It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson.
Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here, and turned to look behind her.
She could not bear to look forward into the Vale.
Ascending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her attention.
She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her.
"Why did you slip away by stealth like this?" said d'Urberville, with upbraiding breathlessness; "on a Sunday morning, too, when people were all in bed!
I only discovered it by accident, and I have been driving like the deuce to overtake you.
Just look at the mare.
Why go off like this?
You know that nobody wished to hinder your going.
And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy load!
I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't come back."
"I shan't come back," said she.
"I thought you wouldn't-I said so!
Well, then, put up your basket, and let me help you on."
She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side.
She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay.
D'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside.
He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road.
But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables.
After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood.
It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down.
"What are you crying for?" he coldly asked.
"I was only thinking that I was born over there," murmured Tess.
"Well-we must all be born somewhere."
"I wish I had never been born-there or anywhere else!"
"Pooh!
Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge why did you come?"
She did not reply.
"You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear."
"'Tis quite true.
If I had gone for love o' you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now!...
My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all."
He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed-"I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late."
"That's what every woman says."
"How can you dare to use such words!" she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her.
"My God!
I could knock you out of the gig!
Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?"
"Very well," he said, laughing;
"I am sorry to wound you.
I did wrong-I admit it."
He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued: "Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my face.
I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing.
You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you earn."
Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature.
"I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not-I cannot!
I SHOULD be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't!"
"One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d'Urberville-ha! ha!
Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more.