Evidently some dim knowledge of
it has been brought back to your mind by the sight of this venerable
caravan."
"I don't remember hearing it before," she murmured. "Is it when we
are going to die, Angel, that members of my family see it, or is it
when we have committed a crime?"
"Now, Tess!"
He silenced her by a kiss.
By the time they reached home she was contrite and spiritless. She
was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name?
Was she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville? Could intensity
of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable
reticence? She knew not what was expected of women in such cases;
and she had no counsellor.
However, when she found herself alone in her room for a few
minutes--the last day this on which she was ever to enter it--she
knelt down and prayed. She tried to pray to God, but it was her
husband who really had her supplication. Her idolatry of this man
was such that she herself almost feared it to be ill-omened. She was
conscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: "These violent
delights have violent ends." It might be too desperate for human
conditions--too rank, to wild, too deadly.
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