“Married! Then where’s thy husband?”
“Oh, he’s gone away for a time.”
“Gone away! When was you married, then? The day you said?”
“Yes, Tuesday, mother.”
“And now ’tis on’y Saturday, and he gone away?”
“Yes, he’s gone.”
“What’s the meaning o’ that? ’Nation seize such husbands as you seem to get, say I!”
“Mother!” Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon the matron’s bosom, and burst into sobs. “I don’t know how to tell ’ee, mother! You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell him—I couldn’t help it—and he went away!”
“O you little fool—you little fool!” burst out Mrs. Durbeyfield, splashing Tess and herself in her agitation. “My good God! that ever I should ha’ lived to say it, but I say it again, you little fool!”
Tess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having relaxed at last.
“I know it—I know—I know!” she gasped through her sobs. “But, O my mother, I could not help it! He was so good—and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened! If—if—it were to be done again—I should do the same. I could not—I dared not—so sin—against him!”
“But you sinned enough to marry him first!”
“Yes, yes; that’s where my misery do lie! But I thought he could get rid o’ me by law if he were determined not to overlook it. And O, if you