“But it is not that I came to say,” d’Urberville went on.  “My circumstances are these.  I have lost my mother since you were at Trantridge, and the place is my own.  But I intend to sell it, and devote myself to missionary work in Africa.  A devil of a poor hand I shall make at the trade, no doubt.  However, what I want to ask you is, will you put it in my power to do my duty—­to make the only reparation I can make for the trick played you:  that is, will you be my wife, and go with me? ...  I have already obtained this precious document.  It was my old mother’s dying wish.”

He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling of embarrassment.

“What is it?” said she.

“A marriage licence.”

“O no, sir—­no!” she said quickly, starting back.

“You will not?  Why is that?”

And as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d’Urberville’s face.  It was unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her had been revived; duty and desire ran hand-in-hand.

“Surely,” he began again, in more impetuous tones, and then looked round at the labourer who turned the slicer.

Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there.  Informing the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she wished to walk a little way, she moved off with d’Urberville across the zebra-striped field.  When they reached the first newly-ploughed section he held out his hand to help her over it; but she stepped forward on the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him.

“You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man?” he repeated, as soon as they were over the furrows.

“I cannot.”

“But why?”

“You know I have no affection for you.”

“But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps—­as soon as you really could forgive me?”

“Never!”

“Why so positive?”

“I love somebody else.”

The words seemed to astonish him.

“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.