`Well, she is not there now.'

In her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by this time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skirts, the youngest murmured--

`Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?'

`He has married her,' Joan whispered. `Go inside.'

Clare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked `Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her? If not, of course------'

`I don't think she would.'

`Are you sure?'

`I am sure she wouldn't.'

He was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.

`I am sure she would!' he retorted passionately. `I know her better than you do.'

`That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her.'

`Please tell me her address, Mrs Durbeyfield, in kindness to a lonely wretched man!'

Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with her vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, in a low voice `She is at Sandbourne.'

`Ah - where there? Sandbourne has become a large place, they say.

`I don't know more particularly than I have said - Sandbourne. For myself, I was never there.'

It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and he pressed her no further.

`Are you in want of anything?' he said gently.

`No, sir,' she replied. `We are fairly well provided for.'

Without entering the house Clare turned away. There was a station three miles ahead, and paying off his coachman, he walked thither. The last train to Sandbourne left shortly after, and it bore Clare on its wheels.