ore, she was appalled by the determination revealed in the
depths of this gentle being she had married--the will to subdue the
grosser to the subtler emotion, the substance to the conception, the
flesh to the spirit. Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead
leaves upon the tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascendency.

He may have observed her look, for he explained--

"I think of people more kindly when I am away from them"; adding
cynically, "God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day,
for weariness; thousands have done it!"

That day he began to pack up, and she went upstairs and began to pack
also. Both knew that it was in their two minds that they might part
the next morning for ever, despite the gloss of assuaging conjectures
thrown over their proceeding because they were of the sort to whom
any parting which has an air of finality is a torture. He knew,
and she knew, that, though the fascination which each had exercised
over the other--on her part independently of accomplishments--would
probably in the first days of their separation be even more potent
than ever, time must attenuate that effect; the practical arguments
against accepting her as a housemate might pronounce themselves more
strongly in the boreal light of a remoter view. Moreover, when two
people are once parted--have abandoned a common domicile and a common
environment--new growths insensibly bud upward to fill each vacated
place; unforeseen accidents hinder intentions, and old plans are
forgotten.

XXXVII

Midnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to announce
it in the Valley of the Froom.

Not long after one o'clock there was a slight creak in the darkened
farmhouse once the mansion of the d'Urbervilles. Tess, who used the
upper chamber, heard it and awoke. It had come from the corner step
of the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She saw the
door of her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband crossed the
stream of moonlight with a curiously careful tread. He was in his
shirt and trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she
perceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy.
When he reached the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in
tones of indescribable sadness--

"Dead! dead! dead!"

Under the influence of any strongly-disturbing force, Clare would
occasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange feats, such
as he had done