On the evening preceding their removal it was getting dark betimes by reason of a drizzling rain which blurred the sky.  As it was the last night they would spend in the village which had been their home and birthplace, Mrs Durbeyfield, ’Liza-Lu, and Abraham had gone out to bid some friends goodbye, and Tess was keeping house till they should return.

She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement, where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of glass.  Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long ago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies ever came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement.  Tess was reflecting on the position of the household, in which she perceived her own evil influence.  Had she not come home, her mother and the children might probably have been allowed to stay on as weekly tenants.  But she had been observed almost immediately on her return by some people of scrupulous character and great influence:  they had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she could with a little trowel a baby’s obliterated grave.  By this means they had found that she was living here again; her mother was scolded for “harbouring” her; sharp retorts had ensued from Joan, who had independently offered to leave at once; she had been taken at her word; and here was the result.

“I ought never to have come home,” said Tess to herself, bitterly.

She was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at first took note of a man in a white mackintosh whom she saw riding down the street.  Possibly it was owing to her face being near to the pane that he saw her so quickly, and directed his horse so close to the cottage-front that his hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for plants growing under the wall.  It was not till he touched the window with his riding-crop that she observed him.  The rain had nearly ceased, and she opened the casement in obedience to his gesture.

“Didn’t you see me?” asked d’Urberville.

“I was not attending,” she said.  “I heard you, I believe, though I fancied it was a carriage and horses.  I was in a sort of dream.”

“Ah! you heard the d’Urberville Coach, perhaps.  You know the legend, I suppose?”

“No.  My—­somebody was going to tell it me once, but didn’t.”

“If you are a genuine d’Urberville I ought not to tell you either, I suppose.  As for me, I’m a sham one, so it doesn’t matter.  It is rather dismal.  It is that this sound of a non-existent coach can only be heard by one of d’Urberville blood, and it is held to be of ill-omen to the one who hears it.  It has to do with a murder, committed by one of the family, centuries ago.”

“Now you have begun it, finish it.”

“Very well.  One of the family is said to have abducted some beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was carrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her—­or she killed him—­I forget which.  Such is one version of the tale...  I see that your tubs and buckets are packed.  Going away, aren’t you?”