ention; but
her determined negative deterred his scrupulous heart. Their
condition of domiciliary comradeship put her, as the woman, to such
disadvantage by its enforced intercourse, that he felt it unfair to
her to exercise any pressure of blandishment which he might have
honestly employed had she been better able to avoid him. He released
her momentarily-imprisoned waist, and withheld the kiss.

It all turned on that release. What had given her strength to refuse
him this time was solely the tale of the widow told by the dairyman;
and that would have been overcome in another moment. But Angel said
no more; his face was perplexed; he went away.

Day after day they met--somewhat less constantly than before; and
thus two or three weeks went by. The end of September drew near, and
she could see in his eye that he might ask her again.

His plan of procedure was different now--as though he had made up
his mind that her negatives were, after all, only coyness and youth
startled by the novelty of the proposal. The fitful evasiveness of
her manner when the subject was under discussion countenanced the
idea. So he played a more coaxing game; and while never going beyond
words, or attempting the renewal of caresses, he did his utmost
orally.

In this way Clare persistently wooed her in undertones like that of
the purling milk--at the cow's side, at skimmings, at butter-makings,
at cheese-makings, among broody poultry, and among farrowing pigs--as
no milkmaid was ever wooed before by such a man.

Tess knew that she must break down. Neither a religious sense of a
certain moral validity in the previous union nor a conscientious wish
for candour could hold out against it much longer. She loved him so
passionately, and he was so godlike in her eyes; and being, though
untrained, instinctively refined, her nature cried for his tutelary
guidance. And thus, though Tess kept repeating to herself, "I can
never be his wife," the words were vain. A proof of her weakness lay
in the very utterance of what calm strength would not have taken the
trouble to formulate. Every sound of his voice beginning on the old
subject stirred her with a terrifying bliss, and she coveted the
recantation she feared.

His manner was--what man's is not?--so much that of one who would
love and cherish and defend her under any conditions, changes,
charges, or revelations, that her gloom lessened as she basked in it.
The season meanwhile was drawi