`You do?' he cried. `Somebody else? But has not a sense of what is morally right and proper any weight with you?'

`No, no, no - don't say that!'

`Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing feeling which you will overcome------'

`No - no.'

`Yes, yes! Why not?'

`I cannot tell you.'

`You must in honour!'

`Well then - I have married him.'

`Ah!' he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at her.

`I did not wish to tell - I did not mean to!' she pleaded. `It is a secret here, or at any rate but dimly known. So will you, please will you, keep from questioning me? You must remember that we are now strangers.'

`Strangers - are we? Strangers!'

For a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he determinedly chastened it down.

`Is that man your husband?' he asked mechanically, denoting by a sign the labourer who turned the machine.

`That man!' she said proudly. `I should think not!'

`Who, then?'

`Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!' she begged, and flashed her appeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes.

D'Urberville was disturbed.

`But I only asked for your sake!' he retorted hotly. `Angels of heaven! - God forgive me for such an expression - I came here, I swear, as I thought for your good. Tess - don't look at me so - I cannot stand your looks! There never were such eyes, surely, before Christianity or since! There - I won't lose my head; I dare not. I own that the sight of you has waked up my love for You, which, I believed, was extinguished with all such feelings. But I thought that our marriage might be a sanctification for us both. "The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband," I said to myself. But my plan is dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!'

He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground. `Married. Married! - Well, that being so,' he added, quite calmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in his pocket; `that being prevented, I should like to do some good to you and your husband, whoever he may be. There are many questions that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes. Though, if I could know your husband, I might more easily benefit him and you. Is he on this farm?'

`No,' she murmured. `He is far away.'

`Far away? From you? What sort of husband can he be?'

`O, do not speak against him! It was through you! He found out------'