. "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

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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-




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