curves of
sensuousness were now modulated to lines of devotional passion. The lip-shapes
that had meant seductiveness were now made to express supplication; the glow on
the cheek that yesterday could be translated as riotousness was evangelized
to-day into the splendour of pious rhetoric; animalism had become fanaticism;
Paganism Paulinism; the bold rolling eye that had flashed upon her form in the
old time with such mastery now beamed with the rude energy of a theolatry that
was almost ferocious. Those black angularities which his face had used to put on
when his wishes were thwarted now did duty in picturing the incorrigible
backslider who would insist upon turning again to his wallowing in the mire.
    The lineaments, as such, seemed to complain. They had been diverted from
their hereditary connotation to signify impressions for which nature did not
intend them. Strange that their very elevation was a misapplication, that to
raise seemed to falsify.
    Yet could it be so? She would admit the ungenerous sentiment no longer.
D'Urberville was not the first wicked man who had turned away from his
wickedness to save his soul alive, and why should she deem it unnatural in him?
It was but the usage of thought which had been jarred in her at hearing good new
words in bad old notes. The greater the sinner the greater the saint; it was not
necessary to dive far into Christian history to discover that.
    Such impressions as these moved her vaguely, and without strict
definiteness. As soon as the nerveless pause of her surprise would allow her to
stir, her impulse was to pass on out of his sight. He had obviously not
discerned her yet in her position against the sun.
    But the moment that she moved again he recognized her. The effect upon her
old lover was electric, far stronger than the effect of his presence upon her.
His fire, the tumultuous ring of his eloquence, seemed to go out of him. His lip
struggled and trembled under the words that lay upon it; but deliver them it
could not as long as she faced him. His eyes, after their first glance upon her
face, hung confusedly in every other direction but hers, but came back in a
desperate leap every few seconds. This paralysis lasted, however, but a short
time; for Tess's energies returned with the atrophy of his, and she walked as
fast as she was able past the barn and onward.
    As soon as she could reflect it appalled her, this change in their relative
platforms. He who had wrought her undoing was now on the side of the Spirit,
while she remained unregenerate. And,