Tess walked back from Emminster to Flintcomb-Ash, she saw a crowd of people around a barn. 'What is happening?' she asked a woman there. 'We've all come to listen to the preaching,' the woman replied. 'They say his sermons are very fiery!'

Tess went closer to the barn. She could not see the speaker, but she could hear him. He was calling sinners to repentance, warning them about the fires of hell. Then he began to tell his own history. He said he had been the greatest of sinners. Then one day he met a clergyman - the Reverend Clare of Emminster - who tried to call him to repentance. At first he had ignored Mr Clare's preaching, but finally he was converted and gave up his evil ways.

The voice was more startling to Tess than its message. It was the voice of Alec d'Urberville. She moved through the crowd to the door of the barn, her heart beating in suspense. Then she saw him, standing before the crowd in the afternoon sunlight.

Till this moment, she had never seen or heard from d'Urberville since her departure from Trantridge. His appearance had changed. The moustache was gone, and his clothes were more sober. For a moment Tess doubted that it was really him. Then there could be no doubt that her seducer stood before her.

There was something grotesque about solemn words of scripture coming out of that mouth. Less than four years earlier she had heard that voice use the same powers of persuasion for a very different purpose. Everything about him was transformed, and yet the difference was not great. The aggressive energy of his animal passions was now used for an equally aggressive religious fanaticism.

'But perhaps I am being unfair,' thought Tess. 'Wicked men do sometimes turn away from wickedness to save their souls.'

Just then Alec recognised her. The fire suddenly went out of him. His lips trembled. His eyes avoided hers. Tess hurried away from the barn.

As she walked away from the barn, her back seemed sensitive to eyes watching her, his eyes. She walked quickly, desperate to get as far away from him as possible. 'Bygones will never be bygones,' she thought bitterly, 'until I am a bygone myself.'

Then she heard his footsteps behind her. 'Leave me alone!' she cried.

'I deserve that. But, Tess, of all the people in the world, you - the woman I wronged so much - are the one I should try to save!'

'Have you saved yourself?' asked Tess with bitter irony.

'Heaven has saved me, and it can save you too!'