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The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old quarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew.

‘Why—Tess!—my chil’—I thought you was married!—married really and truly this time—we sent the cider—’

‘Yes, mother; so I am.’

‘Going to be?’

‘I mean—I am married.’

‘Married! Then where’s thy husband?’

‘Oh, he’s gone away for a time.’

‘Gone away! When was you married, then? The day you said?’

‘Yes, Tuesday, mother.’

‘And now ’tis on’y Saturday, and he gone away?’

‘Yes; he’s gone.’

‘What’s the meaning o’ that? ’Nation seize such husbands as you seem to get, say I!’

‘Mother!’ Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon the matron’s bosom, and burst into sobs. ‘I don’t know how to tell ’ee, mother! You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell him—couldn’t help it—and he went away!’