Tess of the dUrbervilles

LVII

Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which

he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,

staring at nothingness. He went on eating and drinking unconsciously

till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his

dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,

and went out. At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few

words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his

address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to

and been accepted by Mercy Chant.

Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;

reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an

hour and more. He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of

an hour felt that he could wait there no longer. Broken in heart and

numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a

town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to

walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up

there. The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance

dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge

to edge. He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and

was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he

unconsciously looked back. Why he did so he could not say, but

something seemed to impel him to the act. The tape-like surface of

the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he

gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.

It was a human figure running. Clare waited, with a dim sense that

somebody was trying to overtake him.

The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was

his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even

when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally

changed attire in which he now beheld her. It was not till she was

quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.

"I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and

I have been following you all this way!"

She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he

did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling

it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible

wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some

fir-trees. When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped

and looked at her inquiringly