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 dust-coat that he wore, spread it upon the thick leaves.

‘Now, you sit there’, he said. ‘That will keep away the damp. Just give an eye to the horse—it will be quite sufficient.’

He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, ‘By the bye, Tess, your father has a new cob to-day. Somebody gave it to him.’

‘Somebody? You!’

D’Urberville nodded.

‘Oh how very good of you that is!’ she exclaimed, with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.

‘And the children have some toys.’

‘I didn’t know—you ever sent them anything!’ she murmured, much moved. ‘I almost wish you had not—yes, I almost wish it!’

‘Why, dear?’

‘It—hampers me so.’

‘Tessy—don’t you love me ever so little now?’

‘I’m grateful,’ she reluctantly admitted, ‘But I fear I do not’ The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and then following with another, she wept outright.