"I am here again, as you see," said d'Urberville.
"Why do you trouble me so!" she cried, reproach flashing from her
very finger-ends.
"I trouble YOU? I think I may ask, why do you trouble me?"
"Sure, I don't trouble you any-when!"
"You say you don't? But you do! You haunt me. Those very eyes that
you turned upon my with such a bitter flash a moment ago, they come
to me just as you showed them then, in the night and in the day!
Tess, ever since you told me of that child of ours, it is just as if
my feelings, which have been flowing in a strong puritanical stream,
had suddenly found a way open in the direction of you, and had all at
once gushed through. The religious channel is left dry forthwith;
and it is you who have done it!"
She gazed in silence.
"What--you have given up your preaching entirely?" she asked. She
had gathered from Angel sufficient of the incredulity of modern
thought to despise flash enthusiasm; but, as a woman, she was
somewhat appalled.
In affected severity d'Urberville continued--
"Entirely. I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was
to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair. The deuce only knows
what I am thought of by the brethren.
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