'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 Durbeyfield?'
'Durbeyfield?'
This also was strange to the postman addressed.
'There's visitors coming and going every day, as you know, sir,' he
said; 'and without the name of the house 'tis impossible to find
'em.'
One of his comrades hastening out at that moment, the name was
repeated to him.
'I know no name of Durbeyfield; but there is the name of d'Urberville
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 stylish lodging-house. 'Tis all lodging-houses here, bless 'ee.'
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
thither 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 d'Urberville or Durbeyfield.
'Mrs d'Urberville?'
'Yes.'
Tess, then, passed as a married woman, and he felt glad, even though
she had not adopted his name.
'Will you kindly tell her that a relative is anxious to see her?'
'It is rather early. What name shall I give, sir?'
'Angel.'
'Mr Angel?'
'No; Angel. It is my Christian name. She'll understand.'
'I'll see if she is 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
