ue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull
brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days
of mankind had been quite distinct. But owing to Angel Clare's
reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a
vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on.

"Well, never mind," he resumed. "Here I am, my love, as in the old
times!"

"Not as then--never as then--'tis different!" she entreated. "And
there was never warmth with me! O why didn't you keep your faith,
if the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!"

"Because you've knocked it out of me; so the evil be upon your sweet
head! Your husband little thought how his teaching would recoil upon
him! Ha-ha--I'm awfully glad you have made an apostate of me all the
same! Tess, I am more taken with you than ever, and I pity you too.
For all your closeness, I see you are in a bad way--neglected by one
who ought to cherish you."

She could not get her morsels of food down her throat; her lips
were dry, and she was ready to choke. The voices and laughs of the
workfolk eating and drinking under the rick came to her as if they
were a quarter of a mile off.

"It is cruelty to me!" she said. "How--how can you treat me to this
talk, if you care ever so little for me?"

"True, true," he said, wincing a little. "I did not come to reproach
you for my deeds. I came Tess, to say that I don't like you to be
working like this, and I have come on purpose for you. You say you
have a husband who is not I. Well, perhaps you have; but I've never
seen him, and you've not told me his name; and altogether he seems
rather a mythological personage. However, even if you have one, I
think I am nearer to you than he is. I, at any rate, try to help you
out of trouble, but he does not, bless his invisible face! The words
of the stern prophet Hosea that I used to read come back to me.
Don't you know them, Tess?--'And she shall follow after her lover,
but she shall not overtake him; and she shall seek him, but shall
not find him; then shall she say, I will go and return to my first
husband; for then was it better with me than now!' ... Tess, my trap
is waiting just under the hill, and--darling mine, not his!--you know
the rest."

Her face had been rising to a dull crimson fire while he spoke; but
she did not answer.

"You have been the cause of my backsliding," he continued, stretching
his arm towards her waist; "you s