sense, it had been
brought about mainly by the influence of a certain clergyman, whom he
had at first grossly insulted; but whose parting words had sunk into
his heart, and had remained there, till by the grace of Heaven they
had worked this change in him, and made him what they saw him.

But more startling to Tess than the doctrine had been the voice,
which, impossible as it seemed, was precisely that of Alec
d'Urberville. Her face fixed in painful suspense, she came round
to the front of the barn, and passed before it. The low winter sun
beamed directly upon the great double-doored entrance on this side;
one of the doors being open, so that the rays stretched far in over
the threshing-floor to the preacher and his audience, all snugly
sheltered from the northern breeze. The listeners were entirely
villagers, among them being the man whom she had seen carrying the
red paint-pot on a former memorable occasion. But her attention
was given to the central figure, who stood upon some sacks of corn,
facing the people and the door. The three o'clock sun shone full
upon him, and the strange enervating conviction that her seducer
confronted her, which had been gaining ground in Tess ever since she
had heard his words distinctly, was at last established as a fact
indeed.

END OF PHASE THE FIFTH

Phase the Sixth: The Convert

XLV

Till this moment she had never seen or heard from d'Urberville since
her departure from Trantridge.

The rencounter came at a heavy moment, one of all moments calculated
to permit its impact with the least emotional shock. But such was
unreasoning memory that, though he stood there openly and palpably a
converted man, who was sorrowing for his past irregularities, a fear
overcame her, paralyzing her movement so that she neither retreated
nor advanced.

To think of what emanated from that countenance when she saw it last,
and to behold it now! ... There was the same handsome unpleasantness
of mien, but now he wore neatly trimmed, old-fashioned whiskers, the
sable moustache having disappeared; and his dress was half-clerical,
a modification which had changed his expression sufficiently to
abstract the dandyism from his features, and to hinder for a second
her belief in his identity.

To Tess's sense there was, just at first, a ghastly _bizarrerie_,
a grim incongruity, in the march of these solemn words of Scripture
out of such a mouth. This too familiar intonation, less