parsonage, for what he had to complete he wished to get done quickly.
As the last duty before leaving this part of England it was necessary
for him to call at the Wellbridge farmhouse, in which he had spent
with Tess the first three days of their marriage, the trifle of rent
having to be paid, the key given up of the rooms they had occupied,
and two or three small articles fetched away that they had left
behind. It was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown
upon his life had stretched its gloom over him. Yet when he had
unlocked the door of the sitting-room and looked into it, the memory
which returned first upon him was that of their happy arrival on a
similar afternoon, the first fresh sense of sharing a habitation
conjointly, the first meal together, the chatting by the fire with
joined hands.
The farmer and his wife were in the field at the moment of his visit,
and Clare was in the rooms alone for some time. Inwardly swollen
with a renewal of sentiment that he had not quite reckoned with, he
went upstairs to her chamber, which had never been his. The bed
was smooth as she had made it with her own hands on the morning of
leaving. The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed
it. Having been there three or four weeks it was turning colour, and
the leaves and berries were wrinkled. Angel took it down and crushed
it into the grate. Standing there, he for the first time doubted
whether his course in this conjecture had been a wise, much less
a generous, one. But had he not been cruelly blinded? In the
incoherent multitude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside
wet-eyed. 'O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I would have
forgiven you!' he mourned.
Hearing a footstep below, he rose and went to the top of the stairs.
At the bottom of the flight he saw a woman standing, and on her
turning up her face recognized the pale, dark-eyed Izz Huett.
'Mr Clare,' she said, 'I've called to see you and Mrs Clare, and to
inquire if ye be well. I thought you might be back here again.'
This was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who had not yet
guessed his; an honest girl who loved him--one who would have made as
good, or nearly as good, a practical farmer's wife as Tess.
'I am here alone,' he said; 'we are not living here now.' Explaining
why he had come, he asked, 'Which way are you going home, Izz?'
'I have no home at Talbothays Dairy now, sir,' she said.
'Why is that?'
Izz looked down.
'It was so dismal there that I left! I am staying out this way.'
She pointed in a contrary direction, the direction in which he was
journeying.
'Well--are you going there now? I can take you if you
wish for a lift.'
Her olive complexion grew richer in hue.
'Thank 'ee, Mr Clare,' she said.
He soon found the farmer, and settled the account for his rent and
the few other items which had to be considered by reason of the
sudden abandonment of the lodgings. On Clare's return to his horse
