It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad.  But, anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything to her but a protector.  He saw that for him to be otherwise was not, in her mind, within the region of the possible.  Tenderness was absolutely dominant in Clare at last.  He kissed her endlessly with his white lips, and held her hand, and said—­

“I will not desert you!  I will protect you by every means in my power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!”

They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now and then to look at him.  Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.  To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and mentally.  He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had believed in her as pure!

With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles.  Each clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between them; ignoring that there was a corpse.  Thus they proceeded for several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and said, timidly—­

“Are we going anywhere in particular?”

“I don’t know, dearest.  Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find lodgings somewhere or other—­in a lonely cottage, perhaps.  Can you walk well, Tessy?”

“O yes!  I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!”

Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do.  Thereupon they quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure paths tending more or less northward.  But there was an unpractical vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or long concealment.  Their every idea was temporary and unforefending, like the plans of two children.

At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland, half-moorland part of the country till he should come back.  Her clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted attention in the settle of a tavern.  He soon returned, with food enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine—­enough to last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.