"Damn him!" said I.
That got out before I could stop it, but when it had got out I wasn't sorry. It told what I felt then—and it tells what I feel now. John's taking her from me was stealing, and nothing less. We were together when I found her, he and I; but I first saw her and I first touched her—and he gave me his share in her, though he had no real share in her, when he knew what my finding was. And so his taking her from me was stealing: and that is God's truth!
Tess said nothing back to me. She only looked at me sorrowful for a minute, and then looked down again at the bit of wreck on the sands. By the sigh she gave I knew pretty well what was in her mind.
I'd had my answer, and that was the end of it. "I'll be going now, Tess," I said; and I got up and she got up with me. I was not feeling steady on my legs, and like enough I had a queer look on me. As for Tess, she was near as white as a dead woman, though some of her whiteness may have come from the yellow sunshine on her out of the western sky. Up there on top of the Ness we still had the sun with us, though he was almost gone among the foul weather yellow clouds.
"Thou'lt try to forgive me, George," she said, speaking low, and her mouth sort of twitching.
"I love thee, Tess," I said; "and where there's love there can be no talk of forgiveness. But John has the hate of me, and I tell thee fairly I'll hurt him if I can!"
With that I left her—there on Covehithe Ness, over the very spot where the sea brought her to me—and went walking back along the cliff-edge: and not seeing anything clearly because I was thinking about John, and what I'd like to do to him, and there was a sort of red blur before my eyes.
After a while I turned and looked back. My eyes had cleared a bit, but what I saw made them red again. Tess was not alone on the Ness. John was with her. The two stood out strong in the last of the yellow sunshine against a cloud-bank on the far edge of the sky. I suppose that Tess being hurt that way for him brought John to his bearings—making him love her the more for sorrow's sake, and for anger's sake making him ready to throw Grace Gryce over. Like enough he had been watching for his chance to get to her, waiting till I was gone. Anyway, there he was—and I knew what he was saying to her as well as if I'd heard the words. It is no wonder that the blood got into my eyes again as I started back along the path. But I did not go far. Somehow I managed to pull myself together and turn again. What I had to settle with John Heath could be settled best when he and I were alone.