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 thought had been unsuspended; he was becoming ill with thinking; eaten out with thinking, withered by thinking; scourged out of all his former pulsating flexuous domesticity. He walked about saying to himself, ‘What’s to be done—what’s to be done?’ and by chance she overheard him. It caused her to break the reserve about their future which had hitherto prevailed.

‘I suppose—you are not going to live wi’ me—long, are you, Angel?’ she asked, the sunk corners of her mouth betraying how purely mechanical were the means by which she retained that expression of chastened calm upon her face.

‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘without despising myself, and what is worse, perhaps, despising you. I mean, of course, cannot live with you in the ordinary sense. At present, whatever I feel, I do not despise you. And, since we have began to speak, Tess, let me speak plainly, otherwise you may not perceive all my difficulties. How can we live together while that man lives? Now I put it to you. Don’t think of me or of yourself, my feelings or your feelings. That’s not all the difficulty; it lies in another consideration—one bear-