Then a man's voice from the adjoining bedroom-"What's the matter?"
She did not answer, but went on, in a tone which was a soliloquy
rather than an exclamation, and a dirge rather than a soliloquy.
Mrs Brooks could only catch a portion:
"And then my dear, dear husband came home to me ... and I did not
know it! ... And you had used your cruel persuasion upon me ... you
did not stop using it--no--you did not stop! My little sisters and
brothers and my mother's needs--they were the things you moved me
by ... and you said my husband would never come back--never; and you
taunted me, and said what a simpleton I was to expect him! ... And
at last I believed you and gave way! ... And then he came back!
Now he is gone. Gone a second time, and I have lost him now
for ever ... and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any
more--only hate me! ... O yes, I have lost him now--again because
of--you!" In writhing, with her head on the chair, she turned her
face towards the door, and Mrs Brooks could see the pain upon it,
and that her lips were bleeding from the clench of her teeth upon
them, and that the long lashes of her closed eyes stuck in wet tags
to her cheeks. She continued: "And he is dying--he looks as if he
is dying! ... And my sin will kill him and not kill me! ... O, you
have torn my life all to pieces ... made me be what I prayed you in
pity not to make me be again! ... My own true husband will never,
never--O God--I can't bear this!--I cannot!"
There were more and sharper words from the man; then a sudden rustle;
she had sprung to her feet. Mrs Brooks, thinking that the speaker
was coming to rush out of the door, hastily retreated down the
stairs. She need not have done so, however, for the door of the sitting-room
was not opened. But Mrs Brooks felt it unsafe to watch on the
landing again, and entered her own parlour below.
She could hear nothing through the floor, although she listened
intently, and thereupon went to the kitchen to finish her interrupted
breakfast. Coming up presently to the front room on the ground floor
she took up some sewing, waiting for her lodgers to ring that she
might take away the breakfast, which she meant to do herself, to
discover what was the matter if possible. Overhead, as she sat, she
could now hear the floorboards slightly creak, as if some one were
walking about, and presently the movement was explained by the rustle
of garments against the banisters, the opening and the closing of
the front door, and the form of Tess passing to the gate on her way
into the street. She was fully dressed now in the walking costume
of a well-to-do young lady in which she had arrived, with the sole
addition that over her hat and black feathers a veil was drawn.