Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 1).pdf/148

 ‘You are quite sure?’

‘I am angry with you sometimes!’

‘Ah, I half feared as much.’ Nevertheless, Alec did not object to that confession. He knew that anything was better than frigidity. ‘Why haven’t you told me when I have made you angry?’

‘You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here.’

‘I haven’t offended you often by love-making.’

‘You have sometimes.’

‘How many times?’

‘You know as well as I—too many times.’

‘Every time I have tried?’

She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway, and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.