“‘Tis quite true.  If I had gone for love o’ you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now! ...  My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.”

He shrugged his shoulders.  She resumed—­

“I didn’t understand your meaning till it was too late.”

“That’s what every woman says.”

“How can you dare to use such words!” she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her.  “My God!  I could knock you out of the gig!  Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?”

“Very well,” he said, laughing; “I am sorry to wound you.  I did wrong—­I admit it.”  He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued:  “Only you needn’t be so everlastingly flinging it in my face.  I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing.  You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again.  You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn’t get a ribbon more than you earn.”

Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature.

“I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not—­I cannot!  I should be your creature to go on doing that, and I won’t!”

“One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d’Urberville—­ha! ha!  Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more.  I suppose I am a bad fellow—­a damn bad fellow.  I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability.  But, upon my lost soul, I won’t be bad towards you again, Tess.  And if certain circumstances should arise—­you understand—­in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require.  I may not be at Trantridge—­I am going to London for a time—­I can’t stand the old woman.  But all letters will be forwarded.”

She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees.  D’Urberville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her.  She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure.

Alec d’Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said—­

“You are not going to turn away like that, dear!  Come!”

“If you wish,” she answered indifferently.  “See how you’ve mastered me!”

She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek—­half perfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out.  Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did.