Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 3).pdf/138

 Then, suddenly, 'One clasp, Tessy—one! Only for old friendship'

'I am defenceless, Alec! A good man's honour is in my keeping—think—and be ashamed!'

'O yes—yes! My God!'

He clenched his lips, mortified with himself for his weakness. His eyes were equally barren of amatory and religious hope. The corpses of those old black passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines of his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come together as in a resurrection. He went out indeterminately, hardly responsible for his acts.

Though D'Urberville had declared that this breach of his engagement to-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tess's words, as echoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep impression upon him, and continued to do so after he had left her. He moved on in silence, as if his energies were benumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possibility that his position was untenable. Reason had had nothing to do with his conversion, and the drops of logic that Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm served to chill its effervescence to stagnation. He said to