Page 479 - tess-of-the-durbervilles

Tess left her post, her knees trembling so wretchedly with
the shaking of the machine that she could scarcely walk.
‘You ought to het a quart o’ drink into ‘ee, as I’ve done,’
said Marian. ‘You wouldn’t look so white then. Why, souls
above us, your face is as if you’d been hagrode!’
It occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was
so tired, her discovery of her visitor’s presence might have
the bad effect of taking away her appetite; and Marian was
thinking of inducing Tess to descend by a ladder on the fur-
ther side of the stack when the gentleman came forward and
looked up.
Tess uttered a short little ‘Oh!’ And a moment after
she said, quickly, ‘I shall eat my dinner here—right on the
rick.’
Sometimes, when they were so far from their cottages,
they all did this; but as there was rather a keen wind going
to-day, Marian and the rest descended, and sat under the
straw-stack.
The newcomer was, indeed, Alec d’Urberville, the late
Evangelist, despite his changed attire and aspect. It was ob-
vious at a glance that the original Weltlust had come back;
that he had restored himself, as nearly as a man could do
who had grown three or four years older, to the old jaun-
ty, slapdash guise under which Tess had first known her
admirer, and cousin so-called. Having decided to remain
where she was, Tess sat down among the bundles, out of
sight of the ground, and began her meal; till, by-and-by, she
heard footsteps on the ladder, and immediately after Alec
appeared upon the stack—now an oblong and level platform

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