'Wicked! The idea was unworthy of you beyond description.'
'But, Angel,' she pleaded, enlarging her eyes in calm unconcern upon
him, 'it was thought of entirely on your account--to set you free
without the scandal of the divorce that I thought you would have to
get. I should never have dreamt of doing it on mine. However, to
do it with my own hand is too good for me, after all. It is you, my
ruined husband, who ought to strike the blow. I think I should love
you more, if that were possible, if you could bring yourself to do
it, since there's no other way of escape for 'ee. I feel I am so
utterly worthless! So very greatly in the way!'
'Ssh!'
'Well, since you say no, I won't. I have no wish opposed to yours.'
He knew this to be true enough. Since the desperation of the night
her activities had dropped to zero, and there was no further rashness
to be feared.
Tess tried to busy herself again over the breakfast-table with more
or less success, and they sat down both on the same side, so that
their glances did not meet. There was at first something awkward
in hearing each other eat and drink, but this could not be escaped;
moreover, the amount of eating done was small on both sides.
Breakfast over, he rose, and telling her the hour at which he might
be expected to dinner, went off to the miller's in a mechanical
pursuance of the plan of studying that business, which had been his
only practical reason for coming here.
When he was gone Tess stood at the window, and presently saw his form
crossing the great stone bridge which conducted to the mill premises.
He sank behind it, crossed the railway beyond, and disappeared.
Then, without a sigh, she turned her attention to the room, and began
clearing the table and setting it in order.
The charwoman soon came. Her presence was at first a strain upon
Tess, but afterwards an alleviation. At half-past twelve she
left her assistant alone in the kitchen, and, returning to the
sitting-room, waited for the reappearance of Angel's form behind the
bridge.
About one he showed himself. Her face flushed, although he was a
quarter of a mile off. She ran to the kitchen to get the dinner
served by the time he should enter. He went first to the room where
they had washed their hands together the day before, and as he
entered the sitting-room the dish-covers rose from the dishes as if
by his own motion.
'How punctual!' he said.
'Yes. I saw you coming over the bridge,' said she.
The meal was passed in commonplace talk of what he had been doing
during the morning at the Abbey Mill, of the methods of bolting and
the old-fashioned machinery, which he feared would not enlighten him
greatly on modern improved methods, some of it seeming to have been
in use ever since the days it ground for the monks in the adjoining
conventual buildings--now a heap of ruins. He left the house again
in the course of an hour, coming home at dusk, and occupying himself
through the evening with his papers. She feared she was in the way
