out to grass.  The bull seed
William, and took after him, horns aground, begad; and though William
runned his best, and hadn't MUCH drink in him (considering 'twas a
wedding, and the folks well off), he found he'd never reach the fence
and get over in time to save himself.  Well, as a last thought, he
pulled out his fiddle as he runned, and struck up a jig, turning to
the bull, and backing towards the corner.  The bull softened down,
and stood still, looking hard at William Dewy, who fiddled on and on;
till a sort of a smile stole over the bull's face.  But no sooner
did William stop his playing and turn to get over hedge than the
bull would stop his smiling and lower his horns towards the seat of
William's breeches.  Well, William had to turn about and play on,
willy-nilly; and 'twas only three o'clock in the world, and 'a knowed
that nobody would come that way for hours, and he so leery and tired
that 'a didn't know what to do.  When he had scraped till about four
o'clock he felt that he verily would have to give over soon, and he
said to himself, 'There's only this last tune between me and eternal
welfare! Heaven save me, or I'm a done man.'  Well, then he called to
mind how he'd seen the cattle kneel o' Christmas Eves in the dead o'
night.  It was not Christmas Eve then, but it came into his head to
play a trick upon the bull.  So he broke into the 'Tivity Hymm, just
as at Christmas carol-singing; when, lo and behold, down went the
bull on his bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the
true 'Tivity night and hour.  As soon as his horned friend were down,
William turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over
hedge, before the praying bull had got on his feet again to take
after him.  William used to say that he'd seen a man look a fool
a good many times, but never such a fool as that bull looked when
he found his pious feelings had been played upon, and 'twas not
Christmas Eve. ...  Yes, William Dewy, that was the man's name; and
I can tell you to a foot where's he a-lying in Mellstock Churchyard
at this very moment--just between the second yew-tree and the north
aisle."

"It's a curious story; it carries us back to medieval times, when
faith was a living thing!"

The remark, singular for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice
behind the dun cow; but as nobody understood the reference, no notice
was taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply
scepticism as to his tale.

"Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no.  I knowed the man well."

"Oh yes; I have no doubt of it," said the person behind the dun cow.

Tess's attention was thus attracted to the dairyman's interlocutor,
of whom she could see but the merest patch, owing to his burying his
head so persistently in the flank of the milcher.  She could not
understand why he should be addressed as "sir" even by the dairyman
himself.  But no explanation was discernible; he remained under the
cow long enough to have milked three, uttering a private ejaculation
now and then, as if he could not get on.

"Take it gentle, sir; take it gentle," said the dairyman.  "'Tis
knack, not strength, that does it."

"So I find," said the other, standing up at last and stretching his
arms.  "I think I have finished her, however, though she made my
fingers ache."

Tess could then see him at full length.  He wore the ordinary white
pinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer when milking, and his
boots were clogged with the mulch of the yard; but this was all his
local livery.  Beneath it was something educated, reserved, subtle,
sad, differing.

But the details of his aspect were temporarily thrust aside by
the discovery that he was one whom she had seen before.  Such
vicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time that for a
moment she could not remember where she had met him; and then it
flashed upon her that he was the pedestrian who had joined in the
club-dance at Marlott--the passing stranger who had come she knew
not whence, had danced with others but not with her, and slightingly
left her, and gone on his way with his friends.

The flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident
anterior to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest,
recognizing her also, he should by some means discover her story.
But it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him.  She
saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his mobile
face had grown more thoughtful, and had acquired a young man's
shapely moustache and beard--the latter of the palest straw colour
where it began upon his cheeks, and deepening to a warm brown farther
from its root.  Under his linen milking-pinner he wore a dark
velveteen jacket, cord breeches and gaiters, and a starched white
shirt.  Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what
he was.  He might with equal probability have been an eccentric
landowner or a gentlemanly ploughman.  That he was but a novice at
dairy work she had realized in a moment, from the time he had spent
upon the milking of one cow.

Meanwhile many of the milkmaids had said to one another of the
newcomer, "How pretty she is!" with something of real generosity and
admiration, though with a half hope that the auditors would qualify
the assertion--which, strictly speaking, they might have done,
prettiness being an inexact definition of what struck the eye in
Tess.  When the milking was finished for the evening they straggled
indoors, where Mrs Crick, the dairyman's wife--who was too
respectable to go out milking herself, and wore a hot stuff gown in
warm weather because the dairymaids wore prints--was giving an eye
to the leads and things.

Only two or three of the maids, Tess learnt, slept in the dairy-house
besides herself, most of the helpers going to their homes.  She saw
nothing at supper-time of the superior milker who had commented on
the story, and asked no questions about him, the remainder of the
evening being occupied in arranging her place in the bed-chamber.
It was a large room over the milk-house, some thirty feet long; the
sleeping-cots of the other three indoor milkmaids being in the same
apartment.  They were blooming young women, and, except one, rather
older than herself.  By bedtime Tess was thoroughly tired, and fell
asleep immediately.

But one of the girls, who occupied an adjoining bed, was more wakeful
than Tess, and would insist upon relating to the latter various
particulars of the homestead into which she had just entered.  The
girl's whispered words mingled with the shades, and, to Tess's drowsy
mind, they seemed to be generated by the darkness in which they
floated.

"Mr Angel Clare--he that is learning milking, and that plays
the harp--never says much to us.  He is a pa'son's son, and is
too much taken up wi' his own thoughts to notice girls.  He is
the dairyman's pupil--learning farming in all its branches.  He
has learnt sheep-farming at another place, and he's now mastering
dairy-work....  Yes, he is quite the gentleman-born.  His father is
the Reverent Mr Clare at Emminster--a good many miles from here."

"Oh--I have heard of him," said her companion, now awake.  "A very
earnest clergyman, is he not?"

"Yes--that he is--the earnestest man in all Wessex, they say--the
last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me--for all about here be
what they call High.  All his sons, except our Mr Clare, be made
pa'sons too."

Tess had not at this hour the curiosity to ask why the present Mr
Clare was not made a parson like his brethren, and gradually fell
asleep again, the words of her informant coming to her along with the
smell of the cheeses in the adjoining cheeseloft, and the measured
dripping of the whey from the wrings downstairs.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTESPHASE THE THIRD -- THE RALLY CHAPTER 16 Summary Tess proceeds to the Talbothay Farm. On this bright May day, she is in high spirits and hopeful for her future. On the way she passes by the tomb of her ancestors, but she does not let that spoil her mood. Instead, she sings ballads to herself, and her expression changes with her improving spirits. When she spies the valley of the dairies, she is encouraged by the view; it is much lovelier than the valley of Marlott. The air is sweet, the rivers are clear, and birds sing sweetly, giving Tess even greater hopes for her future. The distant mooing of the cows reminds her that she is close to her destination. Notes The courage with which women bear hardship is pointed out in this chapter. They live through humiliations, regain their spirits, and move ahead with life. Since Tess is still young, she is able to recover from the sorrows of her past. When Tess leaves home for the second time, it is two and a half years after her return from Trantridge, and she is a changed person. She is no longer a naive girl, but a responsible and mature woman. As she moves away from her village, her state of mind changes; the further she travels from Marlott, the more optimistic she becomes. The soft wind soothes her spirit, and the sunshine gives her hope. The whole world begins to appear bright and cheerful. This new image of Tess is a welcome change from her melancholy and despondency. CHAPTER 17 Summary At Talbothay's, Tess is welcomed by Richard Crick, the owner of the farm. He is skeptical about her abilities due to her delicate frame, but she quickly proves herself. After her long travels, she refuses to rest and immediately joins in the milking. In the first days of her stay at Talbothay's, Tess easily slips into her role as a milkmaid and feels that she has "laid a new foundation for her future." On her first day of work, Tess spies the handsome Angel Clare, who is a trainee at the farm. Although the son of a clergyman, he has chosen farming as his vocation. Tess learns at the dairy house that he is a much sought after bachelor, whom the milkmaids admire greatly. Tess remembers him from the May Day dance several years ago, but she is relieved to find that he does not recognize her; she is worried about someone finding out about her past. Notes In this chapter, Angel Clare, seen only briefly before at the May Day Dance, is developed as a character. Working as a trainee on the farm, he is looked upon as a gentleman and everyone addressed him as "sir". His father is a respected clergyman in Emminster, and all of his brothers have become parsons. In addition, all the milkmaids swoon over his good looks and fantasize about his falling in love with them. In this chapter, Tess shows how she has changed. She is again in control of her emotions. Although she finds Angel Clare attractive, she thinks that he is unapproachable and keeps her distance. In contrast to the other milkmaids, she is cautious and prudent. She is also thankful that he does not remember her from the May Day Dance four years ago. Tess hopes that she can remain anonymous so that no one will find out about her past.


The hot weather of July had crept upon them unawares, and the
atmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy as an opiate over the
dairy-folk, the cows, and the trees.  Hot steaming rains fell
frequently, making the grass where the cows fed yet more rank, and
hindering the late hay-making in the other meads.

It was Sunday morning; the milking was done; the outdoor milkers
had gone home.  Tess and the other three were dressing themselves
rapidly, the whole bevy having agreed to go together to Mellstock
Church, which lay some three or four miles distant from the
dairy-house.  She had now been two months at Talbothays, and this
was her first excursion.

All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed
down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river; but
this morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the
deluge, and the air was balmy and clear.

The crooked lane leading from their own parish to Mellstock ran along
the lowest levels in a portion of its length, and when the girls
reached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the
rain had been to flood the lane over-shoe to a distance of some fifty
yards.  This would have been no serious hindrance on a week-day; they
would have clicked through it in their high pattens and boots quite
unconcerned; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's-day, when flesh
went forth to coquet with flesh while hypocritically affecting
business with spiritual things; on this occasion for wearing their
white stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac
gowns, on which every mud spot would be visible, the pool was an
awkward impediment.  They could hear the church-bell calling--as yet
nearly a mile off.

"Who would have expected such a rise in the river in summer-time!"
said Marian, from the top of the roadside bank on which they had
climbed, and were maintaining a precarious footing in the hope of
creeping along its slope till they were past the pool.

"We can't get there anyhow, without walking right through it, or else
going round the Turnpike way; and that would make us so very late!"
said Retty, pausing hopelessly.

"And I do colour up so hot, walking into church late, and all the
people staring round," said Marian, "that I hardly cool down again
till we get into the That-it-may-please-Thees."

While they stood clinging to the bank they heard a splashing round
the bend of the road, and presently appeared Angel Clare, advancing
along the lane towards them through the water.

Four hearts gave a big throb simultaneously.

His aspect was probably as un-Sabbatarian a one as a dogmatic
parson's son often presented; his attire being his dairy clothes,
long wading boots, a cabbage-leaf inside his hat to keep his head
cool, with a thistle-spud to finish him off.  "He's not going to
church," said Marian.

"No--I wish he was!" murmured Tess.

Angel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe phrase of
evasive controversialists), preferred sermons in stones to sermons in
churches and chapels on fine summer days.  This morning, moreover,
he had gone out to see if the damage to the hay by the flood was
considerable or not.  On his walk he observed the girls from a long
distance, though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of
passage as not to notice him.  He knew that the water had risen at
that spot, and that it would quite check their progress.  So he had
hastened on, with a dim idea of how he could help them--one of them
in particular.

The rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed quartet looked so charming in their
light summer attire, clinging to the roadside bank like pigeons on a
roof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming
close.  Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable
flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in
the transparent tissue as in an aviary.  Angel's eye at last fell
upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed
laughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his glance
radiantly.

He came beneath them in the water, which did not rise over his long
boots; and stood looking at the entrapped flies and butterflies.

"Are you trying to get to church?" he said to Marian, who was in
front, including the next two in his remark, but avoiding Tess.

"Yes, sir; and 'tis getting late; and my colour do come up so--"

"I'll carry you through the pool--every Jill of you."

The whole four flushed as if one heart beat through them.

"I think you can't, sir," said Marian.

"It is the only way for you to get past.  Stand still.  Nonsense--you
are not too heavy!  I'd carry you all four together.  Now, Marian,
attend," he continued, "and put your arms round my shoulders, so.
Now!  Hold on. That's well done."

Marian had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder as directed, and
Angel strode off with her, his slim figure, as viewed from behind,
looking like the mere stem to the great nosegay suggested by hers.
They disappeared round the curve of the road, and only his sousing
footsteps and the top ribbon of Marian's bonnet told where they were.
In a few minutes he reappeared.  Izz Huett was the next in order upon
the bank.

"Here he comes," she murmured, and they could hear that her lips were
dry with emotion.  "And I have to put my arms round his neck and look
into his face as Marian did."

"There's nothing in that," said Tess quickly.

"There's a time for everything," continued Izz, unheeding.  "A time
to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; the first is now
going to be mine."

"Fie--it is Scripture, Izz!"

"Yes," said Izz, "I've always a' ear at church for pretty verses."

Angel Clare, to whom three-quarters of this performance was a
commonplace act of kindness, now approached Izz.  She quietly and
dreamily lowered herself into his arms, and Angel methodically
marched off with her.  When he was heard returning for the third time
Retty's throbbing heart could be almost seen to shake her.  He went
up to the red-haired girl, and while he was seizing her he glanced at
Tess.  His lips could not have pronounced more plainly, "It will soon
be you and I."  Her comprehension appeared in her face; she could not
help it.  There was an understanding between them.

Poor little Retty, though by far the lightest weight, was the most
troublesome of Clare's burdens.  Marian had been like a sack of meal,
a dead weight of plumpness under which he has literally staggered.
Izz had ridden sensibly and calmly.  Retty was a bunch of hysterics.

However, he got through with the disquieted creature, deposited her,
and returned.  Tess could see over the hedge the distant three in a
group, standing as he had placed them on the next rising ground.  It
was now her turn.  She was embarrassed to discover that excitement at
the proximity of Mr Clare's breath and eyes, which she had contemned
in her companions, was intensified in herself; and as if fearful of
betraying her secret, she paltered with him at the last moment.

"I may be able to clim' along the bank perhaps--I can clim' better
than they.  You must be so tired, Mr Clare!"

"No, no, Tess," said he quickly.  And almost before she was aware,
she was seated in his arms and resting against his shoulder.

"Three Leahs to get one Rachel," he whispered.

"They are better women than I," she replied, magnanimously sticking
to her resolve.

"Not to me," said Angel.

He saw her grow warm at this; and they went some steps in silence.

"I hope I am not too heavy?" she said timidly.

"O no.  You should lift Marian!  Such a lump.  You are like an
undulating billow warmed by the sun.  And all this fluff of muslin
about you is the froth."

"It is very pretty--if I seem like that to you."

"Do you know that I have undergone three-quarters of this labour
entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?"

"No."

"I did not expect such an event to-day."

"Nor I...  The water came up so sudden."

That the rise in the water was what she understood him to refer to,
the state of breathing belied.  Clare stood still and inclinced his
face towards hers.

"O Tessy!" he exclaimed.

The girl's cheeks burned to the breeze, and she could not look into
his eyes for her emotion.  It reminded Angel that he was somewhat
unfairly taking advantage of an accidental position; and he went no
further with it.  No definite words of love had crossed their lips
as yet, and suspension at this point was desirable now. However,
he walked slowly, to make the remainder of the distance as long as
possible; but at last they came to the bend, and the rest of their
progress was in full view of the other three.  The dry land was
reached, and he set her down.

Her friends were looking with round thoughtful eyes at her and him,
and she could see that they had been talking of her.  He hastily bade
them farewell, and splashed back along the stretch of submerged road.

The four moved on together as before, till Marian broke the silence
by saying--

"No--in all truth; we have no chance against her!"  She looked
joylessly at Tess.

"What do you mean?" asked the latter.

"He likes 'ee best--the very best!  We could see it as he brought
'ee.  He would have kissed 'ee, if you had encouraged him to do it,
ever so little."

"No, no," said she.

The gaiety with which they had set out had somehow vanished; and
yet there was no enmity or malice between them.  They were generous
young souls; they had been reared in the lonely country nooks where
fatalism is a strong sentiment, and they did not blame her.  Such
supplanting was to be.

Tess's heart ached.  There was no concealing from herself the fact
that she loved Angel Clare, perhaps all the more passionately from
knowing that the others had also lost their hearts to him.  There is
contagion in this sentiment, especially among women.  And yet that
same hungry nature had fought against this, but too feebly, and the
natural result had followed.

"I will never stand in your way, nor in the way of either of you!"
she declared to Retty that night in the bedroom (her tears running
down).  "I can't help this, my dear!  I don't think marrying is in
his mind at all; but if he were ever to ask me I should refuse him,
as I should refuse any man."

"Oh! would you?  Why?" said wondering Retty.

"It cannot be!  But I will be plain.  Putting myself quite on one
side, I don't think he will choose either of you."

"I have never expected it--thought of it!" moaned Retty.  "But O! I
wish I was dead!"

The poor child, torn by a feeling which she hardly understood, turned
to the other two girls who came upstairs just then.

"We be friends with her again," she said to them.  "She thinks no
more of his choosing her than we do."

So the reserve went off, and they were confiding and warm.

"I don't seem to care what I do now," said Marian, whose mood was
turned to its lowest bass.  "I was going to marry a dairyman at
Stickleford, who's asked me twice; but--my soul--I would put an end
to myself rather'n be his wife now!  Why don't ye speak, Izz?"

"To confess, then," murmured Izz, "I made sure to-day that he was
going to kiss me as he held me; and I lay still against his breast,
hoping and hoping, and never moved at all.  But he did not.  I don't
like biding here at Talbothays any longer!  I shall go hwome."

The air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with the
hopeless passion of the girls.  They writhed feverishly under the
oppressiveness of an emotion thrust on them by cruel Nature's law--an
emotion which they had neither expected nor desired.  The incident
of the day had fanned the flame that was burning the inside of their
hearts out, and the torture was almost more than they could endure.
The differences which distinguished them as individuals were
abstracted by this passion, and each was but portion of one organism
called sex.  There was so much frankness and so little jealousy
because there was no hope.  Each one was a girl of fair common sense,
and she did not delude herself with any vain conceits, or deny her
love, or give herself airs, in the idea of outshining the others.
The full recognition of the futility of their infatuation, from a
social point of view; its purposeless beginning; its self-bounded
outlook; its lack of everything to justify its existence in the eye
of civilization (while lacking nothing in the eye of Nature); the one
fact that it did exist, ecstasizing them to a killing joy--all this
imparted to them a resignation, a dignity, which a practical and
sordid expectation of winning him as a husband would have destroyed.

They tossed and turned on their little beds, and the cheese-wring
dripped monotonously downstairs.

"B' you awake, Tess?" whispered one, half-an-hour later.

It was Izz Huett's voice.

Tess replied in the affirmative, whereupon also Retty and Marian
suddenly flung the bedclothes off them, and sighed--

"So be we!"

"I wonder what she is like--the lady they say his family have looked
out for him!"

"I wonder," said Izz.

"Some lady looked out for him?" gasped Tess, starting.  "I have never
heard o' that!"

"O yes--'tis whispered; a young lady of his own rank, chosen by his
family; a Doctor of Divinity's daughter near his father's parish of
Emminster; he don't much care for her, they say.  But he is sure to
marry her."

They had heard so very little of this; yet it was enough to build up
wretched dolorous dreams upon, there in the shade of the night.  They
pictured all the details of his being won round to consent, of the
wedding preparations, of the bride's happiness, of her dress and
veil, of her blissful home with him, when oblivion would have fallen
upon themselves as far as he and their love were concerned.  Thus
they talked, and ached, and wept till sleep charmed their sorrow
away.

After this disclosure Tess nourished no further foolish thought that
there lurked any grave and deliberate import in Clare's attentions
to her.  It was a passing summer love of her face, for love's own
temporary sake--nothing more. And the thorny crown of this sad
conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way
to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature,
cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far
less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored.

Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom Vale, at a
season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss
of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love
should not grow passionate.  The ready bosoms existing there were
impregnated by their surroundings.

July passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean weather which came
in its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state
of hearts at Talbothays Dairy.  The air of the place, so fresh in the
spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now.  Its heavy
scents weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying
in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the
pastures, but there was still bright green herbage here where the
watercourses purled.  And as Clare was oppressed by the outward
heats, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing fervour of passion for
the soft and silent Tess.

The rains having passed, the uplands were dry.  The wheels of the
dairyman's spring-cart, as he sped home from market, licked up the
pulverized surface of the highway, and were followed by white ribands
of dust, as if they had set a thin powder-train on fire.  The cows
jumped wildly over the five-barred barton-gate, maddened by the
gad-fly; Dairyman Crick kept his shirt-sleeves permanently rolled up
from Monday to Saturday; open windows had no effect in ventilation
without open doors, and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds and
thrushes crept about under the currant-bushes, rather in the manner
of quadrupeds than of winged creatures.  The flies in the kitchen
were lazy, teasing, and familiar, crawling about in the unwonted
places, on the floors, into drawers, and over the backs of the
milkmaids' hands. Conversations were concerning sunstroke; while
butter-making, and still more butter-keeping, was a despair.

They milked entirely in the meads for coolness and convenience,
without driving in the cows.  During the day the animals obsequiously
followed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem
with the diurnal roll; and when the milkers came they could hardly
stand still for the flies.

On one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows chanced to
stand apart from the general herd, behind the corner of a hedge,
among them being Dumpling and Old Pretty, who loved Tess's hands
above those of any other maid.  When she rose from her stool under a
finished cow, Angel Clare, who had been observing her for some time,
asked her if she would take the aforesaid creatures next.  She
silently assented, and with her stool at arm's length, and the pail
against her knee, went round to where they stood.  Soon the sound of
Old Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge, and
then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner also, to finish off a
hard-yielding milcher who had strayed there, he being now as capable
of this as the dairyman himself.

All the men, and some of the women, when milking, dug their foreheads
into the cows and gazed into the pail.  But a few--mainly the younger
ones--rested their heads sideways.  This was Tess Durbeyfield's
habit, her temple pressing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on
the far end of the meadow with the quiet of one lost in meditation.
She was milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the
milking-side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form and her white
curtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo
cut from the dun background of the cow.

She did not know that Clare had followed her round, and that he sat
under his cow watching her.  The stillness of her head and features
was remarkable: she might have been in a trance, her eyes open, yet
unseeing.  Nothing in the picture moved but Old Pretty's tail and
Tess's pink hands, the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic pulsation
only, as if they were obeying a reflex stimulus, like a beating
heart.

How very lovable her face was to him.  Yet there was nothing ethereal
about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation.  And
it was in her mouth that this culminated.  Eyes almost as deep and
speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as
arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen
nothing to equal on the face of the earth.  To a young man with the
least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red
top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening.  He had never before
seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such
persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with
snow.  Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand.  But
no--they were not perfect.  And it was the touch of the imperfect
upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was
that which gave the humanity.

Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he
could reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again
confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an _aura_
over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced
a qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological
process, a prosaic sneeze.

She then became conscious that he was observing her; but she would
not show it by any change of position, though the curious dream-like
fixity disappeared, and a close eye might easily have discerned that
the rosiness of her face deepened, and then faded till only a tinge
of it was left.

The influence that had passed into Clare like an excitation from the
sky did not die down.  Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears,
fell back like a defeated battalion.  He jumped up from his seat,
and, leaving his pail to be kicked over if the milcher had such a
mind, went quickly towards the desire of his eyes, and, kneeling down
beside her, clasped her in his arms.

Tess was taken completely by surprise, and she yielded to his embrace
with unreflecting inevitableness.  Having seen that it was really her
lover who had advanced, and no one else, her lips parted, and she
sank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like an
ecstatic cry.

He had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth, but he
checked himself, for tender conscience' sake.

"Forgive me, Tess dear!" he whispered.  "I ought to have asked.
I--did not know what I was doing.  I do not mean it as a liberty.
I am devoted to you, Tessy, dearest, in all sincerity!"

Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled; and seeing two
people crouching under her where, by immemorial custom, there should
have been only one, lifted her hind leg crossly.

"She is angry--she doesn't know what we mean--she'll kick over the
milk!" exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free herself, her eyes
concerned with the quadruped's actions, her heart more deeply
concerned with herself and Clare.

She slipped up from her seat, and they stood together, his arm still
encircling her.  Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill.

"Why do you cry, my darling?" he said.

"O--I don't know!" she murmured.

As she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became
agitated and tried to withdraw.

"Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last," said he, with a
curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart
had outrun his judgement.  "That I--love you dearly and truly I need
not say.  But I--it shall go no further now--it distresses you--I am
as surprised as you are.  You will not think I have presumed upon
your defencelessness--been too quick and unreflecting, will you?"

"N'--I can't tell."

He had allowed her to free herself; and in a minute or two the
milking of each was resumed.  Nobody had beheld the gravitation of
the two into one; and when the dairyman came round by that screened
nook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that
the markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere
acquaintance.  Yet in the interval since Crick's last view of them
something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for
their two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the
dairyman would have despised, as a practical man; yet which was based
upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of
so-called practicalities.  A veil had been whisked aside; the tract
of each one's outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward--for a
short time or for a long.

END OF PHASE THE THIRD

Phase the Fourth: The Consequence

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTESCHAPTER 23 Summary Tess has been on the farm for two months before she goes on her first outing. Tess and her co-workers dress in their best clothes and set out for Mellstock Church. On the way, they find the route is flooded due to heavy rains the day before. Angel, who is out in the field, sees their difficulty and comes to their rescue. He carries each of them across the water. When Tess's turn comes, Angel's ardent admiration for her is revealed again. He tells her he has carried "three Leahs to get one Rachel," a clear Biblical reference to her beauty. He also takes as long as possible in carrying Tess across. Seeing his obvious attraction to her, the other maids conclude that they do not stand a chance with Angel against Tess. Pained by all this, Tess tells them that if Angel ever proposes to her, she will refuse him. Later Tess is relieved to hear from the other milkmaids that Angel's parents have chosen a girl for him to marry. However, Angel surprises her by his confession of his sincere love for her. Notes In this chapter, Hardy compares and contrasts Tess with the other milkmaids. Like them, she feels at home in the country, enjoys her work, takes pleasure in small things, and seems to take an interest in men. But Hardy also stresses how she is different from the others. She is more beautiful, more refined, and more educated than the others. She stands out from the crowd, and that is why Angel has grown attached to her. After their excursion, the milkmaids are all talk about Angel and his kindness in carrying them through the water. They all cherish the beautiful moments in his company and openly admit they love him. They also realize that Angel prefers Tess to them and express no jealousy. Tess, however, makes it clear that she is not hindering them in their pursuit of Angel. She even tells them that if Angel asks for her hand in marriage, she will refuse. Knowing nothing about her past, the other three milkmaids are shocked by her revelation. They, however, know their efforts with Angel are to no avail and lament their unsuitability for this handsome man. CHAPTER 24 Summary In this chapter, Angel professes his true love to Tess. On a hot July afternoon, as he works beside Tess milking cows, he is overcome with emotion for her. He leaves his milking and takes her in his arms. At first she responds, but then reigns in her emotions and withdraws from him. He is surprised at her distress over his affection and assures Tess that he loves her. Tears form in Tess's eyes as she realizes that her past stands in the way of love. Angel is unable to fathom the reason for Tess's crying, but knows that he has caused the sadness. He begs for forgiveness. Notes The warm summer weather again provokes passion in this chapter. Angel is no longer able to keep silent about his love for Tess. While they are milking the cows together, he is overcome with emotion, embraces her, and confesses his love. Angel's unveiled love makes things difficult for Tess. Before meeting Angel, Tess has accepted the situation that fate has given her; she knows she can never marry because of her past. At Talbothay's farm, Angel is attracted to her for her beauty, intelligence, and seeming purity. She has tried to discourage him, pointing out the virtues of the other milkmaids to him and trying to avoid his company. Despite her efforts, Angel and Tess have fallen in love with each other. When he first embraces her, Tess, revealing her true feelings, responds to his warmth; but she quickly remembers her predicament and draws away from him. As he confesses his love, she sheds tears caused by her emotions, her confusion, and her disappointment. Because of her past, Tess cannot be at peace. Fate still has the upper hand.