 chapters 53 and 54 of Tests of the Durbovilles. CHAPTER XVIII It was evening at Emmits de Vicarage. The two customary candles were burning under their green shades in the vicar's study, but he had not been sitting there. Occasionally he came in, stirred the small fire which sufficed for the increasing mildness of the spring, and went out again, sometimes pausing at the front door, going on to the drawing-room, then returning again to the front door. It faced westward, and though the gloom prevailed inside, there was still light enough without to see with distinctness. Mrs. Clare, who had been sitting in the drawing-room, followed him hither. Plenty of time yet, said the vicar. He doesn't reach Chalk Newton till six, even if the train should be punctual, and ten miles of country road, five of them in Crimacrock Lane are not jogged over in a hurry by our old horse. But he has done it in an hour with us, my dear. Years ago. Thus they passed the minutes, each well knowing that this was only a wasted breath, the one essential being simply to wait. At length there was a slight noise in the lane, and the old pony-shays appeared indeed outside the railings. They saw a light there from a form which they affected to recognise, but would actually have passed by in the street without identifying had he not got out of their carriage at the particular moment when a particular person was due. Mrs. Clare rushed through the dark passage to the door, and her husband came more slowly after her. The new arrival, who was just about to enter, saw their anxious faces in the doorway, and the gleam of the west in their spectacles, because they confronted the last rays of day, but they could only see his shape against the light. Oh, my boy, my boy, come home again at last, said Mrs. Clare, who cared no more at that moment for the stains of heterodoxy which had caused all this separation than for the dust upon his clothes. What woman indeed, among the most faithful adherents of the truth, believes the promises and threats of the word in the sense in which she believes in her own children, or would not throw her theology to the wind if waited against their happiness. As soon as they reached the room where the candles were lighted, she looked at his face. Oh, it is not, angel, not my son, the angel who went away. She cried in all the irony of sorrow as she turned herself aside. His father, too, was shocked to see him, so reduced was that figure from its former contours by worry and the bad season that Clare had experienced in the climate to which he had so rashly hurried in his first aversion to the mockery of events at home. You could see the skeleton behind the man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton. He matched Crivelli's dead Christus, his sunken eye pits were of morbid hue, and the light in his eyes had waned. The angular hollows and lines of his aged ancestors had succeeded to their reign in his face twenty years before their time. I was ill over there, you know, he said. I'm all right now. As if, however, to falsify this assertion, his leg seemed to give way, and he suddenly sat down to save himself from falling. It was only a slight attack of faintness, resulting from the tedious day's journey and the excitement of arrival. As any letter come for me today, he asked, I received the last you sent on by the nearest chance, and after considerable delay through being inland, or I might have come sooner. It was from your wife, we supposed. It was. Only one other had recently come. They had not sent it on to him, knowing he would start for home so soon. He hastily opened the letter produced, and was much disturbed to read in Tess's handwriting the sentiments expressed in her last hurried scrawl to him. Oh, why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel? I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you. You know that I did not intend to wrong you. Why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed. I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands. Tea. It is quite true, said Angel, throwing down the letter. Perhaps she will never be reconciled to me. Don't, Angel, be so anxious about a mere child of the soil, said his mother. Child of the soil? Well, we are all children of the soil. I wish she were so in the sense you mean, but let me now explain to you what I have never explained before, that her father is a descendant in the male line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good many others who lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, and our dubbed sons of the soil. He soon retired to bed, and the next morning, feeling exceedingly unwell, he remained in his room pondering. The circumstances amid which he had left Tess were such that, though, while on the south of the equator, and just in receipt of her loving epistle, it had seemed the easiest thing in the world to rush back into her arms the moment he chose to forgive her. Now that he had arrived, it was not so easy as it had seemed. She was passionate, and her present letter, showing that her estimate of him had changed under his delay, too justly changed, he sadly owned, made him ask himself if it would be wise to confront her unannounced in the presence of her parents. Supposing that her love had indeed turned to dislike during the last weeks of separation, a sudden meeting might lead to better words. Claire therefore thought it would be best to prepare Tess and her family by sending a line to Marlott, announcing his return, and his hope that she was still living with them there, as he had arranged for her to do when he left England. He dispatched the inquiry that very day, and before the week was out there came a short reply from Mrs Durberfield, which did not remove his embarrassment, for it bore no address, though to his surprise it was not written from Marlott. Sir, I write these few lines to say that my data is away from me at present, and I am not sure when she will return, but I will let you know as soon as she do. I do not feel at liberty to tell you where she is temply biding. I should say that me and my family have left Marlott for some time. It was such a relief to Claire to hear that Tess was at least apparently well that her mother's stiff reticence as to her whereabouts did not long distress him. They were all angry with him evidently. He would wait till Mrs Durberfield could inform him of Tess's return, which her letter implied to be soon. He deserved no more. His had been a love which alters when it alteration finds. He had undergone some strange experiences in his absence. He had seen the virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in a corporeal friny. He had thought of the woman taken and set in the midst, as one deserving to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being made a queen, and he had asked himself why he had not judged Tess constructively rather than by graphically, by the will rather than by the deed. A day or two passed while he waited at his father's house for the promised second note from Joan Durberfield, and indirectly to recover a little more strength. The strength showed signs of coming back, but there was no sign of Joan's letter. Then he hunted up the old letter sent onto him in Brazil, which Tess had written from Flint Camache, and reread it. The sentences touched him now as much as when he had first perused them. I must cry to you in my trouble. I have no one else. I think I must die if you do not come soon, or tell me to come to you. Please, please, not to be just, only a little kind to me. If you would come, I could die in your arms. I would be well content to do that, if so be you had forgiven me. If you will send me one little line and say, I am coming. I will bide on, Angel. Oh, so cheerfully. Think how it do hurt my head not to see you ever, ever. Ah, if I could only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day, as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you to show pity to your poor lonely one. I would be content, I, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not as your wife, so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine. I long for only one thing in heaven or earth, or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear. Come to me, come to me, and save me from what threatens me. Claire determined that he would not believe in her more recent and severe regard of him, but would go and find her immediately. He asked his father if she had applied for any money during his absence. His father returned a negative, and then for the first time it occurred to Angel that her pride had stood in her way, and that she had suffered privation. From his remarks, his parents now gathered the real reason of the separation, and their Christianity was such that, reprobates being their especial care, the tenderness towards Tess, which her blood, her simplicity, even her poverty, had not engendered, was instantly excited by her sin. Whilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for his journey, he glanced over a poor, plain missive, also lately come to hand, the one from Marion and his Hewitt, beginning, Honoured sir, look to your wife if you do love her as much as she do love you, and signed from two well-wishers. End of chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 54 In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, whenced his mother watched his thin figure as it disappeared into the street. He had declined to borrow his father's old mare, well knowing of its necessity to the household. He went to the inn, where he hired a trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing. In a very few minutes after he was driving up the hill out of the town, which, three or four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended with such hopes, and ascended with such shattered purposes. Benville Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and trees purple with buds. But he was looking at other things, and only recalled himself to the scene sufficiently to enable him to keep the way. In something less than an hour and a half, he had skirted the south of the King's Hintock estates, and ascended to the untoward solitude of Cross in hand, the unholy stone whereupon Tess had been compelled by Alec Derbeville in his whim of reformation to swear the strange oath that she would never willfully tempt him again. The pale and blasted nettle stems of the preceding year even now lingered nakedly in the banks, young green nettles of the present spring growing from their roots. Hence he went along the verge of the upland overhanging the other Hintocks, and turning to the right plunged into the bracing calcareous region of Flint-Kamash, the address from which she had written to him in one of her letters, and which he supposed to be the place of sojourn referred to by her mother. Here, of course, he did not find her. What added to his depression was the discovery that no Mrs. Clare had ever been heard of by the cottages or by the farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough by her Christian name. His name she had obviously never used during her separation, and her dignified sense of their total severance was shown not much less by this abstention than by the hardships she had chosen to undergo, of which he now learnt for the first time, rather than apply to his father for more funds. From this place they told him Tess Durbefield had gone, without due notice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmore, and it therefore became necessary to find Mrs. Durbefield. She had told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott and inquire for it. The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess was quite smooth tongue to Clare, and lent him a horse and a man to drive him towards Marlott. The geek he had arrived in, being sent back to Emminster, for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was reached. Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and sending it back with the man who had driven him he put up at Emmin, and next day entered on foot the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth. It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the gardens and foliage. The so-called spring was but a winter overlaid with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his expectations. The house in which Tess had passed the years of her childhood was now inhabited by another family who had never known her. The new residents were in the garden, taking as much interest in their own doings as if the Homestead had never passed its primal time in conjunction with the histories of others, besides which the histories of these were but a tale told by an idiot. They walked about the garden's path with thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost, bringing their actions at every moment in jarring collision with the demon ghosts behind them, talking as though the time when Tess lived there were not one wit-intenser in story than now. Even the spring-birds sang over their heads as if they thought there was nobody missing in particular. On enquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even the name of their predecessors was a failing memory, Claire learned that John Derbefield was dead, that his widow and children had left Marlott declaring that they were going to live at Kingsbeer, but instead of doing so had gone on to another place they mentioned. By this time Claire abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess and hastened back from its hated presence without once looking back. His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the dance. It was as bad as the house, even worse. He passed on through the churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a somewhat superior design to the rest. The inscription ran thus. In memory of John Derbefield, rightly Derbeville, of the once powerful family of that name, and direct descendant through an illustrious line from Sir Pagan Derbeville, one of the knights of the Conqueror, died March 10th, 18th. How are the mighty fallen? Some man, apparently the sexton, had observed Claire standing there and drew nigh. Ah, sir, that's a man who didn't want to lie here and wish to be carried to Kingsbeer, where his ancestors be. And why didn't they respect his wish? Oh, no money, bless your soul, sir. Why, there I wouldn't wish to say it everywhere, but even this headstone, for all the flourish wrote upon it, is not paid for. Ah, who put it up? The man told the name of a mason in the village, and on leaving the churchyard Claire called the mason's house. He found that the statement was true and paid the bill. This done, he turned in the direction of the migrants. The distance was too long for a walk, but Claire felt such a strong desire for isolation that at first he would neither hire a conveyance nor go to a circuitous line of railway by which he might eventually reach the place. At Chaston, however, he found he must hire, but the way was such that he did not enter Jones Place until about seven o'clock in the evening, having traversed a distance of over twenty miles since leaving Marlott. The village, being small, he had little difficulty in finding Mrs. Durbefield's tenement, which was a house in a walled garden, remote from the main road, where she had stowed away her clumsy old furniture as best she could. It was plain that for some reason or other she had not wished him to visit her, and he felt his call to be somewhat of an intrusion. She came to the door herself, and the light from the evening sky fell upon her face. It was the first time that Claire had ever met her, but he was too preoccupied to observe more than she was still a handsome woman in the garb of a respectable widow. He was obliged to explain that he was Tess's husband and his object in coming here, and he did it awkwardly enough. I want to see her at once, he added. You said you would write to me again, but you have not done so. Because she's not come home, said Joan. Do you know if she's well? I don't. You are too, sir, said she. I admitted. Where is she staying? From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed her embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her cheek. I don't know exactly where she's staying, she answered. She was, but where was she? Well, she is not there now. In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by this time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skirts, the youngest murmured, Is this the gentleman who's going to marry Tess? He has married her. Joan whispered, Go inside. Claire saw her efforts for reticence and asked, Do you think Tess would wish me to try to find her? If not, of course. I don't think she would. Are you sure? I'm sure she wouldn't. He was turning away, and then he thought of Tess's tender letter. I am sure she would, he retorted, passionately. I know her better than you do. That's very likely, sir, for I have never really known her. Please tell me her address, Mrs. Durbefield, in kindness to a lonely, wretched man. Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with her vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, in a low voice, She is at Sanborn. Ah, we're there. Sanborn has become a large place, they say. I don't know more particularly than I have said, Sanborn. For myself I was never there. It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and he pressed her no more. Are you in want of anything? he said gently. No, sir. She replied, We're fairly well provided for. Without entering the house, Claire turned away. There was a station three miles ahead, and, paying off his coachman, he walked thither. The last train to Sanborn left shortly after, and it bore Claire on its wheels. End of Chapter 54. Chapters 55 and 56 of Tess of the Durbevilles. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Durbevilles by Thomas Hardy. Read by Adrian Pretzelis. Chapter 55. At eleven o'clock that night, having secured a bed at one of the hotels, and telegraphed his address to his father immediately on his arrival, he walked out into the streets of Sanborn. It was too late to call on or inquire for anyone, and he rockedly postponed his purpose till the morning, but he could not retire to rest just yet. This fashionable watering place, with its eastern and its western stations, its piers, its groves of pines, its promenades, and its covered gardens, was, to Angel Claire, like a fairy place, suddenly created by the stroke of a wand, and allowed to get a little dusty. An outlying eastern tract of the enormous Eggdon Waste was close at hand. Yet, on the very verge of that tawny piece of antiquity, such a glittering novelty as this pleasure-city had chosen to spring up. Within the space of a mile from its outskirts, every irregularity of the soil was prehistoric. Every channel, an undisturbed British trackway, not a sod having been turned there since the days of the Caesars. Yet the exotic had grown here, suddenly as the Prophet's Gourd, and had drawn hither Tess. By the midnight lamps he went up and down the winding way of this new world in an old one, and could discern between the trees and against the stars the lofty roofs, chimneys, gazebos, and towers of the numerous fanciful residences of which the place was composed. It was a city of detached mansions, a Mediterranean lounging place on the English Channel, and as seen now by night it seemed even more imposing than it was. The sea was near at hand, but not intrusive. It murmured, and he thought it was the pines. The pines murmured in precisely the same tones, and he thought they were the sea. Where could Tess possibly be? A cottage girl, his young wife, amidst all this wealth and fashion. The more he pondered, the more was he puzzled. Were there any cows to milk here? There were certainly no fields to till. She was probably engaged to do something in one of these large houses, and he sauntered along, looking at the chamber windows and their lights going out one by one, and wondered which of them might be hers. Conjecture was useless, and just after twelve o'clock he entered and went to bed. Before putting out his light he re-read Tess's impassioned letter. Sleep, however, he could not. So near her, yet so far from her. And he continually lifted the window blind and regarded the backs of the opposite houses, and wondered behind which of the sashes she reposed at that moment. He might almost as well have sat up all night. In the morning he arose at seven, and shortly after went out, taking the direction of the chief post-office. At the door he met an intelligent postman coming out with letters for the morning delivery. Do you know the address of a Mrs. Clare? asked Angel. The postman shook his head. Then, remembering that she would have been likely to continue the use of her maiden name, Clare said, of a Miss Derbyfield? Derbyfield. This was also strange to the postman addressed. There's visitors coming and going every day as you know, sir, he said, and without the name of their house it is impossible to find them. One of his comrades hastening out at that moment, the name was repeated to him. I know no name of Derbyfield, but there is the name of Derbyville at the Herons, said the second. That's it, cried Clare, pleased to think that she had reverted to the real pronunciation. What place is the Herons? A stuylish Lodgin Else, tis all Lodgin Else's ear, blessy. Clare received directions how to find the house, and hastened thither, arriving with the milkman. The Herons, though an ordinary villa, stood in its own grounds, and was certainly the last place in which one would have expected to find lodgings, so private was its appearance. If poor Tess was a servant here, as he feared, she would go to the back door to that milkman, and he was inclined to go hither also. However, in his doubts he turned to the front, and rang. The hour being early, the landlady herself opened the door. Clare inquired for Teresa Derbyville, or Derbyfield. Mrs. Derbyville? Yes. Tess then passed as a married woman, and he felt glad even though she had not adopted his name. Would you kindly tell her that her relative is anxious to see her? It's rather early. What name shall I give, sir? Angel. Mr. Angel? No, Angel is my Christian name. She'll understand. I'll see if she's awake. He was shown into the front room, the dining room, and looked out through the spring curtains at the little lawn and the rhododendrons and other shrubs upon it. Obviously her position was by no means so bad as he had feared, and it crossed his mind that she must somehow have claimed and sold the jewels to attain it. He did not blame her for one moment. Soon his sharpened ear detected footsteps upon the stairs, at which his heart thumped so painfully that he could hardly stand firm. Dear me, what will she think of me so altered as I am, he said to himself, and the door opened. Tess appeared on the threshold, not at all as he had expected to see her, bewilderingly otherwise indeed. Her great natural beauty was, if not heightened, rendered more obvious by her attire. She was loosely wrapped in a cashmere dressing gown of grey-white, embroidered in half-morning tints, and she wore slippers of the same hue. Her neck rose out of a frill of down, and her well-remembered cable of dark brown hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the back of her head, and partly hanging on her shoulder, the evident result of haste. He had held out his arms, but they had fallen again to his side, for she had not come forward, remaining still in the opening of the doorway. Mere yellow skeleton that he was now, he felt the contrast between them, and thought his appearance distasteful to her. Tess, he said huskily, can you forgive me for going away? Can't you come to me? How do you get to be like this? It is too late, said she, her voice sounding hard through the room, her eyes shining unnaturally. I did not think rightly of you. I did not see you as you were, he continued to plead. I have learnt to since, dearest Tessie-Mine. Too late, too late, she said, waving her hand in the impatience of a person whose tortures cause every instant to seem an hour. Don't come close to me, Angel. No, you must not. Keep away. But don't you love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled down by illness? You are not so fickle. I am come on purpose for you. My mother and father will welcome you now. Yes, oh yes, yes. But I say, I say it is too late. She seemed to feel like a fugitive in a dream who tries to move away, but cannot. Don't you know all? Don't you know it? Yet, how do you come here if you do not know? I inquired, here and there, and I found the way. I waited, and waited for you, she went on, her tone suddenly resuming their old fluty pathos. But you did not come, and I wrote to you, and you did not come. He kept on saying you would never come any more, and that I was a foolish woman. And he was very kind to me, and to mother, and to all of us after father's death. He, I don't understand. He has won me back to him. Claire looked at her keenly, then gathering her meaning flagged like one plague stricken, and his glance sank. It fell on her hands, which, once rosy, were now white, and more delicate. She continued, he is upstairs. I hate him now, because he told me a lie, that you would not come again, and you have come. These clothes are what he put upon me. I don't care what he did with me. But will you go again, angel, please? Never come any more. They stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their eyes with a joylessness pitiful to see. Both seemed to implore something to shelter them from reality. Ah, it is my fault, said Claire. But he could not get on. Speech was as inexpressive as silence. But he had a vague consciousness of one thing, though it was not clear to him till later, that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognize the body before him as hers, allowing it to drift like a corpse upon the current in a direction disassociated from its living will. A few instance passed, and he found that Tess had gone. His face grew colder and more shrunken as he stood, concentrated on the moment, and, a minute or two after, he found himself in the street, walking along. He did not know wither. End of Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Mrs. Brooks, the landlady who was the householder at the Herons, and owner of all the handsome furniture, was not a person of an unusually curious turn of mind. She was too deeply materialized, poor woman, by her long and enforced bondage to that arithmetical demon profit and loss, to retain much curiosity for its own sake, and apart from lodger's pockets. Nevertheless, the visit of Angel Claire to her well-paying tenants, Mr. and Mrs. Durberville, as she deemed them, was sufficiently exceptional in point of time and manner to reinvigorate the feminine proclivity which had been stifled down as useless, save in its bearings to the letting-trade. Tess had spoken to her husband from the doorway, without entering the room, and Mrs. Brooks, who stood within the pastly closed door of her own setting room at the back of the passage, could hear fragments of the conversation, if conversation it could be called, between those two wretched songs. She heard Tess re-ascend the stairs to the first floor, and the departure of Claire, and the closing of the front door behind him. Then the door of the room above was shut, and Mrs. Brooks knew that Tess had re-entered her apartment. As the young lady was not fully dressed, Mrs. Brooks knew that she would not emerge again for some time. She accordingly ascended the stairs softly, and stood at the door of the front room, a drawing room connected with the room immediately behind it, which was a bedroom, by folding doors in the common manner. This first floor containing Mrs. Brooks' best apartments had been taken by the week by the Durbervilles. The back room was now in silence, but from the drawing room there came sounds. All that she could at first distinguish of them was one syllable, continually repeated in a low note of moaning, as if it came from a soul bound to some Ioxionian wheel. Then a silence, then a heavy sigh, and again, the landlady looked through the keyhole. Only a small space of the room inside was visible, but within that space came a corner of the breakfast table, which was already spread for the meal, and also a chair beside. Over the seat of the chair Tess's face was bowed, her posture being a kneeling one in front of it, her hands were clasped over her head, the skirts of her dressing gown, and the embroidery of her nightgown flowed upon the floor behind her, and her stockingless feet, from which the slippers had fallen, protruded upon the carpet. It was from her lips that came the murmur of unspeakable despair. Then a man's voice from the adjoining bedroom, what's the matter? She did not answer, but went on in a tone which was a soliloquy rather than an exclamation, and a dirge rather than a soliloquy. Mrs. Brooks could only catch a portion, and then my dear, dear husband came home to me, and I did not know it, and you had used your cruel persuasion upon me. You did not stop using it, no, you did not stop my little sisters and brothers and my mother's needs, they were the things you moved me by, and you said my husband would never come back, never, and you taunted me and said what a simpleton I was to expect him, and at last I believed you and gave way, and then he came back. Now he is gone, gone a second time, and I have lost him now forever, and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any more, only hate me. Oh yes, I have lost him now again because of you. In writhing with her head on the chair, she turned her face towards the door, and Mrs. Brooks could see the pain upon it, and that her lips were bleeding from the clench of her teeth upon them, and that the long lashes of her closed eyes stuck in wet tags to her cheeks, and she continued, and he is dying, he looks as if he is dying, and my sin will kill him and not kill me. Oh you have torn my life alter pieces, made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again. My own true husband will never, never, oh god I cannot bear this I cannot. There were more and sharper words from the man than a sudden rustle. She had sprung to her feet, Mrs. Brooks thinking that the speaker was coming to rush out of the door, hastily retreated at down the stairs. She need not have done so, however, for the door of the sitting room was not opened, but Mrs. Brooks felt it unsafe to watch on the landing again, and entered her own parlor below. She could hear nothing through the floor, though she listened intently, and thereupon went to the kitchen to finish her interrupted breakfast. Coming up presently to the front room on the ground floor, she took up some sewing, waiting for her lodges to ring that she might take away the breakfast, which she meant to do herself, to discover what was the matter, if possible. Overhead, as she sat, she could now hear the floorboards slightly creak, as if someone were walking about, and presently the movement was explained by the rustle of garments against the banisters, the opening and the closing of the front door, and the form of tess passing to the gate on her way into the street. She was fully dressed now in the walking costume of a well-to-do young lady in which she had arrived. With the sole addition that over her hat and black feathers a veil was drawn. Mrs. Brooks had not been able to catch any word of farewell temporary or otherwise between her tenants at the door above. They might have quarrelled, or Mr. Durberville might still be asleep, for he was not an early riser. She went into the back room, which was more especially her own apartment, and continued her sewing there. The Lady Lodger did not return, nor did the gentleman ring his bell. Mrs. Brooks pondered on the delay, and on what possible relation the visitor who had called so early bore to the couple upstairs. In reflecting, she lent back in her chair. As she did so, her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling, till they were arrested by a spot in the middle of its white surface, which she had never noticed there before. It was about the size of a wafer, when she first observed it, that it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts. Mrs. Brooks had strange qualms of misgiving. She got upon the table, and touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers. It was damp, and she fancied that it was a bloodstain. Descending from the table, she left the parlour, and went upstairs, intending to enter the room overhead, which was the bed-chamber at the back of the drawing-room. But, nervous woman, as she had now become, she could not bring herself to attempt the handle. She listened. The dead silence within was broken only by a regular beat. Mrs. Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, and ran into the street. A man she knew, one of the workmen employed at an adjoining villa, was passing by, and she begged him to come in and go upstairs with her. She feared something had happened to one of her lodges. The workman assented, and followed him, and went to the front door. She feared something had happened to one of her lodges. The workman assented, and followed her to the landing. She opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back for him to pass in, entering herself behind him. The room was empty. The breakfast, a substantial repast of coffee, eggs, and cold ham lay spread upon the table untouched, as when she had taken it up, accepting that the carving-knife was missing. She asked the man to go through the folding doors into the joining-room. He opened the doors, entered a step or two, and came back almost instantly with a rigid face. My good God! The gentleman in bed is dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife. A lot of blood had run down upon the floor. The alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately been so quiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, a surgeon among the rest. The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched the heart of the victim, who lay on his back pale, fixed, dead, as if he had scarcely moved after the inflection of the blow. In a quarter of an hour, the news that a gentleman who was a temporary visitor to the town had been stabbed in his bed, spread through every street and villa of the popular watering place. Meanwhile, Angel Clair had walked automatically along the way by which he had come, and entering his hotel sat down over the breakfast, staring at nothingness. He went on eating and drinking unconsciously, till on a sudden he demanded his bill, having paid which he took his dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him and went out. At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him, a few words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his address, and informing that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to and been accepted by Mercy Chant. Clair crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station. Reaching it he found that there would be no train leaving for an hour or more. He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of an hour, felt that he could wait there no longer. Broken in heart and numbed, he had nothing to hurry for, but he wished to get out of a town which had been the scene of such inexperience, and turned to walk towards the first station onward and let the train pick him up there. The highway that he followed was open, and, at a little distance, dipped into a valley across which it could be seen running from edge to edge. He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and was climbing the western eclivity when, pausing for breath, he unconsciously looked back. Why he did so he could not say, but something seemed to impale him to the act. The tape-like surface of the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he gazed, a moving spot intruding on the white peculiarity of its perspective. It was a human figure running. Clair waited with a dim sense that somebody was trying to overtake him. The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him, that even when she came nearer he did not recognise her under the totally changed attire in which he now beheld her. It was not till she was quite close that he could believe her to be Tess. I saw you turn away from the station just before I got there, and I have been following you all this way. She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he did not ask her a single question, but, seizing her hand and pulling it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some fir trees. When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped and looked at her inquiringly. 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 in the mouth with my glove, that I might do it someday 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 love you so much? 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 that 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. Oh, I do. It has 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 him, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently extinguished her moral sense altogether. Unable to realise 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 Durberville blood had led to this aberration, if it were an aberration. Then momentarily flashed through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder might have arisen because the Durbervilles 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 for 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. Then they 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 her antennas, her Apollo even. His sickly face was beautiful as the morning, to her affectionate regard on this day no less than when she had 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 furs, which here abounded for miles. Each clasping the other round the waist, they promenaded under the dry beds of fur 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 lodging somewhere or other, in a lonely cottage, perhaps. Can you walk well, Tessie? Oh yes, I could walk for ever and ever, with your arm round me. Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do, whereupon 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 midday 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 cart of such articles would have attracted attention in the settle of a tavern. He soon returned, with food enough for a 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. I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior of the country, where we can hide for a while, and are less likely to be looked for than anywhere near the coast, Claire remarked. Later on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port. She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly, and straight inland they went. Though the season was an English May, the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was quite warm. Through the latter miles of their walk, their footpath had taken them into the depths of the new forest, and towards evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook and a bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters this desirable mansion to be let furnished, particularly as following with directions to apply to some London agents. Passing through the gate they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and large accommodation. I know it, said Claire. It's Bramhurst Court. You can see that it's shut up, and grass is growing on the drive. Some of the windows are open, said Tess. Just to air the rooms, I suppose. All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to her heads. You are getting tired, my Tess, he said. We'll stop soon, and kissing her sad mouth he again led her onwards. He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should do for rest. They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their hearts failed them, and they sheared off. At length their gate dragged, and they stood still. Could we sleep under the trees? she asked. He thought the season insufficiently advanced. I've been thinking of that empty mansion we passed, he said. Let us go back towards it again. They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood without the entry gate as earlier. He then requested her to stay where she was, whilst he went to see who was within. She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept towards the house. His absence lasted for some considerable time, and when he returned at Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for him. He found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in charge as caretaker, and that she only came there on fine days from the hamlet near to open and shut the windows. She would come to shut them at sunset. Now we can get in through one of the lower windows and rest there, said he. Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility of watches. The door was reached a few steps further, and one of the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess in after him. Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended the staircase. Up here also the shutters were tightly closed, the ventilation being profuncturally done, for this day at least, by opening the whole window in front and an upper window behind. Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches. A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy, old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running figures, apparently Atalanta's race. Rest at last, said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of Viennes. They remained in great quietness till the caretakers should have come to shut the windows, as a precaution putting themselves in total darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should open the door of their chamber for any casual reason. Between six and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they were in. She heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the door, and go away. Then Clare again stole a chink of light from the window, and they shared another meal, till, by and by, they were enveloped in the shades of night, which they had no candle to disperse. End of Chapter 57. Chapters 58 and 59, the final chapters of Tess of the Durbovilles. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Durbovilles by Thomas Hardy. Chapter 58 The night was strangely solemn and still. In the small hours she whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep with her in his arms across the froom stream, at the imminent risk of both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined Abbey. He had never known of that till now. Why didn't you tell me the next day? he said. It might have prevented much misunderstanding and woe. Don't think of what's past, said she. I'm not going to think outside of now. Why should we? Who knows what tomorrow has in store? But it apparently had no sorrow. The morning was wet and foggy, and Clare rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the house, leaving Tess asleep. There was no food on the premises, but there was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the mansion and fetch tea, bread and butter from a shop in a little place two miles beyond, and also a small tin kettle and spirit lamp that they might get fire without smoke. His re-entry woke her, and they breakfasted on what he had brought. They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the night following, and the next, and next. Till, almost without their being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness such as it was. The changes of the weather were their only events, the birds of the new forest, their only company. By tacit consent they hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their wedding day. The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos, over which the present and prior times closed as if it had never been. Whenever he suggested they should leave their shelter and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange unwillingness to move. Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely? she deprecated. What must come will come, and looking through the shutter-clink, all is trouble outside there. Inside here, content. He peeped outside also. It was quite true. Within was affection, union, error forgiven. Outside was the inexorable. And, and, she said, pressing her cheek against his, I fear that what you think of me now may not last. I do not wish to outlive your present feeling for me. I would rather not. I would rather be dead and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may never be known to me that you despised me. I cannot ever despise you. I also hope that. But considering what my life has been, I cannot see why any man should sooner or later be able to help disposing me, how wickedly mad I was. Yet formally, I never could bear to hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to make me cry. They remained yet another day. In the night the dial sky cleared, and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early. The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk. She decided to open the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such a day. Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bed chambers, and was about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay. At that moment she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within. Her slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one so far, and she made for instant retreat. Then, deeming that her hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door, and softly tried the handle. The lock was out of order, but a piece of furniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her opening the door more than an inch or two. A stream of morning light through the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower near his cheek. The caretaker was so struck with their innocent appearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a chair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the other habits in which she had arrived, because she had none else, that her first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave way to a momentary sentimentality over this gentile elopement as it seemed. She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come, to go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery. Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess awoke, and then, clear. Both had a sense that something had disturbed them, though they could not say what, and the uneasy feeling which it engendered grew stronger. As soon as he was dressed he narrowly scanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink. I think we will leave at once, said he. It is a fine day, and I cannot help fancying somebody as about the house. At any rate the woman will be sure to come today. She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly. When they had got into the forest she turned to take a last look at the house. Oh, happy house, good-bye, she said. My life can only be a question of a few weeks. Why should we not have stayed there? Don't say it, Tess. We shall soon get out of this district altogether. We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep straight north. Nobody will think of looking for us there. We should be looked for at the Wessex ports, if we are thought at all. When we are in the north we will get to a port and away. Thus, having persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a beeline northward. Their long repose at the manor-house lent them walking power now, and towards midday they found that they were approaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in their way. He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the afternoon and push onward under the cover of darkness. At dusk Claire purchased food as usual, and then Nightmarch began, the boundary between Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed at about eight o'clock. To walk across country without much regards to roads was not new to Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance. The intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a large river that obstructed them. It was about midnight when they went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps, keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps. The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left hand, but it was lost upon them now. Once out of the town they followed the turnpike road which, after a few miles, plunged across an open plain. Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little. But the moon had now sunk. The cloud seemed to settle almost on their heads, and the night grew as dark as a cave. However, they found their way along, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might not resound, which was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence of any kind. All around was open loneliness and black solitude over which a stiff breeze blew. They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further, when, on a sudden, Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in his front, rising sheer from the grass. They had almost struck themselves against it. What monstrous place is this? said Angel. It hums, said she. How can— He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp. No other sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure. It seemed to be of solid stone without joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers onward, he found that what he had come into contact with was a colossal rectangular pillar. By stretching out his left hand, he could feel a similar one adjoining it. At an infinite height overhead, something made the black sky, blacker, which had the semblance of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They carefully entered beneath and between. The surfaces echoed their soft rustle, but they seemed to be still out of doors. The place was ruthless. Tess drew her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said, What can it be? Feeling sideways, they encountered another tower-like pillar, square and uncompromising as the first. Beyond it another and another. The place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous architraves. A varied temple of the winds, he said. The next pillar was isolated. Others composed a trilothon. Others were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a carriage. And it was so obvious that they made up a forest of monoliths, grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain. The couple advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in its midst. It is Stonehenge, said Claire. The heathen temple, you mean? Yes, older than the centuries, older than the Durbervilles. Well, what shall we do, darling? We may find shelter further on. But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a pillar. Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill grass around, which had dampened her skirts and shoes. I don't want to go any further, Angel, she said, stretching out her hand for his. Can't we bide here? I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, though it does not seem so now. One of my mother's people was a shepherd's ear about, now I think of it, and you used to say at Talberthays that I was a heathen, so now I am at home. He knelt down beside her outstretched form and put his lips upon hers. Sleepy, are you, dear? I think you're lying on an altar. I like very much to be here, she murmured. It is so solemn and lonely, after my great happiness, with nothing but the sky above my face. It seems as if there were no folk in the world, but we too. I know wish there were not, set blazer low. Claire thought she might as well rest here till it should get a little lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her side. Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over lazer low for my sake? She asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind among the pillars. I will. She is so good and simple and pure. Oh, Angel, I wish you would marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly. Oh, if you would. If I lose you, I lose all. I lose all, and she is my sister-in-law. That's nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws continually about Marlott, and lazer low is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing so beautiful. Oh, I could share you with her willingly, when we are spirits. If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her up for your own self. She had all the best of me, without the bad of me, and if she were to become yours, it would almost seem as if death had not divided us. Well, I have said it, I won't mention it again. She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far northeast sky he could see between the pillars a level streak of light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily, like the lid of a pot, letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the towering monoliths and trilothons began to be blackly defined. Did they sacrifice to guard here? asked she. No, said he. Who, too? I believed to the sun. That lofty stone, set away by itself, is in the direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it. This reminds me, dear, she said. You remember you never would interfere with any belief of mine before we were married, and I knew your mind all the same, and thought as you thought, not from any reasons of my own, but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know. He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. Oh, Angel, I fear that means no, said she with a surprised sob, and I wanted so to see you again so much, so much. What, not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well? Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer, and they were again silent. In a minute or two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even the distant parts of the great plain appear dark and near, and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation, which is usual just before day. The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame-shaped sunstone beyond them, and the stone of sacrifice midway. Presently the night wind died out, and the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay still. At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the dip eastward, a mere dot. It was the head of a man approaching them from the hollow beyond the sunstone. Claire wished they had gone onwards, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were. He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw over the prostrate columns another figure. Then, before he was aware, another was at hand on the right, under a trilothon, and another on the left. The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and Claire could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if trained. They all closed in with evident purpose. Her story then was true. Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon, loose stone means of escape, anything, but this time the nearest man was upon him. It is no use, sir, he said, there is sixteen of us on the plane, and the whole country is reared. Let her finish her sleep, he implored in a whisper of the men as they gathered around. When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they showed no objection, and stood, watching her, as still as the pillars around. He went to the stone, and bent over her, holding one poor little hand. Her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a lesser creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their hands and faces as if they were silvered, the remainder of their figures dark, the stones glistened green-gray, the plane still amassed, and the rest of them were still in the ground. The plane still amassed of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her. What is it, Angel? she said, starting up. Have they come from me? Yes, dearest, he said, they have come. It is as it should be, she murmured. Angel, I am almost glad. Yes, glad. This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had enough, and now I shall not live for you to despise me. She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved. I am ready, she said, quietly. End of Chapter 58 Chapter 59 The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, a four-time capital of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a jaly morning. The gabled brick, tile, and free stone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument of lycan. The streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping high street, from the west gate to the medieval cross, from the medieval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was in progress, which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market day. From the western gate, aforesaid, the highway, as every Wintoncestrian knows, ascends along an regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road, from the precincts of the city, two persons were walking rapidly, as if unconscious of the trying ascent, unconscious through preoccupation, though not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through a narrow barred wicket, in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads, which gate of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly. One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other at all budding creature, half girl, half woman, a spiritualized image of Tess, slightly than she, but with the same beautiful eyes. Clare's sister-in-law, Liza Lu, their pale faces seemed to have shrunk to half their natural size. They moved on, hand in hand, and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's two apostles. When they had nearly reached the top of the Great West Hill, the clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the stone. The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent building showing, as in an isometric drawing, among them the broad, cathedral tower, with its normal windows, an immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St. Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the college, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his doll of bread and ale. Behind the city swept the rotand upland of St. Catherine's Hill, further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging above it. Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large red brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity. The whole contrasting greatly in its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by ewes and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this structure. From the middle of the building an ugly, flat-topped, octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot on its shady side and against the light, it seemed to be the one blot on the city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the beauty, that the two gazes were concerned. Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag. Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals in Escalian Frey's had ended his sport with Tess, and the Durberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazes bent themselves down to the earth as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time absolutely motionless. The flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on. End of Chapter 59, and end of Tests of the Durbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzelis in Santa Rosa, California, October 2008.