Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 2).pdf/219

‘Another woman in your shape.’

She perceived in his words the realization of her own apprehensive foreboding in former times. He looked upon her as a species of impostor; a guilty woman in the guise of an innocent one. Terror was upon her white face as she saw it; her cheek was flaccid, and her mouth had the aspect of a round little hole. The horrible sense of his view of her so deadened her that she staggered; and he stepped forward, thinking she was going to fall.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said in pure pity. ‘You are ill; and it is natural that you should be.’

She did sit down, without knowing where she was, that vacant look still upon her face, and her eyes such as to make his flesh creep.

‘I don’t belong to you any more, then; do I, Angel?’ she asked helplessly. ‘It is not me, but another woman like me that he loved, he says.’

The image raised caused her to take pity upon herself as one who was ill-used. Her eyes filled as she regarded her position further; she turned round and burst into a flood of self-sympathetic tears.

Angel Clare was relieved at this change, for