lesser creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their
faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their
figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a
mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her
unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her.
'What is it, Angel?' she said, starting up. 'Have they come for me?'
'Yes, dearest,' he said. 'They have come.'
'It is as it should be,' she murmured. 'Angel, I am almost glad--yes,
glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I
have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!'
She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men
having moved.
'I am ready,' she said quietly.
LIX
The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital
of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, and
freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping
High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediжval cross, and from
the mediжval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping
was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.
From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road
from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through
preoccupation and not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this
road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower
down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and
of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means
of doing so. Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,
which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.
One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding
creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,
slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's
sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk
to half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand, and never
spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's
'Two Apostles'.
When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the
clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes,
and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first
milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and
backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered
upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their
will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense
beside the stone.
The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley
