as trying to overtake him.

The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was
his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even
when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally
changed attire in which he now beheld her. It was not till she was
quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.

"I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and
I have been following you all this way!"

She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he
did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling
it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible
wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some
fir-trees. When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped
and looked at her inquiringly.

"Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have
been running after you for? To tell you that I have killed him!"
A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.

"What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she
was in some delirium.

"I have done it--I don't know how," she continued. "Still, I owed it
to you, and to myself, Angel. I feared long ago, when I struck him
on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap
he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.
He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any
more. I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you. You know it,
don't you? You believe it? You didn't come back to me, and I was
obliged to go back to him. Why did you go away--why did you--when I
loved you so? I can't think why you did it. But I don't blame you;
only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have
killed him? I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to
forgive me now I have done that. It came to me as a shining light
that I should get you back that way. I could not bear the loss of
you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your
not loving me! Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I
have killed him!"

"I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said,
tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure. "But how do you
mean--you have killed him?"

"I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie.

"What, bodily? Is he dead?"

"Yes. He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and