The second peal had been louder, and still nobody came.  Then she walked out of the porch, opened the gate, and passed through.  And though she looked dubiously at the house-front as if inclined to return, it was with a breath of relied that she closed the gate.  A feeling haunted her that she might have been recognized (though how she could not tell), and orders been given not to admit her.

Tess went as far as the corner.  She had done all she could do; but determined not to escape present trepidation at the expense of future distress, she walked back again quite past the house, looking up at all the windows.

Ah—­the explanation was that they were all at church, every one.  She remembered her husband saying that his father always insisted upon the household, servants included, going to morning-service, and, as a consequence, eating cold food when they came home.  It was, therefore, only necessary to wait till the service was over.  She would not make herself conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and she started to get past the church into the lane.  But as she reached the churchyard-gate the people began pouring out, and Tess found herself in the midst of them.

The Emminster congregation looked at her as only a congregation of small country-townsfolk walking home at its leisure can look at a woman out of the common whom it perceives to be a stranger.  She quickened her pace, and ascended the the road by which she had come, to find a retreat between its hedges till the Vicar’s family should have lunched, and it might be convenient for them to receive her.  She soon distanced the churchgoers, except two youngish men, who, linked arm-in-arm, were beating up behind her at a quick step.

As they drew nearer she could hear their voices engaged in earnest discourse, and, with the natural quickness of a woman in her situation, did not fail to recognize in those noises the quality of her husband’s tones.  The pedestrians were his two brothers.  Forgetting all her plans, Tess’s one dread was lest they should overtake her now, in her disorganized condition, before she was prepared to confront them; for though she felt that they could not identify her, she instinctively dreaded their scrutiny.  The more briskly they walked, the more briskly walked she.  They were plainly bent upon taking a short quick stroll before going indoors to lunch or dinner, to restore warmth to limbs chilled with sitting through a long service.

Only one person had preceded Tess up the hill—­a ladylike young woman, somewhat interesting, though, perhaps, a trifle guindee and prudish.  Tess had nearly overtaken her when the speed of her brothers-in-law brought them so nearly behind her back that she could hear every word of their conversation.  They said nothing, however, which particularly interested her till, observing the young lady still further in front, one of them remarked, “There is Mercy Chant.  Let us overtake her.”