Overhead, as she sat, she could now hear the floorboards slightly creak, as if some one were walking about, and presently the movement was explained by the rustle of garments against the banisters, the opening and the closing of the front door, and the form of Tess passing to the gate on her way into the street.She was fully dressed now in the walking costume of a well-to-do young lady in which she had arrived, with the sole addition that over her hat and black feathers a veil was drawn.
Mrs Brooks had not been able to catch any word of farewell, temporary or otherwise, between her tenants at the door above.They might have quarrelled, or Mr d'Urberville might still be asleep, for he was not an early riser.
She went into the back room which was more especially her own apartment, and continued her sewing there.The lady lodger did not return, nor did the gentleman ring his bell.Mrs Brooks pondered on the delay, and on what probable relation the visitor who had called so early bore to the couple upstairs.In reflecting she leant back in her chair.
As she did so her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling till they were arrested by a spot in the middle of its white surface which she had never noticed there before.It was about the size of a wafer when she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red.The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts.
Mrs Brooks had strange qualms of misgiving.She got upon the table, and touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers.It was damp, and she fancied that it was a blood stain.
Descending from the table, she left the parlour, and went upstairs, intending to enter the room overhead, which was the bedchamber at the back of the drawing-room.But, nerveless woman as she had now become, she could not bring herself to attempt the handle.She listened.The dead silence within was broken only by a regular beat.
Drip, drip, drip.
Mrs Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, and ran into the street.A man she knew, one of the workmen employed at an adjoining villa, was passing by, and she begged him to come in and go upstairs with her; she feared something had happened to one of her lodgers.The workman assented, and followed her to the landing.
She opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back for him to pass in, entering herself behind him.The room was empty; the breakfast - a substantial repast of coffee, eggs, and a cold ham - lay spread upon the table untouched, as when she had taken it up, excepting that the carving knife was missing.She asked the man to go through the folding-doors into the adjoining room.
He opened the doors, entered a step or two, and came back almost instantly with a rigid face.`My good God, the gentleman in bed is dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife - a lot of blood has run down upon the floor!'
The alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately been so quiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, a surgeon among the rest.The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched the heart of the victim, who lay on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as if he had scarcely moved after the infliction of the blow.In a quarter of an hour the news that a gentleman who was a temporary visitor to the town had been stabbed in his bed, spread through every street and villa of the popular watering-place.Chapter 57 Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast, staring at nothingness.He went on eating and drinking unconsciously till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which he took his dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him, and went out.
At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him a few words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to and been accepted by Mercy Chant.
Clare crumpled up the paper, and followed the route to the station;reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an hour and more.He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of an hour felt that he could wait there no longer.Broken in heart and numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up there.
The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge to edge.
He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and was climbing the western acclivity, when, pausing for breath, he unconsciously looked back.Why he did so he could not say, but something seemed to impel him to the act.The tape-like surface of the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.
It was a human figure running.Clare waited, with a dim sense that somebody was trying to overtake him.
The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally changed attire in which he now beheld her.It was not till she was quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.
`I saw you - turn away from the station - just before I got there -and I have been following you all this way!'
She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling it within his arm, he led her along.To avoid meeting any possible wayfarers he left the high road, and took a footpath under some fir-trees.When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped and looked at her inquiringly.
