From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone, without due

notice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmoor,

and it therefore became necessary to find Mrs Durbeyfield. She had

told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent

as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott

and inquire for it. The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess

was quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to

drive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being sent back

to Emminster; for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was

reached. Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further

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distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and, sending it back with

the man who had driven him, he put up at an inn, and next day entered

on foot the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth.

It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the

gardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid

with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his

expectations.

The house in which Tess had passed the years of her childhood was

now inhabited by another family who had never known her. The new

residents were in the garden, taking as much interest in their own

doings as if the homestead had never passed its primal time in

conjunction with the histories of others, beside which the histories

of these were but as a tale told by an idiot. They walked about the

garden paths with thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost,

bringing their actions at every moment in jarring collision with the

dim ghosts behind them, talking as though the time when Tess lived

there were not one whit intenser in story than now. Even the spring

birds sang over their heads as if they thought there was nobody

missing in particular. On inquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even the name of

their predecessors was a failing memory, Clare learned that John

Durbeyfield was dead; that his widow and children had left Marlott,

declaring that they were going to live at Kingsbere, but instead of

doing so had gone on to another place they mentioned. By this time

Clare abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened

away from its hated presence without once looking back.

His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the

dance. It was as bad as the house--even worse. He passed on through

the churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a

somewhat superior design to the rest.




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