He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the

banister. Was he going to throw her down? Self-solicitude was near

extinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart

on the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this

precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror. If

they could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit,

how desirable. However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support

of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips--lips in the day-time

scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and

descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken

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him, and they reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his

hands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar

and passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge

of the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for

extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so

that he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much

from his burden. Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction

of the river a few yards distant.

His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and

she found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might

have done. So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him

that it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute

possession, to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling,

under the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that he

really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off,

even if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself

the right of harming her.

Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of--that Sunday morning when he

had borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who

had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which

Tess could hardly admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her,

but proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining

mill, at length stood still on the brink of the river.

Its waters, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently

divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves

around little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying

themselves as a broad main stream further on. Opposite the spot to

which he had brought her was such a general confluence, and the river

was proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was a narrow

foot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away,

leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the

speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and

Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young

men walking across upon it as a feat in balancing. Her husband had

possibly observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the

plank, and, sliding one foot forward, advanced along it.




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