"I have thought over what you say," she remarked to him, moving her
forefinger over the tablecloth, her other hand, which bore the ring
that mocked them both, supporting her forehead. "It is quite true,
all of it; it must be. You must go away from me."
"But what can you do?"
"I can go home." Clare had not thought of that. "Are you sure?" he inquired.
"Quite sure. We ought to part, and we may as well get it past and
done. You once said that I was apt to win men against their better
judgement; and if I am constantly before your eyes I may cause you
to change your plans in opposition to your reason and wish; and
afterwards your repentance and my sorrow will be terrible."
"And you would like to go home?" he asked. "I want to leave you, and go home."
"Then it shall be so." Though she did not look up at him, she started. There was a
difference between the proposition and the covenant, which she had
felt only too quickly. "I feared it would come to this," she murmured, her countenance
meekly fixed. "I don't complain, Angel, I--I think it best. What
you said has quite convinced me. Yes, though nobody else should
reproach me if we should stay together, yet somewhen, years hence,
you might get angry with me for any ordinary matter, and knowing what
you do of my bygones, you yourself might be tempted to say words, and
they might be overheard, perhaps by my own children. O, what only
hurts me now would torture and kill me then! I will go--to-morrow."
"And I shall not stay here. Though I didn't like to initiate it, I
have seen that it was advisable we should part--at least for a while,
till I can better see the shape that things have taken, and can write
to you." Tess stole a glance at her husband. He was pale, even tremulous;
but, as before, she was appalled by the determination revealed in the
depths of this gentle being she had married--the will to subdue the
grosser to the subtler emotion, the substance to the conception, the
flesh to the spirit. Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead
leaves upon the tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascendency.
He may have observed her look, for he explained-"I think of people more kindly when I am away from them"; adding cynically, "God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day,
for weariness; thousands have done it!"