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 fancy other folks be supposing things when they bain’t. Oh no, I should never ha’ thought a word of where she was a sitting if she hadn’t told me—not I.’

‘We are going to be married soon,’ said Clare, with improvised phlegm.

‘Ah—and be ye! Well, I am truly glad to hear it, sir. I’ve thought you mid do such a thing for some time. She’s too good for a dairymaid—I said so the very first day I saw her—and a prize for any man; and what’s more, a wonderful woman for a gentleman-farmer’s wife; he won’t be at the mercy of his baily wi’ her at his side.’

Somehow Tess disappeared. She had been even more struck with the look of the girls who followed Crick than abashed by Crick’s blunt praise.

After supper, when she reached her bedroom, they were all present. A light was burning, and each girl was sitting up whitely in her bed, awaiting Tess, like a row of avenging ghosts.

But she saw in a few moments that there was no malice in their mood. They could scarcely feel as a loss what they had never expected to have. Their condition was objective, contemplative.