d shriek from the by-this-time half-tipsy Marian
informing her companions that one of the rats had invaded her
person--a terror which the rest of the women had guarded against by
various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation. The rat was
at last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts,
feminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium,
Tess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased,
and she stepped from the machine to the ground.

Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly
at her side.

"What--after all--my insulting slap, too!" said she in an
underbreath. She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength
to speak louder.

"I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or
do," he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time.
"How the little limbs tremble! You are as weak as a bled calf, you
know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived.
How could you be so obstinate? However, I have told the farmer that
he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing. It is not proper
work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given
up, as he knows very well. I will walk with you as far as your
home."

"O yes," she answered with a jaded gait. "Walk wi' me if you will!
I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o' my
state. Perhaps--perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I
have been thinking you were. Whatever is meant as kindness I am
grateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at.
I cannot sense your meaning sometimes."

"If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist
you. And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than
I formerly showed. My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over.
But I retain a little good nature; I hope I do. Now, Tess, by
all that's tender and strong between man and woman, trust me! I
have enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both
for yourself and your parents and sisters. I can make them all
comfortable if you will only show confidence in me."

"Have you seen 'em lately?" she quickly inquired.

"Yes. They didn't know where you were. It was only by chance that I
found you here."

The cold moon looked aslant upon Tess's fagged face between the twigs
of the garden-hedge as she paused outside the cottage which was her
temporary home