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sake, from Tess. What was comedy to them was tragedy to her; and she could hardly bear their mirth. She soon rose from table, and with an impression that Clare would follow her, went along a little wriggling path, now stepping to one side of the irrigating channels, and now to the other, till she stood by the main stream of the Var. Men had been cutting the water-weeds higher up the river, and masses of them were floating past her—moving islands of green crow-foot, on which she might almost have ridden; long locks of which weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows from crossing.

Yes, there was the pain of it. This question of a woman telling her story—the heaviest of crosses to herself—seemed but amusement to others. It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom.

‘Tessy!’ came from behind her, and Clare sprang across the gully, alighting beside her feet. ‘My wife—soon—I may say?’

‘No, no; I cannot. For your sake, O Mr. Clare; for your sake, I say no!’

‘Tess!’

‘Still I say no!’ she repeated.