She drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed:
OSTIUM SEPULCHRI ANTIQUAE FAMILIAE D'URBERVILLE
Tess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she knew that
this was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and that the tall
knights of whom her father had chanted in his cups lay inside.
She musingly turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the
oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure. In the dusk she
had not noticed it before, and would hardly have noticed it now but
for an odd fancy that the effigy moved. As soon as she drew close
to it she discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living
person; and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so
violent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh to fainting,
not, however, till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form.
He leapt off the slab and supported her.
"I saw you come in," he said smiling, "and got up there not to
interrupt your meditations. A family gathering, is it not, with
these old fellows under us here? Listen."
He stamped with his heel heavily on the floor; whereupon there arose
a hollow echo from below.
"That shook them a bit, I'll warrant!" he continued.
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