Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Phase the Sixth: The Convert 50. CHAPTER L (continued)

"Entirely. To see you; nothing more. The smockfrock, which I saw hanging for sale as I came along, was an afterthought, that I mightn't be noticed. I come to protest against your working like this."

"But I like doing it--it is for my father."

"Your engagement at the other place is ended?"

"Yes."

"Where are you going to next? To join your dear husband?"

She could not bear the humiliating reminder.

"O--I don't know!" she said bitterly. "I have no husband!"

"It is quite true--in the sense you mean. But you have a friend, and I have determined that you shall be comfortable in suite of yourself. When you get down to your house you will see what I have sent there for you."

"O, Alec, I wish you wouldn't give me anything at all! I cannot take it from you! I don't like--it is not right!"

"It IS right!" he cried lightly. "I am not going to see a woman whom I feel so tenderly for as I do for you, in trouble without trying to help her."

"But I am very well off! I am only in trouble about--about--not about living at all!"

She turned, and desperately resumed her digging, tears dripping upon the fork-handle and upon the clods.

"About the children--your brothers and sisters," he resumed. "I've been thinking of them."

Tess's heart quivered--he was touching her in a weak place. He had divined her chief anxiety. Since returning home her soul had gone out to those children with an affection that was passionate.