Tess of the dUrbervilles - Page 220/283

It was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time,

and one would almost have thought that winter was over. She had

hardly finished her dinner when d'Urberville's figure darkened the

window of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to

herself to-day. Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she

could hardly in reason run away. D'Urberville's knock, his walk up

to the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his

air when she last saw him. They seemed to be acts of which the doer

was ashamed. She thought that she would not open the door; but, as

there was no sense in that either, she arose, and having lifted the

latch stepped back quickly. He came in, saw her, and flung himself

down into a chair before speaking.

"Tess--I couldn't help it!" he began desperately, as he wiped his

heated face, which had also a superimposed flush of excitement. "I

felt that I must call at least to ask how you are. I assure you I

had not been thinking of you at all till I saw you that Sunday; now I

cannot get rid of your image, try how I may! It is hard that a good

woman should do harm to a bad man; yet so it is. If you would only

pray for me, Tess!" The suppressed discontent of his manner was almost pitiable, and yet

Tess did not pity him. "How can I pray for you," she said, "when I am forbidden to believe

that the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my

account?"

"You really think that?"

"Yes. I have been cured of the presumption of thinking otherwise."

"Cured? By whom?"

"By my husband, if I must tell."

"Ah--your husband--your husband! How strange it seems! I remember

you hinted something of the sort the other day. What do you really

believe in these matters, Tess?" he asked. "You seem to have no

religion--perhaps owing to me."

"But I have. Though I don't believe in anything supernatural."

D'Urberville looked at her with misgiving. "Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?"

"A good deal of it." "H'm--and yet I've felt so sure about it," he said uneasily.

"I believe in the SPIRIT of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my

dear husband... But I don't believe--" Here she gave her negations