ANGEL: O my darling Tessie--at last--at...

ANGEL: O my darling Tessie--at last--at last! Forgive me--forgive me--I’ve been wandering hither and thither to find you--I am back! (Tess gently thrusts him back, shaking her head.) What, don’t you forgive me? I was very wrong, I know. I was cruel in judging you so harshly. We’ll never part again, never, if you’ll forgive me. (Tess withdraws herself further.) How do you come to be in these strange circumstances? Your mother didn’t explain. It was sheer misery that drove me away, Tess--believe me, dear, it was! But now we are both purified by affliction, and--

TESS: Stop … stop … stop. There’s something--a horrible something, between us--don’t you see how it is? What it is? Doesn’t it explain itself, all this? (Points to the room, table, her dressing-gown, etc.)

ANGEL: I don’t understand. Can’t you forgive your husband— can’t you come to me? What are you doing here?

TESS: It is too late!

ANGEL: No! Though I did not think rightly of you—I did not see you as you were at first—I have learnt to, since—Tessy mine!

TESS: Too late, too late! (Waving her hand.) Don’t come close to me, Angel! No, you must not. Keep away!

ANGEL: But don’t you love me, my dear wife? Is it because I have been so pulled down by illness? You are not so fickle! I am come on purpose for you! My mother and father will welcome you now!

TESS: Yes—oh yes, yes! But I say, it is too late. Don’t you know all—don’t you know it? Yet how do you come here if you don’t know?

ANGEL: I called at your mother’s and got your address, and then it occurred to me that it would be better for her to accompany me. So we came together, much against her will. But I feared you wouldn’t forgive me unless I got her to plead for me.—She has suddenly left me.—I don’t know why.

TESS: (with sudden and tender pathos) I waited and waited for yI wrote to you and you didn’t come! He kept on saying that you. . . . But you did not come, and ou would never come any more and that I was a foolish woman to expect you. He was very kind to me, and to mother, and to all of us in our distress, afters father’s death. He—

ANGEL: He? I don’t understand.

TESS: (pointing to the folding doors and speaking in a low and desperate voice) He—Alec D’Urberville—he’s got me back to live with him. (A pause in which Angel regards her with stupefied despair.) He’s in there. I hate him now because he told me lies—that you were not coming again any more; and you have come! These clothes are what he has put upon me; I didn’t care what he did wi’ me! But hate him or not, here I am! But you will go away, Angel, please, and never come any more! Oh never think of me, or pray for me, or pity me. Only forgive me!

ANGEL: (After a stillness in which he turns aside) Ah … it is my fault--mine only--and his!

TESS: (in a whisper) Will you--go?

ANGEL: (continuing to look away from her) There is nothing else for me to do--nothing--nothing! While that man lives I am an outcast and accursed. --She has no kiss left for me.

He goes out.

Tess, her face buried in the sleeve of her dressing-gown, goes to the folding door, opens it to enter--but returns, leaving it open, and falling on her knees over a chair sobs brokenly.

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles: The Stage Version, as Adapted by the Author. Edited by N. John McArthur. Lexicos Publishing. Kindle Edition, 2012.