"Yes," she murmured as she withdrew her lips. "Was that because of love for her, or because other lips have touched there by now?" continued Izz drily to Marian. "I wasn't thinking o' that," said Marian simply. "I was on'y feeling all the strangeness o't--that she is to be his wife, and nobody else.
I don't say nay to it, nor either of us, because we did not think
of it--only loved him. Still, nobody else is to marry'n in the
world--no fine lady, nobody in silks and satins; but she who do live
like we."
"Are you sure you don't dislike me for it?" said Tess in a low voice. They hung about her in their white nightgowns before replying, as if they considered their answer might lie in her look. "I don't know--I don't know," murmured Retty Priddle. "I want to
hate 'ee; but I cannot!"
"That's how I feel," echoed Izz and Marian. "I can't hate her.
Somehow she hinders me!" "He ought to marry one of you," murmured Tess. "Why?"
"You are all better than I."
"We better than you?" said the girls in a low, slow whisper. "No,
no, dear Tess!" "You are!" she contradicted impetuously. And suddenly tearing away
from their clinging arms she burst into a hysterical fit of tears,
bowing herself on the chest of drawers and repeating incessantly,
"O yes, yes, yes!" Having once given way she could not stop her weeping.
"He ought to have had one of you!" she cried. "I think I ought to
make him even now! You would be better for him than--I don't know
what I'm saying! O! O!" They went up to her and clasped her round, but still her sobs tore
her. "Get some water," said Marian, "She's upset by us, poor thing, poor
thing!" They gently led her back to the side of her bed, where they kissed
her warmly. "You are best for'n," said Marian. "More ladylike, and a better
scholar than we, especially since he had taught 'ee so much. But
even you ought to be proud. You BE proud, I'm sure!"
"Yes, I am," she said; "and I am ashamed at so breaking down."
When they were all in bed, and the light was out, Marian whispered
across to her-"You will think of us when you be his wife, Tess, and of how we told
'ee that we loved him, and how we tried not to hate you, and did not
hate you, and could not hate you, because you were his choice, and
we never hoped to be chose by him." They were not aware that, at these words, salt, stinging tears
trickled down upon Tess's pillow anew, and how she resolved, with a
bursting heart, to tell all her history to Angel Clare, despite her
mother's command--to let him for whom she lived and breathed despise
her if he would, and her mother regard her as a fool, rather then
preserve a silence which might be deemed a treachery to him, and
which somehow seemed a wrong to these.