DURBEYFIELD
It was such a relief to Clare to learn that Tess was at least
apparently well that her mother's stiff reticence as to her
whereabouts did not long distress him. They were all angry with him,
evidently. He would wait till Mrs Durbeyfield could inform him of
Tess's return, which her letter implied to be soon. He deserved no
more. His had been a love "which alters when it alteration finds".
He had undergone some strange experiences in his absence; he had seen
the virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in
a corporeal Phryne; he had thought of the woman taken and set in the
midst as one deserving to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being
made a queen; and he had asked himself why he had not judged Tess
constructively rather than biographically, by the will rather than
by the deed?
A day or two passed while he waited at his father's house for the
promised second note from Joan Durbeyfield, and indirectly to recover
a little more strength. The strength showed signs of coming back,
but there was no sign of Joan's letter. Then he hunted up the
old letter sent on to him in Brazil, which Tess had written from
Flintcomb-Ash, and re-read it. The sentences touched him now as
much as when he had first perused them.
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