"You know as well as I. O yes--yes!"
"Then, if your heart does, why not your hand?"
"My only reason was on account of you--on account of a question. I
have something to tell you--"
"But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my worldly
convenience also?"
"O yes; if it is for your happiness and worldly convenience. But my
life before I came here--I want--"
"Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness. If I have a
very large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable
as a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in
the country. So please--please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of
the feeling that you will stand in my way."
"But my history. I want you to know it--you must let me tell
you--you will not like me so well!"
"Tell it if you wish to, dearest. This precious history then. Yes,
I was born at so and so, Anno Domini--"
"I was born at Marlott," she said, catching at his words as a help,
lightly as they were spoken. "And I grew up there. And I was in the
Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness,
and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should
be one. But there was trouble in my family; father was not very
industrious, and he drank a little."
"Yes, yes. Poor child! Nothing new." He pressed her more closely
to his side. "And then--there is something very unusual about it--about me. I--I
was--" Tess's breath quickened. "Yes, dearest. Never mind."
"I--I--am not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville--a descendant of the
same family as those that owned the old house we passed. And--we are
all gone to nothing!" "A d'Urberville!--Indeed! And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?"
"Yes," she answered faintly. "Well--why should I love you less after knowing this?"
"I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families."
He laughed. "Well, it is true, in one sense. I do hate the aristocratic
principle of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners
the only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of
the wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity. But
I am extremely interested in this news--you can have no idea how
interested I am! Are you not interested yourself in being one of
that well-known line?" "No. I have thought it sad--especially since coming here, and
knowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to
my father's people. But other hills and field belonged to Retty's
people, and perhaps others to Marian's, so that I don't value it
particularly." "Yes--it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil
were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school
of politicians don't make capital of the circumstance; but they don't
seem to know it... I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of
your name to d'Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption. And
this was the carking secret!" She had not told.