row of girls.

"She ought to ha' told him just before they went to church, when he
could hardly have backed out," exclaimed Marian.

"Yes, she ought," agreed Izz.

"She must have seen what he was after, and should ha' refused him,"
cried Retty spasmodically.

"And what do you say, my dear?" asked the dairyman of Tess.

"I think she ought--to have told him the true state of things--or
else refused him--I don't know," replied Tess, the bread-and-butter
choking her.

"Be cust if I'd have done either o't," said Beck Knibbs, a married
helper from one of the cottages. "All's fair in love and war. I'd
ha' married en just as she did, and if he'd said two words to me
about not telling him beforehand anything whatsomdever about my first
chap that I hadn't chose to tell, I'd ha' knocked him down wi' the
rolling-pin--a scram little feller like he! Any woman could do it."

The laughter which followed this sally was supplemented only by a
sorry smile, for form's sake, from Tess. What was comedy to them was
tragedy to her; and she could hardly bear their mirth. She soon rose
from table, and, with an impression that Clare would soon follow her,
went along a little wriggling path, now stepping to one side of the
irrigating channels, and now to the other, till she stood by the main
stream of the Var. Men had been cutting the water-weeds higher up
the river, and masses of them were floating past her--moving islands
of green crow-foot, whereon she might almost have ridden; long locks
of which weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows
from crossing.

Yes, there was the pain of it. This question of a woman telling her
story--the heaviest of crosses to herself--seemed but amusement to
others. It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom.

"Tessy!" came from behind her, and Clare sprang across the gully,
alighting beside her feet. "My wife--soon!"

"No, no; I cannot. For your sake, O Mr Clare; for your sake, I say
no!"

"Tess!"

"Still I say no!" she repeated.

Not expecting this, he had put his arm lightly round her waist the
moment after speaking, beneath her hanging tail of hair. (The
younger dairymaids, including Tess, breakfasted with their hair loose
on Sunday mornings before building it up extra high for attending
church, a style they could not adopt when milking with their heads
against the cows.) If she had said "Yes" instead of "No" he
would have kissed her; it had evidently been his int