r eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of
rain glistening upon it.

"And, more than this, there's Marian; she's been found dead drunk
by the withy-bed--a girl who hev never been known to touch anything
before except shilling ale; though, to be sure, 'a was always a good
trencher-woman, as her face showed. It seems as if the maids had
all gone out o' their minds!"

"And Izz?" asked Tess.

"Izz is about house as usual; but 'a do say 'a can guess how it
happened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid,
as well she mid be. And so you see, sir, as all this happened just
when we was packing your few traps and your Mis'ess's night-rail and
dressing things into the cart, why, it belated me."

"Yes. Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, and drink a
cup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you can, in case you should be
wanted?"

Tess had gone back to the inner parlour, and sat down by the fire,
looking wistfully into it. She heard Jonathan Kail's heavy footsteps
up and down the stairs till he had done placing the luggage, and
heard him express his thanks for the ale her husband took out to him,
and for the gratuity he received. Jonathan's footsteps then died
from the door, and his cart creaked away.

Angel slid forward the massive oak bar which secured the door, and
coming in to where she sat over the hearth, pressed her cheeks
between his hands from behind. He expected her to jump up gaily and
unpack the toilet-gear that she had been so anxious about, but as she
did not rise he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on
the supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its
glow.

"I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls,"
he said. "Still, don't let it depress you. Retty was naturally
morbid, you know."

"Without the least cause," said Tess. "While they who have cause to
be, hide it, and pretend they are not."

This incident had turned the scale for her. They were simple and
innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen;
they had deserved better at the hands of Fate. She had deserved
worse--yet she was the chosen one. It was wicked of her to take all
without paying. She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would
tell, there and then. This final determination she came to when she
looked into the fire, he holding her hand.

A steady glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides