Page:Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891 Volume 2).pdf/236

bright, her pale cheek still showed its wonted roundness, though half-dried tears had left glistening traces thereon; and the usually ripe red mouth was almost as pale as her cheek. Throbbingly alive as she was still, under the stress of her mental grief, the life beat so brokenly that a little furthur pull upon it would cause real illness, dull her characteristic eyes, and make her mouth thin.

She looked absolutely pure. Nature, in her fantastic trickery, had set such a seal of maidenhood upon Tess’s countenance that he gazed at her with a stupefied air.

‘Tess! Say it is not true! No, it is not true!’

‘It is true.’

‘Every word?’

‘Every word.’

He looked at her imploringly, as if he would willingly have taken a lie from her lips, knowing it to be one, and have made of it, by some sort of sophistry, a valid denial. However, she only repeated—

‘It is true.’

‘Is he living?’ Angel then asked.