'No - I only meant - if it should have to be put off.'
“不——我只是说——如果我们愿意推迟的话，就缓一缓。”

What she meant was not very clear, and he directed her to dismiss such fancies from her mind, which she obediently did as well as she could. But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, 'We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there.'
她说的话是什么意思并不十分清楚，他就劝她，要她从心里把这样的念头打消，她也就顺从地同意了。不过在回家的路上，她一直郁郁寡欢，心情非常沉闷。她后来心想：“我们应该离开这儿，走得远远的。离开这儿要有好几百英里，这样的话这种事就再也不会发生了，过去的事就一点儿影子也传不到那儿去了。”

They parted tenderly that night on the landing, and Clare ascended to his attic. Tess sat up getting on with some little requisites, lest the few remaining days should not afford sufficient time. While she sat she heard a noise in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping and struggling. Everybody else in the house was asleep, and in her anxiety lest Clare should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door, and asked him what was the matter.
那天晚上，他们在楼梯口甜甜蜜蜜地分开了，克莱尔上楼进了他的阁楼。苔丝坐在那儿，收拾一些生活中的必需用品，因为剩下的日子已经不多了，她怕来不及收拾这些小东西。她坐在那儿收拾的时候，听见头顶上克莱尔的房间里传来一阵响声，像是一种打架的声音。屋子里所有的人都睡着了，她担心克莱尔生了病，就跑上楼去敲他的门，问他出了什么事情。

'Oh, nothing, dear,' he said from within. 'I am so sorry disturbed you! But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and dreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you and the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and think of it no more.'
“啊，没有什么事，亲爱的，”他在房间里说。“对不起，我把你吵醒了！不过原因说来十分可笑：我睡着了，梦见你受到白天那个家伙的欺侮，就又和他打了起来，你听见的声音就是我用拳头打在旅行皮包上的声音，那个皮包是我今天拿出来准备装东西用的。我睡着了偶尔有这种毛病。睡觉去吧，不要再想着这件事了。”

This was the last drachm required to turn the scale of her indecision. Declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not; but there was another way. She sat down and wrote on the four pages of a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events of three or four years ago, put it into an envelope, and directed it to Clare. Then, lest the flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any shoes and slipped the note under his door.
在她犹豫不定的天平上，这是最后一颗砝码。当面把自己的过去坦诚相告，她做不到，不过还有另外的办法。她坐下来，拿出来一叠信纸，把自己三四年前的事情简单明了地叙述出来，写了满满四页，装进一个信封里，写上寄克莱尔。后来她又怕自己变得软弱了，就光着脚跑上楼，把写的信从门底下塞了进去。

Her night was a broken one, as it well might be, and she listened for the first faint noise overhead. It came, as usual; he descended, as usual. She descended. He met her at the bottom of the stairs and kissed her. Surely it was as warmly as ever!
她睡眠的夜晚被打断了，这也许应该是这样的，她倾听着头上传来的第一声微弱的脚步声。脚步声出现了，还是同往常一样；他下了楼，还是同往常一样。她也下了楼。他在楼梯下面等着她，吻她。他的吻肯定还是像过去一样热烈！