Tess of the d'Urbervilles Chapter 36

Tess and Angel awkwardly spend the next few days trying to find a way to fix things, but there is no solution where they can be in the same place because Angel does not feel that he is her "natural" husband. Yet he can't divorce her because he made a holy vow to be married, so they agree to separate, although Tess is crushed by the arrangement. He plans to finish his farm study and then begin his own farm and she is going to her parents' home in Marlott.

Tess is surprised by the harshness with which Angel is treating her, but she sympathizes with him because she feels that she so little deserves him anyway. He is too shocked at the difference between what she is and what he imagined her to be that he cannot begin to accept her right now. They will part, perhaps forever, in the morning.