第139章

`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.