what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through--
THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT--
Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted--
'If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment,
there's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon
to-day in the parish you are going to--Mr Clare of Emminster. I'm
not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as
well as any parson I know. 'Twas he began the work in me.'
But Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes
fixed on the ground. 'Pooh--I don't believe God said such things!'
she murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away.
A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the
sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior, when
she reached it, made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just
come down stairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she
was kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young
children were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday
morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour.
'Well!--my dear Tess!' exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and
kissing the girl. 'How be ye? I didn't see you till you was in upon
me! Have you come home to be married?'
'No, I have not come for that, mother.'
'Then for a holiday?'
'Yes--for a holiday; for a long holiday,' said Tess.
'What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?'
'He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me.'
Her mother eyed her narrowly.
'Come, you have not told me all,' she said.
Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and
told.
'And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee!' reiterated her mother. 'Any
woman would have done it but you, after that!'
'Perhaps any woman would except me.'
'It would have been something like a story to come back with, if
you had!' continued Mrs Durbeyfield, ready to burst into tears of
vexation. 'After all the talk about you and him which has reached
us here, who would have expected it to end like this! Why didn't ye
think of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of
yourself? See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak
father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I did hope for
something to come out o' this! To see what a pretty pair you and he
made that day when you drove away together four months ago! See what
he has given us--all, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if
he's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee. And
yet you've not got him to marry!'
Get Alec d'Urberville in the mind to marry her! He marry HER! On
matrimony he had never once said a word. And what if he had? How a
convulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to
answer him she could not say. But her poor foolish mother little
