Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 3).pdf/251

 remaining still in the opening of the doorway. Mere yellow skeleton that he was now he felt the contrast between them, and thought his appearance distasteful to her.

'Tessy!' he said huskily, 'can you forgive me for going away? Can't you—come to me? How do you get to be—like this?'

'It is too late!' said she, her voice being so hard that it echoed in the room, her eye glittering unnaturally.

'I did not think rightly of you—I did not see you as you were!' he continued to plead. ‘I do now, dearest Tessy, mine!"

'Too late, too late!' she said rapidly, waving her hand in the impatience of a person whose tortures cause every instant to seen an hour. 'Don't come close to me, Angel! No—you must not. Keep away!'

'But don't you love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled down by illness? You are not so fickle—I am come on purpose for you—my mother and father will welcome you now!'

'Yes—O, yes, yes! But I say, I say it is too late!' she almost shrieked. She seemed to feel like a fugitive in a dream, who tried to move