The three o'clock sun shone full
upon him, and the strange enervating conviction that her seducer
confronted her, which had been gaining ground in Tess ever since she
had heard his words distinctly, was at last established as a fact
indeed.
END OF PHASE THE FIFTH
Phase the Sixth: The Convert
XLV
Till this moment she had never seen or heard from d'Urberville since
her departure from Trantridge.
The rencounter came at a heavy moment, one of all moments calculated
to permit its impact with the least emotional shock. But such was
unreasoning memory that, though he stood there openly and palpably a
converted man, who was sorrowing for his past irregularities, a fear
overcame her, paralyzing her movement so that she neither retreated
nor advanced.
To think of what emanated from that countenance when she saw it last,
and to behold it now! ... There was the same handsome unpleasantness
of mien, but now he wore neatly trimmed, old-fashioned whiskers, the
sable moustache having disappeared; and his dress was half-clerical,
a modification which had changed his expression sufficiently to
abstract the dandyism from his features, and to hinder for a second
her belief in his identity.
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