“But my history.  I want you to know it—­you must let me tell you—­you will not like me so well!”

“Tell it if you wish to, dearest.  This precious history then.  Yes, I was born at so and so, Anno Domini—­”

“I was born at Marlott,” she said, catching at his words as a help, lightly as they were spoken.  “And I grew up there.  And I was in the Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness, and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should be one.  But there was trouble in my family; father was not very industrious, and he drank a little.”

“Yes, yes.  Poor child!  Nothing new.”  He pressed her more closely to his side.

“And then—­there is something very unusual about it—­about me.  I—­I was—­”

Tess’s breath quickened.

“Yes, dearest.  Never mind.”

“I—­I—­am not a Durbeyfield, but a d’Urberville—­a descendant of the same family as those that owned the old house we passed.  And—­we are all gone to nothing!”

“A d’Urberville!—­Indeed!  And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?”

“Yes,” she answered faintly.

“Well—­why should I love you less after knowing this?”

“I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families.”

He laughed.

“Well, it is true, in one sense.  I do hate the aristocratic principle of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners the only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of the wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity.  But I am extremely interested in this news—­you can have no idea how interested I am!  Are you not interested yourself in being one of that well-known line?”

“No.  I have thought it sad—­especially since coming here, and knowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to my father’s people.  But other hills and field belonged to Retty’s people, and perhaps others to Marian’s, so that I don’t value it particularly.”

“Yes—­it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school of politicians don’t make capital of the circumstance; but they don’t seem to know it...  I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of your name to d’Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption.  And this was the carking secret!”

She had not told.  At the last moment her courage had failed her; she feared his blame for not telling him sooner; and her instinct of self-preservation was stronger than her candour.