Bygones would never be
complete bygones till she was a bygone herself.
Thus absorbed, she recrossed the northern part of Long-Ash Lane at
right angles, and presently saw before her the road ascending whitely
to the upland along whose margin the remainder of her journey lay.
Its dry pale surface stretched severely onward, unbroken by a single
figure, vehicle, or mark, save some occasional brown horse-droppings
which dotted its cold aridity here and there. While slowly breasting
this ascent Tess became conscious of footsteps behind her, and
turning she saw approaching that well-known form--so strangely
accoutred as the Methodist--the one personage in all the world she
wished not to encounter alone on this side of the grave.
There was not much time, however, for thought or elusion, and she
yielded as calmly as she could to the necessity of letting him
overtake her. She saw that he was excited, less by the speed of his
walk than by the feelings within him.
"Tess!" he said.
She slackened speed without looking round.
"Tess!" he repeated. "It is I--Alec d'Urberville."
She then looked back at him, and he came up.
"I see it is," she answered coldly.
"Well--is that all? Yet I deserve no more! Of course," he added,
with a slight laugh, "there is something of the ridiculous to your
eyes in seeing me like this.
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