Tess-don't look at me so-I cannot stand your looks!
There never were such eyes, surely, before Christianity or since!
There-I won't lose my head; I dare not.
I own that the sight of you had waked up my love for you, which, I believed, was extinguished with all such feelings.
But I thought that our marriage might be a sanctification for us both.
'The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,' I said to myself.
But my plan is dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!"
He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground.
"Married.
Married!...
Well, that being so," he added, quite calmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in his pocket; "that being prevented, I should like to do some good to you and your husband, whoever he may be.
There are many questions that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes.
Though, if I could know your husband, I might more easily benefit him and you.
Is he on this farm?"
"No," she murmured.
"He is far away."
"Far away?
From YOU?
What sort of husband can he be?"
"O, do not speak against him!
It was through you!
He found out-"
"Ah, is it so!...
That's sad, Tess!"
"Yes."
"But to stay away from you-to leave you to work like this!"
"He does not leave me to work!" she cried, springing to the defence of the absent one with all her fervour.
"He don't know it!
It is by my own arrangement."
"Then, does he write?"
"I-I cannot tell you.
There are things which are private to ourselves."
"Of course that means that he does not.
You are a deserted wife, my fair Tess-"
In an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was on it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not express the life or shape of those within.
"You must not-you must not!" she cried fearfully, slipping her hand from the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp.
"O, will you go away-for the sake of me and my husband-go, in the name of your own Christianity!"
"Yes, yes; I will," he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to her he turned to leave. Facing round, however, he said, "Tess, as God is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!"
A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice reached her ear:
"What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o' day?"
Farmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had inquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his field.
"Don't speak like that to her!" said d'Urberville, his face blackening with something that was not Christianity.
"Indeed, Mister!
And what mid Methodist pa'sons have to do with she?"
"Who is the fellow?" asked d'Urberville, turning to Tess.
She went close up to him.
"Go-I do beg you!" she said.
"What!
And leave you to that tyrant?
I can see in his face what a churl he is."