“Not so very different, I think,” she said.

“Why do you think that?”

“There are very few women’s lives that are not—­tremulous,” Tess replied, pausing over the new word as if it impressed her.  “There’s more in those three than you think.”

“What is in them?”

“Almost either of ’em,” she began, “would make—­perhaps would make—­a properer wife than I. And perhaps they love you as well as I—­almost.”

“O, Tessy!”

There were signs that it was an exquisite relief to her to hear the impatient exclamation, though she had resolved so intrepidly to let generosity make one bid against herself.  That was now done, and she had not the power to attempt self-immolation a second time then.  They were joined by a milker from one of the cottages, and no more was said on that which concerned them so deeply.  But Tess knew that this day would decide it.

In the afternoon several of the dairyman’s household and assistants went down to the meads as usual, a long way from the dairy, where many of the cows were milked without being driven home.  The supply was getting less as the animals advanced in calf, and the supernumerary milkers of the lush green season had been dismissed.

The work progressed leisurely.  Each pailful was poured into tall cans that stood in a large spring-waggon which had been brought upon the scene; and when they were milked, the cows trailed away.  Dairyman Crick, who was there with the rest, his wrapper gleaming miraculously white against a leaden evening sky, suddenly looked at his heavy watch.

“Why, ’tis later than I thought,” he said.  “Begad!  We shan’t be soon enough with this milk at the station, if we don’t mind.  There’s no time to-day to take it home and mix it with the bulk afore sending off.  It must go to station straight from here.  Who’ll drive it across?”

Mr Clare volunteered to do so, though it was none of his business, asking Tess to accompany him.  The evening, though sunless, had been warm and muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with her milking-hood only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not dressed for a drive.  She therefore replied by glancing over her scant habiliments; but Clare gently urged her.  She assented by relinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to take home, and mounted the spring-waggon beside Clare.

XXX

In the diminishing daylight they went along the level roadway through the meads, which stretched away into gray miles, and were backed in the extreme edge of distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of Egdon Heath.  On its summit stood clumps and stretches of fir-trees, whose notched tips appeared like battlemented towers crowning black-fronted castles of enchantment.

They were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each other that they did not begin talking for a long while, the silence being broken only by the clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them.  The lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel nuts had remained on the boughs till they slipped from their shells, and the blackberries hung in heavy clusters.  Every now and then Angel would fling the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and give it to his companion.