"You will? You know what it means, Izz?"
"It means that I shall live with you for the time you are over
there--that's good enough for me."
"Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now. But I ought
to remind you that it will be wrong-doing in the eyes of
civilization--Western civilization, that is to say."
"I don't mind that; no woman do when it comes to agony-point, and
there's no other way!"
"Then don't get down, but sit where you are."
He drove past the cross-roads, one mile, two miles, without showing
any signs of affection.
"You love me very, very much, Izz?" he suddenly asked.
"I do--I have said I do! I loved you all the time we was at the
dairy together!"
"More than Tess?"
She shook her head.
"No," she murmured, "not more than she."
"How's that?"
"Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! ... She would
have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more."
Like the prophet on the top of Peor, Izz Huett would fain have spoken
perversely at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her
rougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace.
Clare was silent; his heart had risen at these straightforward words
from such an unexpected unimpeachable quarter.
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