Connecticut western news., 1920-12-02
cannot forgive the woman. All tho


 grip him. Angel Clare, the prophet of emancipation, no longer exists. For several days they lead a formal, iso- lated existence. Tess, whose sole wish is to please her idol, acQulesces In his attitude, and after a first wild out burst at the injustice, does nothing to exonerate herself, and her one chance for reinstatement is bllghted by the mocking witness of the vlndictive DOT traits. No chaste-minded, unsophistt- cated peasant maid she, but the last dregs of a decadent stocki A separa- tion, temporarily at least, is decided upon, and while Clare ranges afar, Tess again creeps home. Joan, after the first bitter reproaches for the mad dis obedience of her repeated injunctions of secrecy, treats the affair with her usual fatalistic nghtheartedness; but the harsh words of the father in a drunken moment of excessive ances- tral pride causes dignified departure with the conciliatory donation of half her means of subsistence and the intimation that she Is rejoinlng her husband.
 Determined, however, to make no appeal to Oare's family, Tess easily finds summer employment among the farms; but with the coming of win ter and too lavish contributions to her family's support, privation stares her In the face. Day after day she wan ders on until at length on the high. chalky tablelands, in a great drab field of desolat.on, she finds the mean est. most arduous of tasks rendered tenfold difficult by a churllsh boor of an employer in all the rancor of an am cient grudge against her. Tn the sting ing rain and the chilling snow she tolls unceasingly, uncomplainingly, living wholly in the hope of her husbands re- turn. Songs that he loved she prac- tees; the sweet, gay notes contrasting sadly with her tragic lips and great, sorrowing eyes. At length, distraughf by the continued silence, she bravefy decides to seek news of him from his parents, and walks the long, tremulous miles to Emminster vicarage. Of rars spiritual as we'll as physical endow- ments. she would have undoubtedly received a welcome at the hands of the benevolent old clergyman and his wife. but an empty house reverberates to her knocking, and while she unobtrusively awaits their return from church, she overhears a wayside conversation be- tween Angels two exemplary brothers that sends her homeward with rended heart.
 The voice of "ranter" triumphant ly consigntng barnful of rustics to eternal damnation caused Tess to pause for a moment in a doorway, and there on a platform of corn bags, in sanctimonious side wh,skers and semi clerical black, stood Alec D'UrberviIle. Animallsm had yielded to fanaticism, and the bold, rowing eye now gleamed with a ferocious righteousness. As she passed down the lane he came after her, imploring forgiveness and offer ing redemption. Repulse after repulse failed to deter Alec, who persisted day by day, at first with a marriage license and holy words and then his former passion uncontrollably revived by Tess compelling beauty, his new found religion dropped from him like a cloak, the convert disappeared and all the arts of man and devil were em- ployed to ensnare the girl. And poor, hopeless Tess, grinding on under be- strain, was in more danger than her scorn of the man could real ize. Finally her fathers death, result ing in the eviction of her family from their home, precipitated Tess doom. and as a last desperate reparation to her helpless mother and sisters, she yields, with fatalistic calm, to the in- evitable.
 To Sandborne, gay watering place. a melancholy specter of a man, wasted by illness and regret, comes la search of his lost bride, and in a fashionable boarding house Clare finds Tess and learns the agonizlng truth. Just be- yond the town she overlook him, her eyes wild and trancellke, her whole body as if bereft of soul and will. 'T have killed him. he taunted me he called you by foul name owed it to you and I owed it to myself. It came to me as a shining light that I should get you back that way"
 With a final realization of the im- of her love and the piteous plight 1t had brought upon her, Clare held out tender, protecting arms, and together they wandered through the ways like two chlldren--the world and Its retrlbution quite forgot.
 For five days they continued this dyllic state and on the sixth night Tess half jestingiy claimed sanctuary among the conspicuous ruins of the an- ,ient pagan temple to the sun at Stone aenge. With the dawn came the guardians of the law, looming. dark against the silver horizon. In a grim, circle they waited until the sun's level rays, relentlessly reminis- ,ent of a bygone sacrificial day, fell