sank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like an
ecstatic cry.
He had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth, but he
checked himself, for tender conscience' sake.
'Forgive me, Tess dear!' he whispered. 'I ought to have asked.
I--did not know what I was doing. I do not mean it as a liberty.
I am devoted to you, Tessy, dearest, in all sincerity!'
Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled; and seeing two
people crouching under her where, by immemorial custom, there should
have been only one, lifted her hind leg crossly.
'She is angry--she doesn't know what we mean--she'll kick over the
milk!' exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free herself, her eyes
concerned with the quadruped's actions, her heart more deeply
concerned with herself and Clare.
She slipped up from her seat, and they stood together, his arm still
encircling her. Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill.
'Why do you cry, my darling?' he said.
'O--I don't know!' she murmured.
As she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became
agitated and tried to withdraw.
'Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last,' said he, with a
curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart
had outrun his judgement. 'That I--love you dearly and truly I need
not say. But I--it shall go no further now--it distresses you--I am
as surprised as you are. You will not think I have presumed upon
your defencelessness--been too quick and unreflecting, will you?'
'N'--I can't tell.'
He had allowed her to free herself; and in a minute or two the
milking of each was resumed. Nobody had beheld the gravitation of
the two into one; and when the dairyman came round by that screened
nook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that
the markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere
acquaintance. Yet in the interval since Crick's last view of them
something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for
their two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the
dairyman would have despised, as a practical man; yet which was based
upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of
so-called practicalities. A veil had been whisked aside; the tract
of each one's outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward--for a
short time or for a long.
END OF PHASE THE THIRD
Phase the Fourth: The Consequence
XXV
Clare, restless, went out into the dusk when evening drew on, she who
had won him having retired to her chamber.
The night was as sultry as the day. There was no coolness after dark
unless on the grass. Roads, garden-paths, the house-fronts, the
barton-walls were warm as hearths, and reflected the noontime
temperature into the noctambulist's face.
He sat on the east gate of the dairy-yard, and knew not what to think
