Across these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick
transit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining
overhead if she had not seen them there--the vastest things of the
universe imaged in objects so mean.
The place to which they had travelled to-day was in the same
valley as Talbothays, but some miles lower down the river; and the
surroundings being open, she kept easily in sight of him. Away from
the house the road wound through the meads, and along these she
followed Clare without any attempt to come up with him or to attract
him, but with dumb and vacant fidelity.
At last, however, her listless walk brought her up alongside him, and
still he said nothing. The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great
after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now. The outdoor air
had apparently taken away from him all tendency to act on impulse;
she knew that he saw her without irradiation--in all her bareness;
that Time was chanting his satiric psalm at her then--
Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee
shall hate;
Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate.
For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;
And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown
shall be pain.
He was still intently thinking, and her companionship had now
insufficient power to break or divert the strain of thought. What a
weak thing her presence must have become to him! She could not help
addressing Clare.
'What have I done--what HAVE I done! I have not told of anything
that interferes with or belies my love for you. You don't think I
planned it, do you? It is in your own mind what you are angry at,
Angel; it is not in me. O, it is not in me, and I am not that
deceitful woman you think me!'
'H'm--well. Not deceitful, my wife; but not the same. No, not the
same. But do not make me reproach you. I have sworn that I will
not; and I will do everything to avoid it.'
But she went on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things
that would have been better left to silence.
'Angel!--Angel! I was a child--a child when it happened! I knew
nothing of men.'
'You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit.'
'Then will you not forgive me?'
'I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.'
'And love me?'
To this question he did not answer.
'O Angel--my mother says that it sometimes happens so!--she knows
several cases where they were worse than I, and the husband has not
minded it much--has got over it at least. And yet the woman had not
loved him as I do you!'
'Don't, Tess; don't argue. Different societies, different manners.
You almost make me say you are an unapprehending peasant woman, who
have never been initiated into the proportions of social things.
