o one
else! ... I think I must die if you do not come
soon, or tell me to come to you... please, please,
not to be just--only a little kind to me ... If
you would come, I could die in your arms! I would
be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven
me! ... if you will send me one little line, and say,
"I am coming soon," I will bide on, Angel--O, so
cheerfully! ... think how it do hurt my heart not to
see you ever--ever! Ah, if I could only make your
dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine
does every day and all day long, it might lead you to
show pity to your poor lonely one. ... I would be
content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant,
if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be
near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you
as mine. ... I long for only one thing in heaven
or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own
dear! Come to me--come to me, and save me from what
threatens me!

Clare determined that he would no longer believe in her more recent
and severer regard of him, but would go and find her immediately. He
asked his father if she had applied for any money during his absence.
His father returned a negative, and then for the first time it
occurred to Angel that her pride had stood in her way, and that she
had suffered privation. From his remarks his parents now gathered
the real reason of the separation; and their Christianity was such
that, reprobates being their especial care, the tenderness towards
Tess which her blood, her simplicity, even her poverty, had not
engendered, was instantly excited by her sin.

Whilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for his journey
he glanced over a poor plain missive also lately come to hand--the
one from Marian and Izz Huett, beginning--

"Honour'd Sir, Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do
love you," and signed, "From Two Well-Wishers."

LIV

In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, whence his
mother watched his thin figure as it disappeared into the street.
He had declined to borrow his father's old mare, well knowing of
its necessity to the household. He went to the inn, where he hired
a trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing. In a very few
minutes after, he was driving up the hill out of the town which,
three or four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended with
such hopes and ascend