acit
agreement of husband and wife to keep their estrangement a secret
they behaved as would have been ordinary. And then, although she
would rather there had been no word spoken on the subject, Tess had
to hear in detail the story of Marian and Retty. The later had gone
home to her father's, and Marian had left to look for employment
elsewhere. They feared she would come to no good.

To dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and bade all her
favourite cows goodbye, touching each of them with her hand, and as
she and Clare stood side by side at leaving, as if united body and
soul, there would have been something peculiarly sorry in their
aspect to one who should have seen it truly; two limbs of one life,
as they outwardly were, his arm touching hers, her skirts touching
him, facing one way, as against all the dairy facing the other,
speaking in their adieux as "we", and yet sundered like the poles.
Perhaps something unusually stiff and embarrassed in their attitude,
some awkwardness in acting up to their profession of unity, different
from the natural shyness of young couples, may have been apparent,
for when they were gone Mrs Crick said to her husband--

"How onnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they
stood like waxen images and talked as if they were in a dream!
Didn't it strike 'ee that 'twas so? Tess had always sommat strange
in her, and she's not now quite like the proud young bride of a
well-be-doing man."

They re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the roads towards
Weatherbury and Stagfoot Lane, till they reached the Lane inn, where
Clare dismissed the fly and man. They rested here a while, and
entering the Vale were next driven onward towards her home by a
stranger who did not know their relations. At a midway point, when
Nuttlebury had been passed, and where there were cross-roads, Clare
stopped the conveyance and said to Tess that if she meant to return
to her mother's house it was here that he would leave her. As they
could not talk with freedom in the driver's presence he asked her to
accompany him for a few steps on foot along one of the branch roads;
she assented, and directing the man to wait a few minutes they
strolled away.

"Now, let us understand each other," he said gently. "There is no
anger between us, though there is that which I cannot endure at
present. I will try to bring myself to endure it. I will let you
know where I go to as soon as I know