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 ‘Don’t cry, dear, dear one! Now sit down here, and wait till I come.’ She passively sat down on the coat that he had spread, and shivered slightly. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘Not very—a little.’

He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into a billow. ‘You have only that puffy muslin dress on—how’s that?’

‘It’s my best summer one. ’Twas very warm when I started, and I didn’t know I was going to ride, and that it would be night.’

‘Nights grow chilly in September. Let me see.’ He went to the horse, took a druggist’s bottle from a parcel on the saddle, and after some trouble in opening it held it to her mouth unawares. Tess sputtered and coughed, and gasping ‘It will go on my pretty frock!’ swallowed as he poured, to prevent the catastrophe she feared.

‘That’s it—now you’ll feel warmer’, said D’Urberville, as he restored the bottle to its place. ‘It is only a well-known cordial that my mother ordered me to bring for household purposes, and she won’t mind me using some of it medicinally. Now, my pretty, rest there; I shall soon be back again.’