It was too much
like laughing at a man when sober for his erratic deeds during
intoxication.
It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint
recollection of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to
it from a conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the
opportunity it gave her of appealing to him anew not to go.
He had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest town, and
soon after breakfast it arrived. She saw in it the beginning of
the end--the temporary end, at least, for the revelation of his
tenderness by the incident of the night raised dreams of a possible
future with him. The luggage was put on the top, and the man drove
them off, the miller and the old waiting-woman expressing some
surprise at their precipitate departure, which Clare attributed to
his discovery that the mill-work was not of the modern kind which he
wished to investigate, a statement that was true so far as it went.
Beyond this there was nothing in the manner of their leaving to
suggest a fiasco, or that they were not going together to visit
friends.
Their route lay near the dairy from which they had started with such
solemn joy in each other a few days back, and as Clare wished to wind
up his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs
Crick a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion of
their unhappy state.
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