"Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by.

"Yes!" said she. "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you."

"And are you?" She did not reply. "Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?"

"I suppose--because I don't love you."

"You are quite sure?"

"I am angry with you sometimes!"

"Ah, I half feared as much." Nevertheless, Alec did not object to

that confession. He knew that anything was better then frigidity.

"Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?"

"You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here."

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"I haven't offended you often by love-making?"

"You have sometimes."

"How many times?"

"You know as well as I--too many times."

"Every time I have tried?"

She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable

distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows

all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to

hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in

clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or

from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed

the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,

and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.

She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every

morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on

this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,

waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,

her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked

a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the

quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now

nearly one o'clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual

drowsiness. In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against

him. D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,

turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to

support her. This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those

sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a

little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his

balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,

though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.




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