Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Chapter 55 Summary & Analysis

That night Angel walks through Sandbourne, a fashionable pleasure city on the English Channel, and wonders what possibly could have drawn Tess here. There are no cows or farms, but only mansions. He goes restlessly to sleep.

The next morning Angel asks a postman for information. He has never heard of a Mrs. Clare or a Ms. Durbeyfield, but he knows there is a d'Urberville staying at a place called The Herons. Angel is excited and goes there to find it is a luxurious lodging-house. He fears Tess is working there.

The landlady says there is a Mrs. d'Urberville there, which slightly confuses Angel, but he asks her to tell Tess that he has come. He waits among flowers, wondering if Tess sold her jewels to afford the place.

Tess appears dressed in expensive, elegant clothes. She stands still on the threshold, and Angel begs her forgiveness. Tess's eyes appear strange, and she says it is too late, to not come near her. She says that she waited and suffered for so long, and then Alec appeared, and helped her family, and convinced her that Angel would never return, and at last he won her back.

Angel understands the terrible truth. Tess says Alec is upstairs, and that she hates him now, but Angel must leave and never return. She disappears and Angel walks blindly through the streets.