‘I thought you wouldn’t—I said so. Well, then, put up your baskets, and let me help you on.’
She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay.
D’Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. She sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After a space they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down.
‘What are you crying for?’ he coldly asked.
‘I was only thinking that I was born over there,’ murmured Tess.
‘Well—we must all be born somewhere.’
‘I wish I had never been born—there or anywhere else!’
148
