Jude the Obscure .................................................................................................................................................1

Thomas Hardy ..........................................................................................................................................1

"Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many

also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women.... O ye men, how can it be but women should be

THE schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him

the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off,

such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher's effects. For the schoolhouse had

been partly furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed by the master, in addition

to the packingcase of books, was a cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in which

he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm having waned he had never acquired any skill

in playing, and the purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in moving house.

The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the sight of changes. He did not mean to

return till the evening, when the new schoolteacher would have arrived and settled in, and everything would

The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were standing in perplexed attitudes in the

parlour before the instrument. The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he should not know

what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster, the city he was bound for, since he was only going into

A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the packing, joined the group of men, and as

they rubbed their chins he spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: "Aunt have got a great

fuelhouse, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you've found a place to settle in, sir."

It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy's aunt an old maiden residentand ask her if she

would house the piano till Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started to see about the

practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.

Tears rose into the boy's eyes, for he was not among the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close

to the schoolmaster's life, but one who had attended the night school only during the present teacher's term of

office. The regular scholars, if the truth must be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain

The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr. Phillotson had bestowed on him as a

"Ahthat would be a long story. You wouldn't understand my reasons, Jude. You will, perhaps, when you

"Welldon't speak of this everywhere. You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the

necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a

university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at

headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the spot will afford

The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley's fuelhouse was dry, and eminently practicable;

and she seemed willing to give the instrument standingroom there. It was accordingly left in the school till

the evening, when more hands would be available for removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance

The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine o'clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his

"I shan't forget you, Jude," he said, smiling, as the cart moved off. "Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to

animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt me out

The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner by the rectoryhouse. The boy returned

to the drawwell at the edge of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help his patron

and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip now and after opening the wellcover to begin

lowering the bucket he paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework, his face wearing

the fixity of a thoughtful child's who has felt the pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which

he was looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present position appeared as a long circular

perspective ending in a shining disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down. There was a

He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that

well scores of times on a morning like this, and would never draw there any more. "I've seen him look down

into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the

buckets home! But he was too clever to bide here any longera small sleepy place like this!"

A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning was a little foggy, and the boy's breathing

unfurled itself as a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden outcry:

It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the garden gate of a greenthatched

cottage not far off. The boy quickly waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort for

one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment

for breath, started with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well stoodnearly in the

It was as oldfashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of an undulating upland adjoining the North

Wessex downs. Old as it was, however, the wellshaft was probably the only relic of the local history that

remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched and dormered dwellinghouses had been pulled down

of late years, and many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church, humpbacked,

woodturreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken down, and either cracked up into heaps of roadmetal in

the lane, or utilized as pigsty walls, garden seats, guardstones to fences, and rockeries in the flowerbeds

of the neighbourhood. In place of it a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes,

had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records who had run down from

London and back in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to the Christian divinities

was not even recorded on the green and level grassplot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the

obliterated graves being commemorated by eighteenpenny castiron crosses warranted to last five years.

SLENDER as was Jude Fawley's frame he bore the two brimming housebuckets of water to the cottage

without resting. Over the door was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted in yellow

letters, "Drusilla Fawley, Baker." Within the little lead panes of the window this being one of the few old

houses leftwere five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow pattern.

While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an animated conversation in progress

withindoors between his greataunt, the Drusilla of the signboard, and some other villagers. Having seen

the schoolmaster depart, they were summing up particulars of the event, and indulging in predictions of his

"Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He's my greatnephewcome since you was last this way." The old

inhabitant who answered was a tall, gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and gave

a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. "He come from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about

a year agoworse luck for 'n, Belinda" (turning to the right) "where his father was living, and was took wi'

the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you know, Caroline" (turning to the left). "It would ha' been a

blessing if Goddymighty had took thee too, wi' thy mother and father, poor useless boy! But I've got him

here to stay with me till I can see what's to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any penny he

can. Just now he's ascaring of birds for Farmer Troutham. It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn

away, Jude?" she continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps upon his face, moved

The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of Miss or Mrs. Fawley's (as they called

her indifferently) to have him with her"to kip 'ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet the

Miss Fawley doubted it.... "Why didn't ye get the schoolmaster to take 'ee to Christminster wi' un, and make a

scholar of 'ee," she continued, in frowning pleasantry. "I'm sure he couldn't ha' took a better one. The boy is

crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same so I've heard; but I

have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this place, within these four walls, as it happened.

My niece and her husband, after they were married, didn' get a house of their own for some year or more; and

then they only had one till Well, I won't go into that. Jude, my child, don't you ever marry. 'Tisn't for the

Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like a child o' my own, Belinda, till the split

Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went out to the bakehouse, where he ate the

cake provided for his breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging from the garden by

getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression

in the general level of the upland, which was sown as a cornfield. This vast concave was the scene of his

The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all round, where it was lost by degrees in the

mist that shut out the actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the uniformity of the

scene were a rick of last year's produce standing in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach,

and the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he hardly knew whom, though once

The fresh harrowlines seemed to stretch like the channellings in a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly

utilitarian air to the expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history beyond that of the few

recent months, though to every clod and stone there really attached associations enough and to spare

echoes of songs from ancient harvestdays, of spoken words, and of sturdy deeds. Every inch of ground had

been the site, first or last, of energy, gaiety, horseplay, bickerings, weariness. Groups of gleaners had

squatted in the sun on every square yard. Lovematches that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been

made up there between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the field from a distant

plantation girls had given themselves to lovers who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next

harvest; and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made lovepromises to a woman at whose voice he

had trembled by the next seedtime after fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor the

rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place, possessing, in the one view, only the quality of

The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds used his clacker or rattle briskly. At

each clack the rooks left off pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished like tassets

of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful

He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birds' thwarted

desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should he frighten

them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of gentle friends and pensionersthe only friends he

could claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often told him that she was not. He

"Poor little dears!" said Jude, aloud. "You SHALL have some dinner you shall. There is enough for us all.

Farmer Troutham can afford to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a good meal!"

They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nutbrown soil and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of

fellowfeeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much resembled his

His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean and sordid instrument, offensive both

to the birds and to himself as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow upon his buttocks,

followed by a loud clack, which announced to his surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of

offence used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed eyes of the latter beheld the farmer

in person, the great Troutham himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude's cowering frame, the clacker

"So it's 'Eat my dear birdies,' is it, young man? 'Eat, dear birdies,' indeed! I'll tickle your breeches, and see if

you say, 'Eat, dear birdies,' again in a hurry! And you've been idling at the schoolmaster's too, instead of

coming here, ha'n't ye, hey? That's how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!"

Whilst saluting Jude's ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham had seized his left hand with his own

left, and swinging his slim frame round him at arm'slength, again struck Jude on the hind parts with the flat

side of Jude's own rattle, till the field echoed with the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each

"Don't 'ee, sirplease don't 'ee!" cried the whirling child, as helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his

person as a hooked fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the plantation, the path, and the

rooks going round and round him in an amazing circular race. "II sironly meant thatthere was a

good crop in the ground I saw 'em sow itand the rooks could have a little bit for dinner and you

wouldn't miss it, sirand Mr. Phillotson said I was to be kind to 'emoh, oh, oh!"

This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more than if Jude had stoutly denied saying

anything at all, and he still smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing to resound

all across the field and as far as the ears of distant workerswho gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing

his business of clacking with great assiduity and echoing from the brandnew church tower just behind the

mist, towards the building of which structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for God

Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing the quivering boy on his legs, took a

sixpence from his pocket and gave it him in payment for his day's work, telling him to go home and never let

Jude leaped out of arm's reach, and walked along the trackway weeping not from the pain, though that was

keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for God's

birds was bad for God's gardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he

had been a year in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his greataunt for life.

With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the village, and went homeward by a

roundabout track behind a high hedge and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms

lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as they always did in such weather at that time of

the year. It was impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them at each tread.

Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything. He

had never brought home a nest of young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and often

reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut

down or lopped, from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled

profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called,

suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his

unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe among

On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a little girl, and when the customer was gone

she said, "Well, how do you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?"

"Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few peckings of corn. And there's my

"Ah!" said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him a lecture on how she would now have

him all the spring upon her hands doing nothing. "If you can't skeer birds, what can ye do? There! don't ye

look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than myself, come to that. But 'tis as Job said, 'Now

they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the

dogs of my flock.' His father was my father's journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let 'ee go

More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily

"Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham planted. Of course you was wrong in that.

Jude, Jude, why didstn't go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere? But, oh

nopoor or'nary childthere never was any sprawl on thy side of the family, and never will be!"

"Where is this beautiful city, Auntthis place where Mr. Phillotson is gone to?" asked the boy, after

"Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a score of miles from here. It is a place

"Lord, no! You didn't grow up hereabout, or you wouldn't ask such as that. We've never had anything to do

Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an undemanded one, he lay down upon his

back on a heap of litter near the pigsty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and the position

of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of

the plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up brought responsibilities, he found. Events

did not rhyme quite as he had thought. Nature's logic was too horrid for him to care for. That mercy towards

one set of creatures was cruelty towards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt

yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you had felt when you

were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be

something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook

Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up. During the remainder of the morning he

helped his aunt, and in the afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the village. Here

"Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I've never bin therenot I. I've never had any business

The man pointed northeastward, in the very direction where lay that field in which Jude had so disgraced

himself. There was something unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness of this

fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field

again; yet Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So, stealing out of the hamlet, he

descended into the same hollow which had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch

from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the other side till the track joined the highway

by a little clump of trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak open down.

NOT a soul was visible on the hedgeless highway, or on either side of it, and the white road seemed to ascend

and diminish till it joined the sky. At the very top it was crossed at right angles by a green "ridgeway" the

Ickneild Street and original Roman road through the district. This ancient track ran east and west for many

miles, and down almost to within living memory had been used for driving flocks and herds to fairs and

The boy had never before strayed so far north as this from the nestling hamlet in which he had been deposited

by the carrier from a railway station southward, one dark evening some few months earlier, and till now he

had had no suspicion that such a wide, flat, lowlying country lay so near at hand, under the very verge of his

upland world. The whole northern semicircle between east and west, to a distance of forty or fifty miles,

spread itself before him; a bluer, moister atmosphere, evidently, than that he breathed up here.

Not far from the road stood a weatherbeaten old barn of reddishgrey brick and tile. It was known as the

Brown House by the people of the locality. He was about to pass it when he perceived a ladder against the

eaves; and the reflection that the higher he got, the further he could see, led Jude to stand and regard it. On

the slope of the roof two men were repairing the tiling. He turned into the ridgeway and drew towards the

When he had wistfully watched the workmen for some time he took courage, and ascended the ladder till he

"Christminster is out across there, by that clump. You can see it at least you can on a clear day. Ah, no,

The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversion from the monotony of his labour, had also turned to look

towards the quarter designated. "You can't often see it in weather like this," he said. "The time I've noticed it

is when the sun is going down in a blaze of flame, and it looks likeI don't know what."

"Aythough I should never ha' thought of it myself.... But I can't see no Christminster today."

The boy strained his eyes also; yet neither could he see the faroff city. He descended from the barn, and

abandoning Christminster with the versatility of his age he walked along the ridgetrack, looking for any

natural objects of interest that might lie in the banks thereabout. When he repassed the barn to go back to

Marygreen he observed that the ladder was still in its place, but that the men had finished their day's work

It was waning towards evening; there was still a faint mist, but it had cleared a little except in the damper

tracts of subjacent country and along the rivercourses. He thought again of Christminster, and wished, since

he had come two or three miles from his aunt's house on purpose, that he could have seen for once this

attractive city of which he had been told. But even if he waited here it was hardly likely that the air would

clear before night. Yet he was loth to leave the spot, for the northern expanse became lost to view on

He ascended the ladder to have one more look at the point the men had designated, and perched himself on

the highest rung, overlying the tiles. He might not be able to come so far as this for many days. Perhaps if he

prayed, the wish to see Christminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you prayed, things sometimes

came to you, even though they sometimes did not. He had read in a tract that a man who had begun to build a

church, and had no money to finish it, knelt down and prayed, and the money came in by the next post.

Another man tried the same experiment, and the money did not come; but he found afterwards that the

breeches he knelt in were made by a wicked Jew. This was not discouraging, and turning on the ladder Jude

knelt on the third rung, where, resting against those above it, he prayed that the mist might rise.

He then seated himself again, and waited. In the course of ten or fifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolved

altogether from the northern horizon, as it had already done elsewhere, and about a quarter of an hour before

the time of sunset the westward clouds parted, the sun's position being partially uncovered, and the beams

streaming out in visible lines between two bars of slaty cloud. The boy immediately looked back in the old

Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape, points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air

increased in transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz points showed themselves to be the vanes,

windows, wet roof slates, and other shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestonework, and varied outlines

that were faintly revealed. It was Christminster, unquestionably; either directly seen, or miraged in the

The spectator gazed on and on till the windows and vanes lost their shine, going out almost suddenly like

extinguished candles. The vague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the west, he saw that the sun had

disappeared. The foreground of the scene had grown funereally dark, and near objects put on the hues and

He anxiously descended the ladder, and started homewards at a run, trying not to think of giants, Herne the

Hunter, Apollyon lying in wait for Christian, or of the captain with the bleeding hole in his forehead and the

corpses round him that remutinied every night on board the bewitched ship. He knew that he had grown out

of belief in these horrors, yet he was glad when he saw the church tower and the lights in the cottage

windows, even though this was not the home of his birth, and his greataunt did not care much about him.

Inside and round about that old woman's "shop" window, with its twentyfour little panes set in leadwork,

the glass of some of them oxidized with age, so that you could hardly see the poor penny articles exhibited

within, and forming part of a stock which a strong man could have carried, Jude had his outer being for some

long tideless time. But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small.

Through the solid barrier of cold cretaceous upland to the northward he was always beholding a gorgeous

citythe fancied place he had likened to the new Jerusalem, though there was perhaps more of the painter's

imagination and less of the diamond merchant's in his dreams thereof than in those of the Apocalyptic writer.

And the city acquired a tangibility, a permanence, a hold on his life, mainly from the one nucleus of fact that

the man for whose knowledge and purposes he had so much reverence was actually living there; not only so,

In sad wet seasons, though he knew it must rain at Christminster too, he could hardly believe that it rained so

drearily there. Whenever he could get away from the confines of the hamlet for an hour or two, which was

not often, he would steal off to the Brown House on the hill and strain his eyes persistently; sometimes to be

rewarded by the sight of a dome or spire, at other times by a little smoke, which in his estimate had some of

Then the day came when it suddenly occurred to him that if he ascended to the point of view after dark, or

possibly went a mile or two further, he would see the night lights of the city. It would be necessary to come

back alone, but even that consideration did not deter him, for he could throw a little manliness into his mood,

The project was duly executed. It was not late when he arrived at the place of outlook, only just after dusk,

but a black northeast sky, accompanied by a wind from the same quarter, made the occasion dark enough.

He was rewarded; but what he saw was not the lamps in rows, as he had half expected. No individual light

was visible, only a halo or glowfog overarching the place against the black heavens behind it, making the

He set himself to wonder on the exact point in the glow where the schoolmaster might behe who never

communicated with anybody at Marygreen now; who was as if dead to them here. In the glow he seemed to

see Phillotson promenading at ease, like one of the forms in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace.

He had heard that breezes travelled at the rate of ten miles an hour, and the fact now came into his mind. He

parted his lips as he faced the northeast, and drew in the wind as if it were a sweet liquor.

"You," he said, addressing the breeze caressingly "were in Christminster city between one and two hours ago,

floating along the streets, pulling round the weathercocks, touching Mr. Phillotson's face, being breathed by

Suddenly there came along this wind something towards him a message from the placefrom some soul

residing there, it seemed. Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical, calling to

He had become entirely lost to his bodily situation during this mental leap, and only got back to it by a rough

recalling. A few yards below the brow of the hill on which he paused a team of horses made its appearance,

having reached the place by dint of half an hour's serpentine progress from the bottom of the immense

declivity. They had a load of coals behind them a fuel that could only be got into the upland by this

particular route. They were accompanied by a carter, a second man, and a boy, who now kicked a large stone

behind one of the wheels, and allowed the panting animals to have a long rest, while those in charge took a

They were elderly men, and had genial voices. Jude addressed them, inquiring if they had come from

"The place I mean is that one yonder." He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like a

young lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioning its name again. He pointed to the light in

"Yes. There do seem a spot a bit brighter in the nor' east than elsewhere, though I shouldn't ha' noticed it

Here a little book of tales which Jude had tucked up under his arm, having brought them to read on his way

hither before it grew dark, slipped and fell into the road. The carter eyed him while he picked it up and

"Ah, young man," he observed, "you'd have to get your head screwed on t'other way before you could read

"Oh, they never look at anything that folks like we can understand," the carter continued, by way of passing

the time. "On'y foreign tongues used in the days of the Tower of Babel, when no two families spoke alike.

They read that sort of thing as fast as a nighthawk will whir. 'Tis all learning there nothing but learning,

except religion. And that's learning too, for I never could understand it. Yes, 'tis a seriousminded place. Not

but there's wenches in the streets o' nights.... You know, I suppose, that they raise pa'sons there like radishes

in a bed? And though it do takehow many years, Bob?five years to turn a lirruping hobbledehoy chap

into a solemn preaching man with no corrupt passions, they'll do it, if it can be done, and polish un off like

the workmen they be, and turn un out wi' a long face, and a long black coat and waistcoat, and a religious

collar and hat, same as they used to wear in the Scriptures, so that his own mother wouldn't know un

"Now don't you interrupt, my boy. Never interrupt your senyers. Move the fore hoss aside, Bobby; here's

som'at coming.... You must mind that I be atalking of the college life. 'Em lives on a lofty level; there's no

gainsaying it, though I myself med not think much of 'em. As we be here in our bodies on this high ground,

so be they in their mindsnobleminded men enough, no doubt some on 'emable to earn hundreds by

thinking out loud. And some on 'em be strong young fellows that can earn a'most as much in silver cups. As

for music, there's beautiful music everywhere in Christminster. You med be religious, or you med not, but

you can't help striking in your homely note with the rest. And there's a street in the placethe main

streetthat ha'n't another like it in the world. I should think I did know a little about Christminster!"

By this time the horses had recovered breath and bent to their collars again. Jude, throwing a last adoring look

at the distant halo, turned and walked beside his remarkably wellinformed friend, who had no objection to

telling him as they moved on more yet of the city its towers and halls and churches. The waggon turned

into a crossroad, whereupon Jude thanked the carter warmly for his information, and said he only wished he

"Well, 'tis oonly what has come in my way," said the carter unboastfully. "I've never been there, no more than

you; but I've picked up the knowledge here and there, and you be welcome to it. Agetting about the world as

I do, and mixing with all classes of society, one can't help hearing of things. A friend o' mine, that used to

clane the boots at the Crozier Hotel in Christminster when he was in his prime, why, I knowed un as well as

Jude continued his walk homeward alone, pondering so deeply that he forgot to feel timid. He suddenly grew

older. It had been the yearning of his heart to find something to anchor on, to cling tofor some place which

he could call admirable. Should he find that place in this city if he could get there? Would it be a spot in

which, without fear of farmers, or hindrance, or ridicule, he could watch and wait, and set himself to some

mighty undertaking like the men of old of whom he had heard? As the halo had been to his eyes when gazing

at it a quarter of an hour earlier, so was the spot mentally to him as he pursued his dark way.

WALKING somewhat slowly by reason of his concentration, the boy an ancient man in some phases of

thought, much younger than his years in otherswas overtaken by a lightfooted pedestrian, whom,

notwithstanding the gloom, he could perceive to be wearing an extraordinarily tall hat, a swallowtailed coat,

and a watchchain that danced madly and threw around scintillations of skylight as its owner swung along

upon a pair of thin legs and noiseless boots. Jude, beginning to feel lonely, endeavoured to keep up with him.

"Well, my man! I'm in a hurry, so you'll have to walk pretty fast if you keep alongside of me. Do you know

Vilbert was an itinerant quackdoctor, well known to the rustic population, and absolutely unknown to

anybody else, as he, indeed, took care to be, to avoid inconvenient investigations. Cottagers formed his only

patients, and his Wessexwide repute was among them alone. His position was humbler and his field more

obscure than those of the quacks with capital and an organized system of advertising. He was, in fact, a

survival. The distances he traversed on foot were enormous, and extended nearly the whole length and

breadth of Wessex. Jude had one day seen him selling a pot of coloured lard to an old woman as a certain

cure for a bad leg, the woman arranging to pay a guinea, in instalments of a shilling a fortnight, for the

precious salve, which, according to the physician, could only be obtained from a particular animal which

grazed on Mount Sinai, and was to be captured only at great risk to life and limb. Jude, though he already had

his doubts about this gentleman's medicines, felt him to be unquestionably a travelled personage, and one

who might be a trustworthy source of information on matters not strictly professional.

"You'd say so, my boy, if you'd seen it. Why, the very sons of the old women who do the washing of the

colleges can talk in Latin not good Latin, that I admit, as a critic: dogLatincatLatin, as we used to call

"Wellthat's more for the men who are in training for bishops, that they may be able to read the New

"Whenever you do, you say that Physician Vilbert is the only proprietor of those celebrated pills that

infallibly cure all disorders of the alimentary system, as well as asthma and shortness of breath. Two and

"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Jude gratefully, but in gasps, for the amazing speed of the physician's walk kept

him in a dogtrot which was giving him a stitch in the side. "I think you'd better drop behind, my young man.

Now I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll get you the grammars, and give you a first lesson, if you'll remember, at

every house in the village, to recommend Physician Vilbert's golden ointment, lifedrops, and female pills."

"I shall be passing here this day fortnight at precisely this hour of fiveandtwenty minutes past seven. My

Jude then dropped behind, waited a few minutes to recover breath, and went home with a consciousness of

Through the intervening fortnight he ran about and smiled outwardly at his inward thoughts, as if they were

people meeting and nodding to him smiled with that singularly beautiful irradiation which is seen to spread

on young faces at the inception of some glorious idea, as if a supernatural lamp were held inside their

transparent natures, giving rise to the flattering fancy that heaven lies about them then.

He honestly performed his promise to the man of many cures, in whom he now sincerely believed, walking

miles hither and thither among the surrounding hamlets as the Physician's agent in advance. On the evening

appointed he stood motionless on the plateau, at the place where he had parted from Vilbert, and there

awaited his approach. The roadphysician was fairly up to time; but, to the surprise of Jude on striking into

his pace, which the pedestrian did not diminish by a single unit of force, the latter seemed hardly to recognize

his young companion, though with the lapse of the fortnight the evenings had grown light. Jude thought it

might perhaps be owing to his wearing another hat, and he saluted the physician with dignity.

"Yes." And Jude told him the names and addresses of the cottagers who were willing to test the virtues of the

worldrenowned pills and salve. The quack mentally registered these with great care.

"Ah, yes, yes! Forgot all about itall! So many lives depending on my attention, you see, my man, that I

Jude controlled himself sufficiently long to make sure of the truth; and he repeated, in a voice of dry misery,

"No. But you must get me some more orders from sick people, and I'll bring the grammars next time."

Jude dropped behind. He was an unsophisticated boy, but the gift of sudden insight which is sometimes

vouchsafed to children showed him all at once what shoddy humanity the quack was made of. There was to

be no intellectual light from this source. The leaves dropped from his imaginary crown of laurel; he turned to

The disappointment was followed by an interval of blankness. He might, perhaps, have obtained grammars

from Alfredston, but to do that required money, and a knowledge of what books to order; and though

physically comfortable, he was in such absolute dependence as to be without a farthing of his own.

At this date Mr. Phillotson sent for his pianoforte, and it gave Jude a lead. Why should he not write to the

schoolmaster, and ask him to be so kind as to get him the grammars in Christminster? He might slip a letter

inside the case of the instrument, and it would be sure to reach the desired eyes. Why not ask him to send any

old secondhand copies, which would have the charm of being mellowed by the university atmosphere?

To tell his aunt of his intention would be to defeat it. It was necessary to act alone.

After a further consideration of a few days he did act, and on the day of the piano's departure, which

happened to be his next birthday, clandestinely placed the letter inside the packingcase, directed to his

muchadmired friend, being afraid to reveal the operation to his aunt Drusilla, lest she should discover his

The piano was despatched, and Jude waited days and weeks, calling every morning at the cottage post office

before his greataunt was stirring. At last a packet did indeed arrive at the village, and he saw from the ends

of it that it contained two thin books. He took it away into a lonely place, and sat down on a felled elm to

Ever since his first ecstasy or vision of Christminster and its possibilities, Jude had meditated much and

curiously on the probable sort of process that was involved in turning the expressions of one language into

those of another. He concluded that a grammar of the required tongue would contain, primarily, a rule,

prescription, or clue of the nature of a secret cipher, which, once known, would enable him, by merely

applying it, to change at will all words of his own speech into those of the foreign one. His childish idea was,

in fact, a pushing to the extremity of mathematical precision what is everywhere known as Grimm's Law

an aggrandizement of rough rules to ideal completeness. Thus he assumed that the words of the required

language were always to be found somewhere latent in the words of the given language by those who had the

When, therefore, having noted that the packet bore the postmark of Christminster, he cut the string, opened

the volumes, and turned to the Latin grammar, which chanced to come uppermost, he could scarcely believe

The book was an old onethirty years old, soiled, scribbled wantonly over with a strange name in every

variety of enmity to the letterpress, and marked at random with dates twenty years earlier than his own day.

But this was not the cause of Jude's amazement. He learnt for the first time that there was no law of

transmutation, as in his innocence he had supposed (there was, in some degree, but the grammarian did not

recognize it), but that every word in both Latin and Greek was to be individually committed to memory at the

Jude flung down the books, lay backward along the broad trunk of the elm, and was an utterly miserable boy

for the space of a quarter of an hour. As he had often done before, he pulled his hat over his face and watched

the sun peering insidiously at him through the interstices of the straw. This was Latin and Greek, then, was it

this grand delusion! The charm he had supposed in store for him was really a labour like that of Israel in

What brains they must have in Christminster and the great schools, he presently thought, to learn words one

by one up to tens of thousands! There were no brains in his head equal to this business; and as the little

sunrays continued to stream in through his hat at him, he wished he had never seen a book, that he might

Somebody might have come along that way who would have asked him his trouble, and might have cheered

him by saying that his notions were further advanced than those of his grammarian. But nobody did come,

because nobody does; and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself

DURING the three or four succeeding years a quaint and singular vehicle might have been discerned moving

along the lanes and byroads near Marygreen, driven in a quaint and singular way.

In the course of a month or two after the receipt of the books Jude had grown callous to the shabby trick

played him by the dead languages. In fact, his disappointment at the nature of those tongues had, after a

while, been the means of still further glorifying the erudition of Christminster. To acquire languages,

departed or living in spite of such obstinacies as he now knew them inherently to possess, was a herculean

performance which gradually led him on to a greater interest in it than in the presupposed patent process. The

mountainweight of material under which the ideas lay in those dusty volumes called the classics piqued him

He had endeavoured to make his presence tolerable to his crusty maiden aunt by assisting her to the best of

his ability, and the business of the little cottage bakery had grown in consequence. An aged horse with a

hanging head had been purchased for eight pounds at a sale, a creaking cart with a whitybrown tilt obtained

for a few pounds more, and in this turnout it became Jude's business thrice a week to carry loaves of bread

The singularity aforesaid lay, after all, less in the conveyance itself than in Jude's manner of conducting it

along its route. Its interior was the scene of most of Jude's education by "private study." As soon as the horse

had learnt the road and the houses at which he was to pause awhile, the boy, seated in front, would slip the

reins over his arm, ingeniously fix open, by means of a strap attached to the tilt, the volume he was reading,

spread the dictionary on his knees, and plunge into the simpler passages from Caesar, Virgil, or Horace, as

the case might be, in his purblind stumbling way, and with an expenditure of labour that would have made a

tenderhearted pedagogue shed tears; yet somehow getting at the meaning of what he read, and divining

rather than beholding the spirit of the original, which often to his mind was something else than that which he

The only copies he had been able to lay hands on were old Delphin editions, because they were superseded,

and therefore cheap. But, bad for idle schoolboys, it did so happen that they were passably good for him. The

hampered and lonely itinerant conscientiously covered up the marginal readings, and used them merely on

points of construction, as he would have used a comrade or tutor who should have happened to be passing by.

And though Jude may have had little chance of becoming a scholar by these rough and ready means, he was

While he was busied with these ancient pages, which had already been thumbed by hands possibly in the

grave, digging out the thoughts of these minds so remote yet so near, the bony old horse pursued his rounds,

and Jude would be aroused from the woes of Dido by the stoppage of his cart and the voice of some old

He was frequently met in the lanes by pedestrians and others without his seeing them, and by degrees the

people of the neighbourhood began to talk about his method of combining work and play (such they

considered his reading to be), which, though probably convenient enough to himself, was not altogether a

safe proceeding for other travellers along the same roads. There were murmurs. Then a private resident of an

adjoining place informed the local policeman that the baker's boy should not be allowed to read while

driving, and insisted that it was the constable's duty to catch him in the act, and take him to the police court at

Alfredston, and get him fined for dangerous practices on the highway. The policeman thereupon lay in wait

As Jude had to get up at three o'clock in the morning to heat the oven, and mix and set in the bread that he

distributed later in the day, he was obliged to go to bed at night immediately after laying the sponge; so that if

he could not read his classics on the highways he could hardly study at all. The only thing to be done was,

therefore, to keep a sharp eye ahead and around him as well as he could in the circumstances, and slip away

his books as soon as anybody loomed in the distance, the policeman in particular. To do that official justice,

he did not put himself much in the way of Jude's breadcart, considering that in such a lonely district the

chief danger was to Jude himself, and often on seeing the white tilt over the hedges he would move in another

On a day when Fawley was getting quite advanced, being now about sixteen, and had been stumbling through

the "Carmen Saeculare," on his way home, he found himself to be passing over the high edge of the plateau

by the Brown House. The light had changed, and it was the sense of this which had caused him to look up.

The sun was going down, and the full moon was rising simultaneously behind the woods in the opposite

quarter. His mind had become so impregnated with the poem that, in a moment of the same impulsive

emotion which years before had caused him to kneel on the ladder, he stopped the horse, alighted, and

glancing round to see that nobody was in sight, knelt down on the roadside bank with open book. He turned

first to the shiny goddess, who seemed to look so softly and critically at his doings, then to the disappearing

The horse stood still till he had finished the hymn, which Jude repeated under the sway of a polytheistic fancy

Reaching home, he mused over his curious superstition, innate or acquired, in doing this, and the strange

forgetfulness which had led to such a lapse from common sense and custom in one who wished, next to being

a scholar, to be a Christian divine. It had all come of reading heathen works exclusively. The more he thought

of it the more convinced he was of his inconsistency. He began to wonder whether he could be reading quite

the right books for his object in life. Certainly there seemed little harmony between this pagan literature and

Ultimately he decided that in his sheer love of reading he had taken up a wrong emotion for a Christian

young man. He had dabbled in Clarke's Homer, but had never yet worked much at the New Testament in the

Greek, though he possessed a copy, obtained by post from a secondhand bookseller. He abandoned the now

familiar Ionic for a new dialect, and for a long time onward limited his reading almost entirely to the Gospels

and Epistles in Griesbach's text. Moreover, on going into Alfredston one day, he was introduced to patristic

literature by finding at the bookseller's some volumes of the Fathers which had been left behind by an

As another outcome of this change of groove he visited on Sundays all the churches within a walk, and

deciphered the Latin inscriptions on fifteenthcentury brasses and tombs. On one of these pilgrimages he met

with a hunchbacked old woman of great intelligence, who read everything she could lay her hands on, and

she told him more yet of the romantic charms of the city of light and lore. Thither he resolved as firmly as

But how live in that city? At present he had no income at all. He had no trade or calling of any dignity or

stability whatever on which he could subsist while carrying out an intellectual labour which might spread

What was most required by citizens? Food, clothing, and shelter. An income from any work in preparing the

first would be too meagre; for making the second he felt a distaste; the preparation of the third requisite he

inclined to. They built in a city; therefore he would learn to build. He thought of his unknown uncle, his

cousin Susanna's father, an ecclesiastical worker in metal, and somehow mediaeval art in any material was a

trade for which he had rather a fancy. He could not go far wrong in following his uncle's footsteps, and

As a preliminary he obtained some small blocks of freestone, metal not being available, and suspending his

studies awhile, occupied his spare halfhours in copying the heads and capitals in his parish church.

There was a stonemason of a humble kind in Alfredston, and as soon as he had found a substitute for

himself in his aunt's little business, he offered his services to this man for a trifling wage. Here Jude had the

opportunity of learning at least the rudiments of freestoneworking. Some time later he went to a

churchbuilder in the same place, and under the architect's direction became handy at restoring the

Not forgetting that he was only following up this handicraft as a prop to lean on while he prepared those

greater engines which he flattered himself would be better fitted for him, he yet was interested in his pursuit

on its own account. He now had lodgings during the week in the little town, whence he returned to

Marygreen village every Saturday evening. And thus he reached and passed his nineteenth year.

AT this memorable date of his life he was, one Saturday, returning from Alfredston to Marygreen about three

o'clock in the afternoon. It was fine, warm, and soft summer weather, and he walked with his tools at his

back, his little chisels clinking faintly against the larger ones in his basket. It being the end of the week he had

left work early, and had come out of the town by a roundabout route which he did not usually frequent,

having promised to call at a flourmill near Cresscombe to execute a commission for his aunt.

He was in an enthusiastic mood. He seemed to see his way to living comfortably in Christminster in the

course of a year or two, and knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds of learning of which he had

dreamed so much. He might, of course, have gone there now, in some capacity or other, but he preferred to

enter the city with a little more assurance as to means than he could be said to feel at present. A warm

selfcontent suffused him when he considered what he had already done. Now and then as he went along he

turned to face the peeps of country on either side of him. But he hardly saw them; the act was an automatic

repetition of what he had been accustomed to do when less occupied; and the one matter which really

"I have acquired quite an average student's power to read the common ancient classics, Latin in particular."

This was true, Jude possessing a facility in that language which enabled him with great ease to himself to

"I have read two books of the ILIAD, besides being pretty familiar with passages such as the speech of

Phoenix in the ninth book, the fight of Hector and Ajax in the fourteenth, the appearance of Achilles unarmed

and his heavenly armour in the eighteenth, and the funeral games in the twentythird. I have also done some

Hesiod, a little scrap of Thucydides, and a lot of the Greek Testament.... I wish there was only one dialect all

"I have done some mathematics, including the first six and the eleventh and twelfth books of Euclid; and

"These things are only a beginning. But I shall not make much farther advance here, from the difficulty of

getting books. Hence I must next concentrate all my energies on settling in Christminster. Once there I shall

so advance, with the assistance I shall there get, that my present knowledge will appear to me but as childish

ignorance. I must save money, and I will; and one of those colleges shall open its doors to meshall

And then he continued to dream, and thought he might become even a bishop by leading a pure, energetic,

wise, Christian life. And what an example he would set! If his income were 5000 pounds a year, he would

give away 4500 pounds in one form and another, and live sumptuously (for him) on the remainder. Well, on

second thoughts, a bishop was absurd. He would draw the line at an archdeacon. Perhaps a man could be as

good and as learned and as useful in the capacity of archdeacon as in that of bishop. Yet he thought of the

"Meanwhile I will read, as soon as I am settled in Christminster, the books I have not been able to get hold of

"Ha, ha, ha! Hoitytoity!" The sounds were expressed in light voices on the other side of the hedge, but he

"Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. Then I must master other things: the

Fathers thoroughly; Bede and ecclesiastical history generally; a smattering of Hebrew I only know the

"but I can work hard. I have staying power in abundance, thank God! and it is that which tells.... Yes,

Christminster shall be my Alma Mater; and I'll be her beloved son, in whom she shall be well pleased."

In his deep concentration on these transactions of the future Jude's walk had slackened, and he was now

standing quite still, looking at the ground as though the future were thrown thereon by a magic lantern. On a

sudden something smacked him sharply in the ear, and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been

A glance told him what it wasa piece of flesh, the characteristic part of a barrowpig, which the

countrymen used for greasing their boots, as it was useless for any other purpose. Pigs were rather plentiful

hereabout, being bred and fattened in large numbers in certain parts of North Wessex.

On the other side of the hedge was a stream, whence, as he now for the first time realized, had come the slight

sounds of voices and laughter that had mingled with his dreams. He mounted the bank and looked over the

fence. On the further side of the stream stood a small homestead, having a garden and pigsties attached; in

front of it, beside the brook, three young women were kneeling, with buckets and platters beside them

containing heaps of pigs' chitterlings, which they were washing in the running water. One or two pairs of eyes

slyly glanced up, and perceiving that his attention had at last been attracted, and that he was watching them,

they braced themselves for inspection by putting their mouths demurely into shape and recommencing their

"I DIDN'T throw it, I tell you!" asserted one girl to her neighbour, as if unconscious of the young man's

"Pooh! I don't care for him!" And they laughed and continued their work, without looking up, still

She whom he addressed was a fine darkeyed girl, not exactly handsome, but capable of passing as such at a

little distance, despite some coarseness of skin and fibre. She had a round and prominent bosom, full lips,

perfect teeth, and the rich complexion of a Cochin hen's egg. She was a complete and substantial female

animalno more, no less; and Jude was almost certain that to her was attributable the enterprise of attracting

his attention from dreams of the humaner letters to what was simmering in the minds around him.

Perhaps she foresaw an opportunity; for somehow or other the eyes of the brown girl rested in his own when

he had said the words, and there was a momentary flash of intelligence, a dumb announcement of affinity IN

POSSE between herself and him, which, so far as Jude Fawley was concerned, had no sort of premeditation

in it. She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman is singled out in such cases, for no

reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from

headquarters, unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention of their lives is to be

Jude was now aware that no message on any matter connected with her father's business had prompted her

signal to him. He set down his basket of tools, picked up the scrap of offal, beat a pathway for himself with

his stick, and got over the hedge. They walked in parallel lines, one on each bank of the stream, towards the

small plank bridge. As the girl drew nearer to it, she gave without Jude perceiving it, an adroit little suck to

the interior of each of her cheeks in succession, by which curious and original manoeuvre she brought as by

magic upon its smooth and rotund surface a perfect dimple, which she was able to retain there as long as she

continued to smile. This production of dimples at will was a not unknown operation, which many attempted,

They met in the middle of the plank, and Jude, tossing back her missile, seemed to expect her to explain why

she had audaciously stopped him by this novel artillery instead of by hailing him.

But she, slyly looking in another direction, swayed herself backwards and forwards on her hand as it clutched

the rail of the bridge; till, moved by amatory curiosity, she turned her eyes critically upon him.

"We are doing this for my father, who naturally doesn't want anything thrown away. He makes that into

"What made either of the others throw it, I wonder?" Jude asked, politely accepting her assertion, though he

"I must have known it if I had often come this way. But I mostly go straight along the highroad."

"My father is a pigbreeder, and these girls are helping me wash the innerds for blackpuddings and such

They talked a little more and a little more, as they stood regarding each other and leaning against the

handrail of the bridge. The unvoiced call of woman to man, which was uttered very distinctly by Arabella's

personality, held Jude to the spot against his intention almost against his will, and in a way new to his

experience. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that till this moment Jude had never looked at a woman to

consider her as such, but had vaguely regarded the sex as beings outside his life and purposes. He gazed from

her eyes to her mouth, thence to her bosom, and to her full round naked arms, wet, mottled with the chill of

"What a nicelooking girl you are!" he murmured, though the words had not been necessary to express his

"That's for you to think on. There's nobody after me just now, though there med be in a week or two." She

By this time she had managed to get back one dimple by turning her face aside for a moment and repeating

the odd little sucking operation before mentioned, Jude being still unconscious of more than a general

She brightened with a little glow of triumph, swept him almost tenderly with her eyes in turning, and

Jude Fawley shouldered his toolbasket and resumed his lonely way, filled with an ardour at which he

mentally stood at gaze. He had just inhaled a single breath from a new atmosphere, which had evidently been

hanging round him everywhere he went, for he knew not how long, but had somehow been divided from his

actual breathing as by a sheet of glass. The intentions as to reading, working, and learning, which he had so

precisely formulated only a few minutes earlier, were suffering a curious collapse into a corner, he knew not

"Well, it's only a bit of fun," he said to himself, faintly conscious that to common sense there was something

lacking, and still more obviously something redundant in the nature of this girl who had drawn him to her

which made it necessary that he should assert mere sportiveness on his part as his reason in seeking her

something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the

magnificent Christminster dream. It had been no vestal who chose THAT missile for opening her attack on

him. He saw this with his intellectual eye, just for a short; fleeting while, as by the light of a falling lamp one

might momentarily see an inscription on a wall before being enshrouded in darkness. And then this passing

discriminative power was withdrawn, and Jude was lost to all conditions of things in the advent of a fresh and

wild pleasure, that of having found a new channel for emotional interest hitherto unsuspected, though it had

lain close beside him. He was to meet this enkindling one of the other sex on the following Sunday.

Meanwhile the girl had joined her companions, and she silently resumed her flicking and sousing of the

"I don't know. I wish I had thrown something else than that!" regretfully murmured Arabella.

"Lord! he's nobody, though you med think so. He used to drive old Drusilla Fawley's breadcart out at

Marygreen, till he 'prenticed himself at Alfredston. Since then he's been very stuck up, and always reading.

"Oh, I don't care what he is, or anything about 'n. Don't you think it, my child!"

"Oh, don't ye! You needn't try to deceive us! What did you stay talking to him for, if you didn't want un?

Whether you do or whether you don't, he's as simple as a child. I could see it as you courted on the bridge,

when he looked at 'ee as if he had never seen a woman before in his born days. Well, he's to be had by any

woman who can get him to care for her a bit, if she likes to set herself to catch him the right way."

THE next day Jude Fawley was pausing in his bedroom with the sloping ceiling, looking at the books on the

table, and then at the black mark on the plaster above them, made by the smoke of his lamp in past months.

It was Sunday afternoon, fourandtwenty hours after his meeting with Arabella Donn. During the whole

bygone week he had been resolving to set this afternoon apart for a special purpose,the rereading of his

Greek Testamenthis new one, with better type than his old copy, following Griesbach's text as amended by

numerous correctors, and with variorum readings in the margin. He was proud of the book, having obtained it

He had anticipated much pleasure in this afternoon's reading, under the quiet roof of his greataunt's house as

formerly, where he now slept only two nights a week. But a new thing, a great hitch, had happened yesterday

in the gliding and noiseless current of his life, and he felt as a snake must feel who has sloughed off its winter

He would not go out to meet her, after all. He sat down, opened the book, and with his elbows firmly planted

Had he promised to call for her? Surely he had! She would wait indoors, poor girl, and waste all her

afternoon on account of him. There was a something in her, too, which was very winning, apart from

promises. He ought not to break faith with her. Even though he had only Sundays and weekday evenings for

reading he could afford one afternoon, seeing that other young men afforded so many. After today he would

never probably see her again. Indeed, it would be impossible, considering what his plans were.

In short, as if materially, a compelling arm of extraordinary muscular power seized hold of himsomething

which had nothing in common with the spirits and influences that had moved him hitherto. This seemed to

care little for his reason and his will, nothing for his socalled elevated intentions, and moved him along, as a

violent schoolmaster a schoolboy he has seized by the collar, in a direction which tended towards the

embrace of a woman for whom he had no respect, and whose life had nothing in common with his own

[Three Greek words] was no more heeded, and the predestinate Jude sprang up and across the room.

Foreseeing such an event he had already arrayed himself in his best clothes. In three minutes he was out of

the house and descending by the path across the wide vacant hollow of cornground which lay between the

As he walked he looked at his watch. He could be back in two hours, easily, and a good long time would still

Passing the few unhealthy firtrees and cottage where the path joined the highway he hastened along, and

struck away to the left, descending the steep side of the country to the west of the Brown House. Here at the

base of the chalk formation he neared the brook that oozed from it, and followed the stream till he reached

her dwelling. A smell of piggeries came from the back, and the grunting of the originators of that smell. He

Jude winced at the words. Courting in such a businesslike aspect as it evidently wore to the speaker was the

last thing he was thinking of. He was going to walk with her, perhaps kiss her; but "courting" was too coolly

purposeful to be anything but repugnant to his ideas. The door was opened and he entered, just as Arabella

"Take a chair, Mr. What'syourname?" said her father, an energetic, blackwhiskered man, in the same

"Yes," said he. "We'll walk up to the Brown House and back, we can do it in half an hour."

Arabella looked so handsome amid her untidy surroundings that he felt glad he had come, and all the

First they clambered to the top of the great down, during which ascent he had occasionally to take her hand to

assist her. Then they bore off to the left along the crest into the ridgeway, which they followed till it

intersected the highroad at the Brown House aforesaid, the spot of his former fervid desires to behold

Christminster. But he forgot them now. He talked the commonest local twaddle to Arabella with greater zest

than he would have felt in discussing all the philosophies with all the Dons in the recently adored university,

and passed the spot where he had knelt to Diana and Phoebus without remembering that there were any such

people in the mythology, or that the sun was anything else than a useful lamp for illuminating Arabella's face.

An indescribable lightness of heel served to lift him along; and Jude, the incipient scholar, prospective D.D.,

professor, bishop, or what not, felt himself honoured and glorified by the condescension of this handsome

country wench in agreeing to take a walk with him in her Sunday frock and ribbons.

They reached the Brown House barnthe point at which he had planned to turn back. While looking over

the vast northern landscape from this spot they were struck by the rising of a dense volume of smoke from the

neighbourhood of the little town which lay beneath them at a distance of a couple of miles.

The tenderness which had grown up in Jude's bosom left him no will to thwart her inclination nowwhich

pleased him in affording him excuse for a longer time with her. They started off down the hill almost at a trot;

but on gaining level ground at the bottom, and walking a mile, they found that the spot of the fire was much

Having begun their journey, however, they pushed on; but it was not till five o'clock that they found

themselves on the scene, the distance being altogether about halfadozen miles from Marygreen, and

three from Arabella's. The conflagration had been got under by the time they reached it, and after a short

inspection of the melancholy ruins they retraced their stepstheir course lying through the town of

Arabella said she would like some tea, and they entered an inn of an inferior class, and gave their order. As it

was not for beer they had a long time to wait. The maidservant recognized Jude, and whispered her surprise

to her mistress in the background, that he, the student "who kept hisself up so particular," should have

suddenly descended so low as to keep company with Arabella. The latter guessed what was being said, and

laughed as she met the serious and tender gaze of her loverthe low and triumphant laugh of a careless

They sat and looked round the room, and at the picture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall, and at

the circular beerstains on the table, and at the spittoons underfoot filled with sawdust. The whole aspect of

the scene had that depressing effect on Jude which few places can produce like a taproom on a Sunday

evening when the setting sun is slanting in, and no liquor is going, and the unfortunate wayfarer finds himself

It began to grow dusk. They could not wait longer, really, for the tea, they said. "Yet what else can we do?"

"Beer, oh yes. I had forgotten that. Somehow it seems odd to come to a publichouse for beer on a Sunday

"No, we didn't." Jude by this time wished he was out of such an uncongenial atmosphere; but he ordered the

Jude tasted. "What's the matter with it?" he asked. "I don't understand beer very much now, it is true. I like it

well enough, but it is bad to read on, and I find coffee better. But this seems all right."

"AdulteratedI can't touch it!" She mentioned three or four ingredients that she detected in the liquor

Nevertheless she returned to the beer and drank her share, and they went on their way. It was now nearly

dark, and as soon as they had withdrawn from the lights of the town they walked closer together, till they

touched each other. She wondered why he did not put his arm round her waist, but he did not; he merely said

She took it, thoroughly, up to the shoulder. He felt the warmth of her body against his, and putting his stick

under his other arm held with his right hand her right as it rested in its place.

Thus they walked till they reached the foot of the upland, where they could see the white highway ascending

before them in the gloom. From this point the only way of getting to Arabella's was by going up the incline,

and dipping again into her valley on the right. Before they had climbed far they were nearly run into by two

"These loversyou find 'em out o' doors in all seasons and weathers lovers and homeless dogs only," said

For answer she inclined her head upon his shoulder. Jude took the hint, and encircling her waist with his arm,

They walked now no longer arm in arm but, as she had desired, clasped together. After all, what did it matter

since it was dark, said Jude to himself. When they were halfway up the long hill they paused as by

arrangement, and he kissed her again. They reached the top, and he kissed her once more.

Thus they slowly went towards her home. He had left his cottage at halfpast three, intending to be sitting

down again to the New Testament by halfpast five. It was nine o'clock when, with another embrace, he

She asked him to come in, if only for a minute, as it would seem so odd otherwise, and as if she had been out

alone in the dark. He gave way, and followed her in. Immediately that the door was opened he found, in

addition to her parents, several neighbours sitting round. They all spoke in a congratulatory manner, and took

They did not belong to his set or circle, and he felt out of place and embarrassed. He had not meant this: a

mere afternoon of pleasant walking with Arabella, that was all he had meant. He did not stay longer than to

speak to her stepmother, a simple, quiet woman without features or character; and bidding them all good

But that sense was only temporary: Arabella soon reasserted her sway in his soul. He walked as if he felt

himself to be another man from the Jude of yesterday. What were his books to him? what were his intentions,

hitherto adhered to so strictly, as to not wasting a single minute of time day by day? "Wasting!" It depended

on your point of view to define that: he was just living for the first time: not wasting life. It was better to love

When he got back to the house his aunt had gone to bed, and a general consciousness of his neglect seemed

written on the face of all things confronting him. He went upstairs without a light, and the dim interior of his

room accosted him with sad inquiry. There lay his book open, just as he had left it, and the capital letters on

the titlepage regarded him with fixed reproach in the grey starlight, like the unclosed eyes of a dead man:

Jude had to leave early next morning for his usual week of absence at lodgings; and it was with a sense of

futility that he threw into his basket upon his tools and other necessaries the unread book he had brought with

He kept his impassioned doings a secret almost from himself. Arabella, on the contrary, made them public

Retracing by the light of dawn the road he had followed a few hours earlier under cover of darkness, with his

sweetheart by his side, he reached the bottom of the hill, where he walked slowly, and stood still. He was on

the spot where he had given her the first kiss. As the sun had only just risen it was possible that nobody had

passed there since. Jude looked on the ground and sighed. He looked closely, and could just discern in the

damp dust the imprints of their feet as they had stood locked in each other's arms. She was not there now, and

"the embroidery of imagination upon the stuff of nature" so depicted her past presence that a void was in his

heart which nothing could fill. A pollard willow stood close to the place, and that willow was different from

all other willows in the world. Utter annihilation of the six days which must elapse before he could see her

again as he had promised would have been his intensest wish if he had had only the week to live.

An hour and a half later Arabella came along the same way with her two companions of the Saturday. She

passed unheedingly the scene of the kiss, and the willow that marked it, though chattering freely on the

"Then he said" And she related almost word for word some of his tenderest speeches. If Jude had been

behind the fence he would have felt not a little surprised at learning how very few of his sayings and doings

"You've got him to care for 'ee a bit, 'nation if you han't!" murmured Anny judicially. "It's well to be you!"

In a few moments Arabella replied in a curiously low, hungry tone of latent sensuousness: "I've got him to

care for me: yes! But I want him to more than care for me; I want him to have meto marry me! I must have

him. I can't do without him. He's the sort of man I long for. I shall go mad if I can't give myself to him

"As he is a romancing, straightfor'ard, honest chap, he's to be had, and as a husband, if you set about catching

"On my word I don't!No further, that is, than by plain courting, and taking care he don't go too far!"

"And having lived in a town, too, as one may say! Well, we can teach 'ee som'at then, as well as you us."

"Yes. And how do you meana sure way to gain a man? Take me for an innocent, and have done wi' it!"

"A countryman that's honourable and seriousminded such as he; God forbid that I should say a sojer, or

sailor, or commercial gent from the towns, or any of them that be slippery with poor women! I'd do no friend

Arabella's companions looked at each other, and turning up their eyes in drollery began smirking. Then one

went up close to Arabella, and, although nobody was near, imparted some information in a low tone, the

"Ah!" said the lastnamed slowly. "I own I didn't think of that way! ... But suppose he ISN'T honourable? A

"Nothing venture nothing have! Besides, you make sure that he's honourable before you begin. You'd be safe

enough with yours. I wish I had the chance! Lots of girls do it; or do you think they'd get married at all?"

Arabella pursued her way in silent thought. "I'll try it!" she whispered; but not to them.

ONE week's end Jude was as usual walking out to his aunt's at Marygreen from his lodging in Alfredston, a

walk which now had large attractions for him quite other than his desire to see his aged and morose relative.

He diverged to the right before ascending the hill with the single purpose of gaining, on his way, a glimpse of

Arabella that should not come into the reckoning of regular appointments. Before quite reaching the

homestead his alert eye perceived the top of her head moving quickly hither and thither over the garden

hedge. Entering the gate he found that three young unfattened pigs had escaped from their sty by leaping

clean over the top, and that she was endeavouring unassisted to drive them in through the door which she had

set open. The lines of her countenance changed from the rigidity of business to the softness of love when she

saw Jude, and she bent her eyes languishingly upon him. The animals took a vantage of the pause by

"They were only put in this morning!" she cried, stimulated to pursue in spite of her lover's presence. They

were drove from Spaddleholt Farm only yesterday, where Father bought 'em at a stiff price enough. They are

wanting to get home again, the stupid toads! Will you shut the garden gate, dear, and help me to get 'em in.

There are no men folk at home, only Mother, and they'll be lost if we don't mind."

He set himself to assist, and dodged this way and that over the potato rows and the cabbages. Every now and

then they ran together, when he caught her for a moment an kissed her. The first pig was got back promptly;

the second with some difficulty; the third a longlegged creature, was more obstinate and agile. He plunged

She rushed in full pursuit out of the garden, Jude alongside her, barely contriving to keep the fugitive in sight.

Occasionally they would shout to some boy to stop the animal, but he always wriggled past and ran on as

"Let me take your hand, darling," said Jude. "You are getting out of breath." She gave him her now hot hand

"This comes of driving 'em home," she remarked. "They always know the way back if you do that. They

By this time the pig had reached an unfastened gate admitting to the open down, across which he sped with

all the agility his little legs afforded. As soon as the pursuers had entered and ascended to the top of the high

ground it became apparent that they would have to run all the way to the farmer's if they wished to get at him.

From this summit he could be seen as a minute speck, following an unerring line towards his old home.

"It is no good!" cried Arabella. "He'll be there long before we get there. It don't matter now we know he's not

lost or stolen on the way. They'll see it is ours, and send un back. Oh dear, how hot I be!"

Without relinquishing her hold of Jude's hand she swerved aside and flung herself down on the sod under a

She lay supine, and straight as an arrow, on the sloping sod of this hilltop, gazing up into the blue miles of

sky, and still retaining her warm hold of Jude's hand. He reclined on his elbow near her.

"We've run all this way for nothing," she went on, her form heaving and falling in quick pants, her face

flushed, her full red lips parted, and a fine dew of perspiration on her skin. "Wellwhy don't you speak,

They were in absolute solitudethe most apparent of all solitudes, that of empty surrounding space. Nobody

could be nearer than a mile to them without their seeing him. They were, in fact, on one of the summits of the

county, and the distant landscape around Christminster could be discerned from where they lay. But Jude did

"Oh, I can see such a pretty thing up this tree," said Arabella. "A sort of acaterpillar, of the most loveliest

"Why, on the limb there where it branches offclose to the moving leafthere!" She gently pulled him

"I don't see it," he repeated, the back of his head against her cheek. "But I can, perhaps, standing up." He

"I don't care to see it, dear: why should I?" he replied looking down upon her. "Get up, Abby."

She rolled round her face, remained a moment looking deedily aslant at him; then with a slight curl of the lip

sprang to her feet, and exclaiming abruptly "I must mizzle!" walked off quickly homeward. Jude followed

She kept her two lips resentfully together, and Jude followed her like a pet lamb till she slackened her pace

and walked beside him, talking calmly on indifferent subjects, and always checking him if he tried to take her

hand or clasp her waist. Thus they descended to the precincts of her father's homestead, and Arabella went in,

"I expect I took too much liberty with her, somehow," Jude said to himself, as he withdrew with a sigh and

On Sunday morning the interior of Arabella's home was, as usual, the scene of a grand weekly cooking, the

preparation of the special Sunday dinner. Her father was shaving before a little glass hung on the mullion of

the window, and her mother and Arabella herself were shelling beans hard by. A neighbour passed on her

way home from morning service at the nearest church, and seeing Donn engaged at the window with the

She at once spoke playfully to Arabella: "I zeed 'ee running with 'unheehee! I hope 'tis coming to

Arabella merely threw a look of consciousness into her face without raising her eyes.

"Have you heard that latelyquite lately?" asked Arabella with a jealous, tigerish indrawing of breath.

"Oh no! But it has been known a long time that it is his plan. He's on'y waiting here for an opening. Ah well:

he must walk about with somebody, I s'pose. Young men don't mean much nowadays. 'Tis a sip here and a

When the gossip had departed Arabella said suddenly to her mother: "I want you and Father to go and inquire

how the Edlins be, this evening after tea. Or nothere's evening service at Fensworth you can walk to

"Nothing. Only I want the house to myself. He's shy; and I can't get un to come in when you are here. I shall

In the afternoon Arabella met and walked with Jude, who had now for weeks ceased to look into a book of

Greek, Latin, or any other tongue. They wandered up the slopes till they reached the green track along the

ridge, which they followed to the circular British earthbank adjoining, Jude thinking of the great age of the

trackway, and of the drovers who had frequented it, probably before the Romans knew the country. Up from

the level lands below them floated the chime of church bells. Presently they were reduced to one note, which

Jude assented. So long as he was near her he minded little where he was. When they arrived at her house he

said lingeringly: "I won't come in. Why are you in such a hurry to go in tonight? It is not near dark."

"Wait a moment," said she. She tried the handle of the door and found it locked.

"Ahthey are gone to church," she added. And searching behind the scraper she found the key and unlocked

the door. "Now, you'll come in a moment?" she asked lightly. "We shall be all alone."

Indoors they went. Did he want any tea? No, it was too late: he would rather sit and talk to her. She took off

"Don't touch me, please," she said softly. "I am part eggshell. Or perhaps I had better put it in a safe place."

"An egga cochin's egg. I am hatching a very rare sort. I carry it about everywhere with me, and it will get

"Just here." She put her hand into her bosom and drew out the egg, which was wrapped in wool, outside it

being a piece of pig's bladder, in case of accidents. Having exhibited it to him she put it back, "Now mind

you don't come near me. I don't want to get it broke, and have to begin another."

"It's an old custom. I suppose it is natural for a woman to want to bring live things into the world."

She had turned round her chair, and, reaching over the back of it, presented her cheek to him gingerly.

"You should have catched me a minute ago when I had put the egg down! There!" she said defiantly, "I am

without it now!" She had quickly withdrawn the egg a second time; but before he could quite reach her she

had put it back as quickly, laughing with the excitement of her strategy. Then there was a little struggle, Jude

making a plunge for it and capturing it triumphantly. Her face flushed; and becoming suddenly conscious he

They looked at each other, panting; till he rose and said: "One kiss, now I can do it without damage to

Her lover followed her as she withdrew. It was now dark inside the room, and the window being small he

could not discover for a long time what had become of her, till a laugh revealed her to have rushed up the

IT was some two months later in the year, and the pair had met constantly during the interval. Arabella

One day she met the itinerant Vilbert. She, like all the cottagers thereabout, knew the quack well, and she

began telling him of her experiences. Arabella had been gloomy, but before he left her she had grown

"I am going away," he said to her. "I think I ought to go. I think it will be better both for you and for me. I

wish some things had never begun! I was much to blame, I know. But it is never too late to mend."

Arabella began to cry. "How do you know it is not too late?" she said. "That's all very well to say! I haven't

"I have next to no wages as yet, you know; or perhaps I should have thought of this before.... But, of course if

that's the case, we must marry! What other thing do you think I could dream of doing?"

"I thoughtI thought, deary, perhaps you would go away all the more for that, and leave me to face it

"You knew better! Of course I never dreamt six months ago, or even three, of marrying. It is a complete

smashing up of my plansI mean my plans before I knew you, my dear. But what are they, after all! Dreams

about books, and degrees, and impossible fellowships, and all that. Certainly we'll marry: we must!"

That night he went out alone, and walked in the dark selfcommuning. He knew well, too well, in the secret

centre of his brain, that Arabella was not worth a great deal as a specimen of womankind. Yet, such being the

custom of the rural districts among honourable young men who had drifted so far into intimacy with a woman

as he unfortunately had done, he was ready to abide by what he had said, and take the consequences. For his

own soothing he kept up a factitious belief in her. His idea of her was the thing of most consequence, not

The banns were put in and published the very next Sunday. The people of the parish all said what a simple

fool young Fawley was. All his reading had only come to this, that he would have to sell his books to buy

saucepans. Those who guessed the probable state of affairs, Arabella's parents being among them, declared

that it was the sort of conduct they would have expected of such an honest young man as Jude in reparation of

the wrong he had done his innocent sweetheart. The parson who married them seemed to think it satisfactory

too. And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till

death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and

desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that

Fawley's aunt being a baker she made him a bridecake, saying bitterly that it was the last thing she could do

for him, poor silly fellow; and that it would have been far better if, instead of his living to trouble her, he had

gone underground years before with his father and mother. Of this cake Arabella took some slices, wrapped

them up in white notepaper, and sent them to her companions in the porkdressing business, Anny and

The prospects of the newly married couple were certainly not very brilliant even to the most sanguine mind.

He, a stonemason's apprentice, nineteen years of age, was working for half wages till he should be out of his

time. His wife was absolutely useless in a townlodging, where he at first had considered it would be

necessary for them to live. But the urgent need of adding to income in ever so little a degree caused him to

take a lonely roadside cottage between the Brown House and Marygreen, that he might have the profits of a

vegetable garden, and utilize her past experiences by letting her keep a pig. But it was not the sort of life he

had bargained for, and it was a long way to walk to and from Alfredston every day. Arabella, however, felt

that all these makeshifts were temporary; she had gained a husband; that was the thinga husband with a

lot of earning power in him for buying her frocks and hats when he should begin to get frightened a bit, and

stick to his trade, and throw aside those stupid books for practical undertakings.

So to the cottage he took her on the evening of the marriage, giving up his old room at his aunt'swhere so

A little chill overspread him at her first unrobing. A long tail of hair, which Arabella wore twisted up in an

enormous knob at the back of her head, was deliberately unfastened, stroked out, and hung upon the

"Nonsense! Perhaps not in towns. But in the country it is supposed to be different. Besides, you've enough of

"Yes, enough as country notions go. But in town the men expect more, and when I was barmaid at

"Well, not exactly barmaidI used to draw the drink at a publichouse therejust for a little time; that was

all. Some people put me up to getting this, and I bought it just for a fancy. The more you have the better in

Aldbrickham, which is a finer town than all your Christminsters. Every lady of position wears false hair

Jude thought with a feeling of sickness that though this might be true to some extent, for all that he knew,

many unsophisticated girls would and did go to towns and remain there for years without losing their

simplicity of life and embellishments. Others, alas, had an instinct towards artificiality in their very blood,

and became adepts in counterfeiting at the first glimpse of it. However, perhaps there was no great sin in a

A newmade wife can usually manage to excite interest for a few weeks, even though the prospects of the

household ways and means are cloudy. There is a certain piquancy about her situation, and her manner to

her acquaintance at the sense of it, which carries off the gloom of facts, and renders even the humblest bride

independent awhile of the real. Mrs. Jude Fawley was walking in the streets of Alfredston one marketday

with this quality in her carriage when she met Anny her former friend, whom she had not seen since the

As usual they laughed before talking; the world seemed funny to them without saying it.

"So it turned out a good plan, you see!" remarked the girl to the wife. "I knew it would with such as him. He's

"Oh, Arabella, Arabella; you be a deep one! Mistaken! well, that's clever it's a real stroke of genius! It is a

thing I never thought o', wi' all my experience! I never thought beyond bringing about the real thing not

"My wordwon't he be in a taking! He'll give it to 'ee o' Saturday nights! Whatever it was, he'll say it was a

"I'll own to the first, but not to the second.... Pooh he won't care! He'll be glad I was wrong in what I said.

He'll shake down, bless 'eemen always do. What can 'em do otherwise? Married is married."

Nevertheless it was with a little uneasiness that Arabella approached the time when in the natural course of

things she would have to reveal that the alarm she had raised had been without foundation. The occasion was

one evening at bedtime, and they were in their chamber in the lonely cottage by the wayside to which Jude

walked home from his work every day. He had worked hard the whole twelve hours, and had retired to rest

before his wife. When she came into the room he was between sleeping and waking, and was barely

One action of hers, however, brought him to full cognition. Her face being reflected towards him as she sat,

he could perceive that she was amusing herself by artificially producing in each cheek the dimple before

alluded to, a curious accomplishment of which she was mistress, effecting it by a momentary suction. It

seemed to him for the first time that the dimples were far oftener absent from her face during his intercourse

with her nowadays than they had been in the earlier weeks of their acquaintance.

"Don't do that, Arabella!" he said suddenly. "There is no harm in it, butI don't like to see you."

She turned and laughed. "Lord, I didn't know you were awake!" she said. "How countrified you are! That's

"Nowhere that I know of. They used to stay without any trouble when I was at the publichouse; but now

"I don't care about dimples. I don't think they improve a woman particularly a married woman, and of

"Ahthat publichouse experience accounts for your knowing about the adulteration of the ale when we

went and had some that Sunday evening. I thought when I married you that you had always lived in your

"You ought to have known better than that, and seen I was a little more finished than I could have been by

staying where I was born. There was not much to do at home, and I was eating my head off, so I went away

"When will it be? Can't you tell me exactly, instead of in such general terms as you have used?"

"But! Why, of course, so unprepared as I was, without a stick of furniture, and hardly a shilling, I shouldn't

have hurried on our affair, and brought you to a halffurnished hut before I was ready, if it had not been for

the news you gave me, which made it necessary to save you, ready or no.... Good God!"

When Jude awoke the next morning he seemed to see the world with a different eye. As to the point in

question he was compelled to accept her word; in the circumstances he could not have acted otherwise while

There seemed to him, vaguely and dimly, something wrong in a social ritual which made necessary a

cancelling of wellformed schemes involving years of thought and labour, of foregoing a man's one

opportunity of showing himself superior to the lower animals, and of contributing his units of work to the

general progress of his generation, because of a momentary surprise by a new and transitory instinct which

had nothing in it of the nature of vice, and could be only at the most called weakness. He was inclined to

inquire what he had done, or she lost, for that matter, that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would

cripple him, if not her also, for the rest of a lifetime? There was perhaps something fortunate in the fact that

the immediate reason of his marriage had proved to be nonexistent. But the marriage remained.

THE time arrived for killing the pig which Jude and his wife had fattened in their sty during the autumn

months, and the butchering was timed to take place as soon as it was light in the morning, so that Jude might

The night had seemed strangely silent. Jude looked out of the window long before dawn, and perceived that

the ground was covered with snow snow rather deep for the season, it seemed, a few flakes still falling.

"Oh, he'll come. You must get up and make the water hot, if you want Challow to scald him. Though I like

He went downstairs, lit the fire under the copper, and began feeding it with beanstalks, all the time without a

candle, the blaze flinging a cheerful shine into the room; though for him the sense of cheerfulness was

lessened by thoughts on the reason of that blazeto heat water to scald the bristles from the body of an

animal that as yet lived, and whose voice could be continually heard from a corner of the garden. At

halfpast six, the time of appointment with the butcher, the water boiled, and Jude's wife came downstairs.

They waited, and it grew lighter, with the dreary light of a snowy dawn. She went out, gazed along the road,

and returning said, "He's not coming. Drunk last night, I expect. The snow is not enough to hinder him,

"Then we must put it off. It is only the water boiled for nothing. The snow may be deep in the valley."

"Can't be put off. There's no more victuals for the pig. He ate the last mixing o' barleymeal yesterday

"Yes. We always do it the last day or two, to save bother with the innerds. What ignorance, not to know that!"

"Wellyou must do the stickingthere's no help for it. I'll show you how. Or I'll do it myselfI think I

could. Though as it is such a big pig I had rather Challow had done it. However, his basket o' knives and

He went out to the sty, shovelled away the snow for the space of a couple of yards or more, and placed the

stool in front, with the knives and ropes at hand. A robin peered down at the preparations from the nearest

tree, and, not liking the sinister look of the scene, flew away, though hungry. By this time Arabella had joined

her husband, and Jude, rope in hand, got into the sty, and noosed the affrighted animal, who, beginning with a

squeak of surprise, rose to repeated cries of rage. Arabella opened the stydoor, and together they hoisted the

victim on to the stool, legs upward, and while Jude held him Arabella bound him down, looping the cord over

The animal's note changed its quality. It was not now rage, but the cry of despair; longdrawn, slow and

"Upon my soul I would sooner have gone without the pig than have had this to do!" said Jude. "A creature I

"Don't be such a tenderhearted fool! There's the stickingknife the one with the point. Now whatever you

"I'll stick him effectually, so as to make short work of it. That's the chief thing."

"You must not!" she cried. "The meat must be well bled, and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose a

shilling a score if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch the vein, that's all. I was brought up to it, and I know.

Every good butcher keeps un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, at least."

"He shall not be half a minute if I can help it, however the meat may look," said Jude determinedly. Scraping

the bristles from the pig's upturned throat, as he had seen the butchers do, he slit the fat; then plunged in the

"'Od damn it all!" she cried, "that ever I should say it! You've overstuck un! And I telling you all the

However unworkmanlike the deed, it had been mercifully done. The blood flowed out in a torrent instead of

in the trickling stream she had desired. The dying animal's cry assumed its third and final tone, the shriek of

agony; his glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with the eloquently keen reproach of a creature

"Make un stop that!" said Arabella. "Such a noise will bring somebody or other up here, and I don't want

people to know we are doing it ourselves." Picking up the knife from the ground whereon Jude had flung it,

she slipped it into the gash, and slit the windpipe. The pig was instantly silent, his dying breath coming

The animal heaved in a final convulsion, and, despite the rope, kicked out with all his last strength. A

tablespoonful of black clot came forth, the trickling of red blood having ceased for some seconds.

"That's it; now he'll go," said she. "Artful creatures they always keep back a drop like that as long as they

The last plunge had come so unexpectedly as to make Jude stagger, and in recovering himself he kicked over

"There!" she cried, thoroughly in a passion. "Now I can't make any blackpot. There's a waste, all through

Jude put the pail upright, but only about a third of the whole steaming liquid was left in it, the main part being

splashed over the snow, and forming a dismal, sordid, ugly spectacle to those who saw it as other than an

ordinary obtaining of meat. The lips and nostrils of the animal turned livid, then white, and the muscles of his

"What's God got to do with such a messy job as a pigkilling, I should like to know!" she said scornfully.

"Well done, young married volk! I couldn't have carried it out much better myself, cuss me if I could!" The

voice, which was husky, came from the gardengate, and looking up from the scene of slaughter they saw the

burly form of Mr. Challow leaning over the gate, critically surveying their performance.

"'Tis well for 'ee to stand there and glane!" said Arabella. "Owing to your being late the meat is blooded and

Challow expressed his contrition. "You should have waited a bit" he said, shaking his head, "and not have

done this in the delicate state, too, that you be in at present, ma'am. 'Tis risking yourself too much."

"You needn't be concerned about that," said Arabella, laughing. Jude too laughed, but there was a strong

Challow made up for his neglect of the killing by zeal in the scalding and scraping. Jude felt dissatisfied with

himself as a man at what he had done, though aware of his lack of common sense, and that the deed would

have amounted to the same thing if carried out by deputy. The white snow, stained with the blood of his

fellowmortal, wore an illogical look to him as a lover of justice, not to say a Christian; but he could not see

how the matter was to be mended. No doubt he was, as his wife had called him, a tenderhearted fool.

He did not like the road to Alfredston now. It stared him cynically in the face. The wayside objects reminded

him so much of his courtship of his wife that, to keep them out of his eyes, he read whenever he could as he

walked to and from his work. Yet he sometimes felt that by caring for books he was not escaping

commonplace nor gaining rare ideas, every workingman being of that taste now. When passing near the

spot by the stream on which he had first made her acquaintance he one day heard voices just as he had done

at that earlier time. One of the girls who had been Arabella's companions was talking to a friend in a shed,

himself being the subject of discourse, possibly because they had seen him in the distance. They were quite

unaware that the shedwalls were so thin that he could hear their words as he passed.

"Howsomever, 'twas I put her up to it! 'Nothing venture nothing have,' I said. If I hadn't she'd no more have

"'Tis my belief she knew there was nothing the matter when she told him she was ..."

What had Arabella been put up to by this woman, so that he should make her his "mis'ess," otherwise wife?

The suggestion was horridly unpleasant, and it rankled in his mind so much that instead of entering his own

cottage when he reached it he flung his basket inside the gardengate and passed on, determined to go and

This made his arrival home rather late. Arabella however, was busy melting down lard from fat of the

deceased pig, for she had been out on a jaunt all day, and so delayed her work. Dreading lest what he had

heard should lead him to say something regrettable to her he spoke little. But Arabella was very talkative, and

said among other things that she wanted some money. Seeing the book sticking out of his pocket she added

"An apprentice's wages are not meant to be enough to keep a wife on, as a rule, my dear."

"I'll declare afore Heaven that I thought what I told you was true. Doctor Vilbert thought so. It was a good job

"I don't mean that," he said hastily. "I mean before that time. I know it was not your fault; but those women

friends of yours gave you bad advice. If they hadn't, or you hadn't taken it, we should at this moment have

been free from a bond which, not to mince matters, galls both of us devilishly. It may be very sad, but it is

"Who's been telling you about my friends? What advice? I insist upon you telling me."

"Very well." And he hinted gently what had been revealed to him. "But I don't wish to dwell upon it. Let us

Her defensive manner collapsed. "That was nothing," she said, laughing coldly. "Every woman has a right to

"I quite deny it, Bella. She might if no lifelong penalty attached to it for the man, or, in his default, for

herself; if the weakness of the moment could end with the moment, or even with the year. But when effects

stretch so far she should not go and do that which entraps a man if he is honest, or herself if he is otherwise."

"Given me time.... Why do you fuss yourself about melting down that pig's fat tonight? Please put it away!"

NEXT morning, which was Sunday, she resumed operations about ten o'clock; and the renewed work

recalled the conversation which had accompanied it the night before, and put her back into the same

"That's the story about me in Marygreen, is itthat I entrapped 'ee? Much of a catch you were, Lord send!"

As she warmed she saw some of Jude's dear ancient classics on a table where they ought not to have been

laid. "I won't have them books here in the way!" she cried petulantly; and seizing them one by one she began

"Leave my books alone!" he said. "You might have thrown them aside if you had liked, but as to soiling them

like that, it is disgusting!" In the operation of making lard Arabella's hands had become smeared with the hot

grease, and her fingers consequently left very perceptible imprints on the bookcovers. She continued

deliberately to toss the books severally upon the floor, till Jude, incensed beyond bearing, caught her by the

arms to make her leave off. Somehow, in going so, he loosened the fastening of her hair, and it rolled about

Jude relinquished his hold, and she crossed the room to the door, out of which she went with a set face, and

into the highway. Here she began to saunter up and down, perversely pulling her hair into a worse disorder

than he had caused, and unfastening several buttons of her gown. It was a fine Sunday morning, dry, clear

and frosty, and the bells of Alfredston Church could be heard on the breeze from the north. People were

going along the road, dressed in their holiday clothes; they were mainly loverssuch pairs as Jude and

Arabella had been when they sported along the same track some months earlier. These pedestrians turned to

stare at the extraordinary spectacle she now presented, bonnetless, her dishevelled hair blowing in the wind,

her bodice apart her sleeves rolled above her elbows for her work, and her hands reeking with melted fat. One

"See how he's served me!" she cried. "Making me work Sunday mornings when I ought to be going to my

Jude was exasperated, and went out to drag her in by main force. Then he suddenly lost his heat. Illuminated

with the sense that all was over between them, and that it mattered not what she did, or he, her husband stood

still, regarding her. Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial

union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection

"Going to illuse me on principle, as your father illused your mother, and your father's sister illused her

Jude fixed an arrested, surprised look on her. But she said no more, and continued her saunter till she was

tired. He left the spot, and, after wandering vaguely a little while, walked in the direction of Marygreen. Here

"Auntdid my father illuse my mother, and my aunt her husband?" said Jude abruptly, sitting down by the

She raised her ancient eyes under the rim of the bygone bonnet that she always wore. "Who's been telling

"You med so well, I s'pose; though your wifeI reckon 'twas she must have been a fool to open up that!

There isn't much to know after all. Your father and mother couldn't get on together, and they parted. It was

coming home from Alfredston market, when you were a baby on the hill by the Brown House barnthat

they had their last difference, and took leave of one another for the last time. Your mother soon afterwards

diedshe drowned herself, in short, and your father went away with you to South Wessex, and never came

Jude recalled his father's silence about North Wessex and Jude's mother, never speaking of either till his

"It was the same with your father's sister. Her husband offended her, and she so disliked living with him

afterwards that she went away to London with her little maid. The Fawleys were not made for wedlock: it

never seemed to sit well upon us. There's sommat in our blood that won't take kindly to the notion of being

bound to do what we do readily enough if not bound. That's why you ought to have hearkened to me, and not

"A little further onwhere the road to Fenworth branches off, and the handpost stands. A gibbet once stood

In the dusk of that evening Jude walked away from his old aunt's as if to go home. But as soon as he reached

the open down he struck out upon it till he came to a large round pond. The frost continued, though it was not

particularly sharp, and the larger stars overhead came out slow and flickering. Jude put one foot on the edge

of the ice, and then the other: it cracked under his weight; but this did not deter him. He ploughed his way

inward to the centre, the ice making sharp noises as he went. When just about the middle he looked around

him and gave a jump. The cracking repeated itself; but he did not go down. He jumped again, but the

It was curious, he thought. What was he reserved for? He supposed he was not a sufficiently dignified person

What could he do of a lower kind than selfextermination; what was there less noble, more in keeping with

his present degraded position? He could get drunk. Of course that was it; he had forgotten. Drinking was the

regular, stereotyped resource of the despairing worthless. He began to see now why some men boozed at

inns. He struck down the hill northwards and came to an obscure publichouse. On entering and sitting down

the sight of the picture of Samson and Delilah on the wall caused him to recognize the place as that he had

visited with Arabella on that first Sunday evening of their courtship. He called for liquor and drank briskly

Staggering homeward late that night, with all his sense of depression gone, and his head fairly clear still, he

began to laugh boisterously, and to wonder how Arabella would receive him in his new aspect. The house

was in darkness when he entered, and in his stumbling state it was some time before he could get a light.

Then he found that, though the marks of pigdressing, of fats and scallops, were visible, the materials

themselves had been taken away. A line written by his wife on the inside of an old envelope was pinned to

All the next day he remained at home, and sent off the carcase of the pig to Alfredston. He then cleaned up

the premises, locked the door, put the key in a place she would know if she came back, and returned to his

At night when he again plodded home he found she had not visited the house. The next day went in the same

That she had gone tired of him she frankly admitted. He was such a slow old coach, and she did not care for

the sort of life he led. There was no prospect of his ever bettering himself or her. She further went on to say

that her parents had, as he knew, for some time considered the question of emigrating to Australia, the

pigjobbing business being a poor one nowadays. They had at last decided to go, and she proposed to go with

them, if he had no objection. A woman of her sort would have more chance over there than in this stupid

Jude replied that he had not the least objection to her going. He thought it a wise course, since she wished to

go, and one that might be to the advantage of both. He enclosed in the packet containing the letter the money

that had been realized by the sale of the pig, with all he had besides, which was not much.

From that day he heard no more of her except indirectly, though her father and his household did not

immediately leave, but waited till his goods and other effects had been sold off. When Jude learnt that there

was to be an auction at the house of the Donns he packed his own household goods into a waggon, and sent

them to her at the aforesaid homestead, that she might sell them with the rest, or as many of them as she

He then went into lodgings at Alfredston, and saw in a shopwindow the little handbill announcing the sale of

his fatherinlaw's furniture. He noted its date, which came and passed without Jude's going near the place,

or perceiving that the traffic out of Alfredston by the southern road was materially increased by the auction.

A few days later he entered a dingy broker's shop in the main street of the town, and amid a heterogeneous

collection of saucepans, a clotheshorse, rollingpin, brass candlestick, swing lookingglass, and other

things at the back of the shop, evidently just brought in from a sale, he perceived a framed photograph, which

It was one which he had had specially taken and framed by a local man in bird'seye maple, as a present for

Arabella, and had duly given her on their weddingday. On the back was still to be read, "JUDE TO

ARABELLA," with the date. She must have thrown it in with the rest of her property at the auction.

"Oh," said the broker, seeing him look at this and the other articles in the heap, and not perceiving that the

portrait was of himself: "It is a small lot of stuff that was knocked down to me at a cottage sale out on the

road to Marygreen. The frame is a very useful one, if you take out the likeness. You shall have it for a

The utter death of every tender sentiment in his wife, as brought home to him by this mute and undesigned

evidence of her sale of his portrait and gift, was the conclusive little stroke required to demolish all sentiment

in him. He paid the shilling, took the photograph away with him, and burnt it, frame and all, when he reached

Two or three days later he heard that Arabella and her parents had departed. He had sent a message offering

to see her for a formal leavetaking, but she had said that it would be better otherwise, since she was bent on

going, which perhaps was true. On the evening following their emigration, when his day's work was done, he

came out of doors after supper, and strolled in the starlight along the too familiar road towards the upland

whereon had been experienced the chief emotions of his life. It seemed to be his own again.

He could not realize himself. On the old track he seemed to be a boy still, hardly a day older than when he

had stood dreaming at the top of that hill, inwardly fired for the first time with ardours for Christminster and

scholarship. "Yet I am a man," he said. "I have a wife. More, I have arrived at the still riper stage of having

He remembered then that he was standing not far from the spot at which the parting between his father and

A little further on was the summit whence Christminster, or what he had taken for that city, had seemed to be

visible. A milestone, now as always, stood at the roadside hard by. Jude drew near it, and felt rather than read

the mileage to the city. He remembered that once on his way home he had proudly cut with his keen new

chisel an inscription on the back of that milestone, embodying his aspirations. It had been done in the first

week of his apprenticeship, before he had been diverted from his purposes by an unsuitable woman. He

wondered if the inscription were legible still, and going to the back of the milestone brushed away the nettles.

By the light of a match he could still discern what he had cut so enthusiastically so long ago:

The sight of it, unimpaired, within its screen of grass and nettles, lit in his soul a spark of the old fire. Surely

his plan should be to move onward through good and illto avoid morbid sorrow even though he did see

uglinesses in the world? BENE AGERE ET LOETARI to do good cheerfullywhich he had heard to be

By moving to a spot a little way off he uncovered the horizon in a northeasterly direction. There actually

rose the faint halo, a small dim nebulousness, hardly recognizable save by the eye of faith. It was enough for

him. He would go to Christminster as soon as the term of his apprenticeship expired.

THE next noteworthy move in Jude's life was that in which he appeared gliding steadily onward through a

dusky landscape of some three years' later leafage than had graced his courtship of Arabella, and the

disruption of his coarse conjugal life with her. He was walking towards Christminster City, at a point a mile

He had at last found himself clear of Marygreen and Alfredston: he was out of his apprenticeship, and with

his tools at his back seemed to be in the way of making a new startthe start to which, barring the

interruption involved in his intimacy and married experience with Arabella, he had been looking forward for

Jude would now have been described as a young man with a forcible, meditative, and earnest rather than

handsome cast of countenance. He was of dark complexion, with dark harmonizing eyes, and he wore a

closely trimmed black beard of more advanced growth than is usual at his age; this, with his great mass of

black curly hair, was some trouble to him in combing and washing out the stonedust that settled on it in the

pursuit of his trade. His capabilities in the latter, having been acquired in the country, were of an allround

sort, including monumental stonecutting, gothic freestone work for the restoration of churches, and carving

of a general kind. In London he would probably have become specialized and have made himself a

He had that afternoon driven in a cart from Alfredston to the village nearest the city in this direction, and was

now walking the remaining four miles rather from choice than from necessity, having always fancied himself

The ultimate impulse to come had had a curious originone more nearly related to the emotional side of him

than to the intellectual, as is often the case with young men. One day while in lodgings at Alfredston he had

gone to Marygreen to see his old aunt, and had observed between the brass candlesticks on her mantlepiece

the photograph of a pretty girlish face, in a broad hat with radiating folds under the brim like the rays of a

halo. He had asked who she was. His grandaunt had gruffly replied that she was his cousin Sue Bridehead,

of the inimical branch of the family; and on further questioning the old woman had replied that the girl lived

His aunt would not give him the photograph. But it haunted him; and ultimately formed a quickening

ingredient in his latent intent of following his friend the school master thither.

He now paused at the top of a crooked and gentle declivity, and obtained his first near view of the city.

Greystoned and dunroofed, it stood within hail of the Wessex border, and almost with the tip of one small

toe within it, at the northernmost point of the crinkled line along which the leisurely Thames strokes the

fields of that ancient kingdom. The buildings now lay quiet in the sunset, a vane here and there on their many

spires and domes giving sparkle to a picture of sober secondary and tertiary hues.

Reaching the bottom he moved along the level way between pollard willows growing indistinct in the

twilight, and soon confronted the outmost lamps of the townsome of those lamps which had sent into the

sky the gleam and glory that caught his strained gaze in his days of dreaming, so many years ago. They

winked their yellow eyes at him dubiously, and as if, though they had been awaiting him all these years in

He was a species of Dick Whittington whose spirit was touched to finer issues than a mere material gain. He

went along the outlying streets with the cautious tread of an explorer. He saw nothing of the real city in the

suburbs on this side. His first want being a lodging he scrutinized carefully such localities as seemed to offer

on inexpensive terms the modest type of accommodation he demanded; and after inquiry took a room in a

suburb nicknamed "Beersheba," though he did not know this at the time. Here he installed himself, and

It was a windy, whispering, moonless night. To guide himself he opened under a lamp a map he had brought.

The breeze ruffled and fluttered it, but he could see enough to decide on the direction he should take to reach

After many turnings he came up to the first ancient mediaeval pile that he had encountered. It was a college,

as he could see by the gateway. He entered it, walked round, and penetrated to dark corners which no

lamplight reached. Close to this college was another; and a little further on another; and then he began to be

encircled as it were with the breath and sentiment of the venerable city. When he passed objects out of

harmony with its general expression he allowed his eyes to slip over them as if he did not see them.

A bell began clanging, and he listened till a hundredandone strokes had sounded. He must have made a

When the gates were shut, and he could no longer get into the quadrangles, he rambled under the walls and

doorways, feeling with his fingers the contours of their mouldings and carving. The minutes passed, fewer

and fewer people were visible, and still he serpentined among the shadows, for had he not imagined these

scenes through ten bygone years, and what mattered a night's rest for once? High against the black sky the

flash of a lamp would show crocketed pinnacles and indented battlements. Down obscure alleys, apparently

never trodden now by the foot of man, and whose very existence seemed to be forgotten, there would jut into

the path porticoes, oriels, doorways of enriched and florid middleage design, their extinct air being

accentuated by the rottenness of the stones. It seemed impossible that modern thought could house itself in

Knowing not a human being here, Jude began to be impressed with the isolation of his own personality, as

with a selfspectre, the sensation being that of one who walked but could not make himself seen or heard. He

drew his breath pensively, and, seeming thus almost his own ghost, gave his thoughts to the other ghostly

During the interval of preparation for this venture, since his wife and furniture's uncompromising

disappearance into space, he had read and learnt almost all that could be read and learnt by one in his

position, of the worthies who had spent their youth within these reverend walls, and whose souls had haunted

them in their maturer age. Some of them, by the accidents of his reading, loomed out in his fancy

disproportionately large by comparison with the rest. The brushings of the wind against the angles, buttresses,

and doorjambs were as the passing of these only other inhabitants, the tappings of each ivy leaf on its

neighbour were as the mutterings of their mournful souls, the shadows as their thin shapes in nervous

movement, making him comrades in his solitude. In the gloom it was as if he ran against them without

The streets were now deserted, but on account of these things he could not go in. There were poets abroad, of

early date and of late, from the friend and eulogist of Shakespeare down to him who has recently passed into

silence, and that musical one of the tribe who is still among us. Speculative philosophers drew along, not

always with wrinkled foreheads and hoary hair as in framed portraits, but pinkfaced, slim, and active as in

youth; modern divines sheeted in their surplices, among whom the most real to Jude Fawley were the

founders of the religious school called Tractarian; the wellknown three, the enthusiast, the poet, and the

formularist, the echoes of whose teachings had influenced him even in his obscure home. A start of aversion

appeared in his fancy to move them at sight of those other sons of the place, the form in the fullbottomed

wig, statesman rake, reasoner and sceptic; the smoothly shaven historian so ironically civil to Christianity;

with others of the same incredulous temper, who knew each quad as well as the faithful, and took equal

He regarded the statesmen in their various types, men of firmer movement and less dreamy air; the scholar,

the speaker, the plodder; the man whose mind grew with his growth in years, and the man whose mind

The scientists and philologists followed on in his mindsight in an odd impossible combination, men of

meditative faces, strained foreheads, and weakeyed as bats with constant research; then official

characters such men as governorgenerals and lordlieutenants, in whom he took little interest;

chiefjustices and lord chancellors, silent thinlipped figures of whom he knew barely the names. A keener

regard attached to the prelates, by reason of his own former hopes. Of them he had an ample bandsome

men of heart, others rather men of head; he who apologized for the Church in Latin; the saintly author of the

Evening Hymn; and near them the great itinerant preacher, hymnwriter, and zealot, shadowed like Jude by

Jude found himself speaking out loud, holding conversations with them as it were, like an actor in a

melodrama who apostrophizes the audience on the other side of the footlights; till he suddenly ceased with a

start at his absurdity. Perhaps those incoherent words of the wanderer were heard within the walls by some

student or thinker over his lamp; and he may have raised his head, and wondered what voice it was, and what

it betokened. Jude now perceived that, so far as solid flesh went, he had the whole aged city to himself with

the exception of a belated townsman here and there, and that he seemed to be catching a cold.

"You've been asettin' a long time on that plinthstone, young man. What med you be up to?"

It came from a policeman who had been observing Jude without the latter observing him.

Jude went home and to bed, after reading up a little about these men and their several messages to the world

from a book or two that he had brought with him concerning the sons of the university. As he drew towards

sleep various memorable words of theirs that he had just been conning seemed spoken by them in muttering

utterances; some audible, some unintelligible to him. One of the spectres (who afterwards mourned

Christminster as "the home of lost causes," though Jude did not remember this) was now apostrophizing her

"Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene!

... Her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection."

Another voice was that of the Corn Law convert, whose phantom he had just seen in the quadrangle with a

great bell. Jude thought his soul might have been shaping the historic words of his masterspeech:

"Sir, I may be wrong, but my impression is that my duty towards a country threatened with famine requires

that that which has been the ordinary remedy under all similar circumstances should be resorted to now,

namely, that there should be free access to the food of man from whatever quarter it may come.... Deprive me

of office tomorrow, you can never deprive me of the consciousness that I have exercised the powers

committed to me from no corrupt or interested motives, from no desire to gratify ambition, for no personal

Then the sly author of the immortal Chapter on Christianity: "How shall we excuse the supine inattention of

the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences [miracles] which were presented by Omnipotence? ...

The sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and appeared unconscious of any

How the world is made for each of us! . . . . . . . . . . . And each of the Many helps to recruit The life of the

Then one of the three enthusiasts he had seen just now, the author of the APOLOGIA:

"My argument was ... that absolute certitude as to the truths of natural theology was the result of an

assemblage of concurring and converging probabilities ... that probabilities which did not reach to logical

Why should we faint, and fear to live alone, Since all alone, so Heaven has will'd, we die?

He likewise heard some phrases spoken by the phantom with the short face, the genial Spectator:

"When I look upon the tombs of the great, every motion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the

beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart

melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for

And lastly a gentlevoiced prelate spoke, during whose meek, familiar rhyme, endeared to him from earliest

Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed. Teach me to die ...

He did not wake till morning. The ghostly past seemed to have gone, and everything spoke of today. He

"By JoveI had quite forgotten my sweetfaced cousin, and that she's here all the time! ... and my old

schoolmaster, too." His words about his schoolmaster had, perhaps, less zest in them than his words

NECESSARY meditations on the actual, including the mean breadandcheese question, dissipated the

phantasmal for a while, and compelled Jude to smother high thinkings under immediate needs. He had to get

up, and seek for work, manual work; the only kind deemed by many of its professors to be work at all.

Passing out into the streets on this errand he found that the colleges had treacherously changed their

sympathetic countenances: some were pompous; some had put on the look of family vaults above ground;

something barbaric loomed in the masonries of all. The spirits of the great men had disappeared.

The numberless architectural pages around him he read, naturally, less as an artistcritic of their forms than

as an artizan and comrade of the dead handicraftsmen whose muscles had actually executed those forms. He

examined the mouldings, stroked them as one who knew their beginning, said they were difficult or easy in

the working, had taken little or much time, were trying to the arm, or convenient to the tool.

What at night had been perfect and ideal was by day the more or less defective real. Cruelties, insults, had, he

perceived, been inflicted on the aged erections. The condition of several moved him as he would have been

moved by maimed sentient beings. They were wounded, broken, sloughing off their outer shape in the deadly

The rottenness of these historical documents reminded him that he was not, after all, hastening on to begin

the morning practically as he had intended. He had come to work, and to live by work, and the morning had

nearly gone. It was, in one sense, encouraging to think that in a place of crumbling stones there must be

plenty for one of his trade to do in the business of renovation. He asked his way to the workyard of the

stonemason whose name had been given him at Alfredston; and soon heard the familiar sound of the

The yard was a little centre of regeneration. Here, with keen edges and smooth curves, were forms in the

exact likeness of those he had seen abraded and timeeaten on the walls. These were the ideas in modern

prose which the lichened colleges presented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have been

called prose when they were new. They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the

He asked for the foreman, and looked round among the new traceries, mullions, transoms, shafts, pinnacles,

and battlements standing on the bankers half worked, or waiting to be removed. They were marked by

precision, mathematical straightness, smoothness, exactitude: there in the old walls were the broken lines of

For a moment there fell on Jude a true illumination; that here in the stone yard was a centre of effort as

worthy as that dignified by the name of scholarly study within the noblest of the colleges. But he lost it under

stress of his old idea. He would accept any employment which might be offered him on the strength of his

late employer's recommendation; but he would accept it as a provisional thing only. This was his form of the

Moreover he perceived that at best only copying, patching and imitating went on here; which he fancied to be

owing to some temporary and local cause. He did not at that time see that mediaevalism was as dead as a

fernleaf in a lump of coal; that other developments were shaping in the world around him, in which Gothic

architecture and its associations had no place. The deadly animosity of contemporary logic and vision

Having failed to obtain work here as yet he went away, and thought again of his cousin, whose presence

somewhere at hand he seemed to feel in wavelets of interest, if not of emotion. How he wished he had that

pretty portrait of her! At last he wrote to his aunt to send it. She did so, with a request, however, that he was

not to bring disturbance into the family by going to see the girl or her relations. Jude, a ridiculously

affectionate fellow, promised nothing, put the photograph on the mantelpiece, kissed it he did not know

whyand felt more at home. She seemed to look down and preside over his tea. It was cheeringthe one

There remained the schoolmasterprobably now a reverend parson. But he could not possibly hunt up such

a respectable man just yet; so raw and unpolished was his condition, so precarious were his fortunes. Thus he

still remained in loneliness. Although people moved round him he virtually saw none. Not as yet having

mingled with the active life of the place it was largely nonexistent to him. But the saints and prophets in the

windowtracery, the paintings in the galleries, the statues, the busts, the gargoyles, the corbelheads these

seemed to breathe his atmosphere. Like all new comers to a spot on which the past is deeply graven he heard

that past announcing itself with an emphasis altogether unsuspected by, and even incredible to, the habitual

For many days he haunted the cloisters and quadrangles of the colleges at odd minutes in passing them,

surprised by impish echoes of his own footsteps, smart as the blows of a mallet. The Christminster

"sentiment," as it had been called, ate further and further into him; till he probably knew more about those

buildings materially, artistically, and historically, than any one of their inmates.

It was not till now, when he found himself actually on the spot of his enthusiasm, that Jude perceived how far

away from the object of that enthusiasm he really was. Only a wall divided him from those happy young

contemporaries of his with whom he shared a common mental life; men who had nothing to do from morning

till night but to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Only a wall but what a wall!

Every day, every hour, as he went in search of labour, he saw them going and coming also, rubbed shoulders

with them, heard their voices, marked their movements. The conversation of some of the more thoughtful

among them seemed oftentimes, owing to his long and persistent preparation for this place, to be peculiarly

akin to his own thoughts. Yet he was as far from them as if he had been at the antipodes. Of course he was.

He was a young workman in a white blouse, and with stonedust in the creases of his clothes; and in passing

him they did not even see him, or hear him, rather saw through him as through a pane of glass at their

familiars beyond. Whatever they were to him, he to them was not on the spot at all; and yet he had fancied he

But the future lay ahead after all; and if he could only be so fortunate as to get into good employment he

would put up with the inevitable. So he thanked God for his health and strength, and took courage. For the

present he was outside the gates of everything, colleges included: perhaps some day he would be inside.

Those palaces of light and leading; he might some day look down on the world through their panes.

At length he did receive a message from the stonemason's yard that a job was waiting for him. It was his

He was young and strong, or he never could have executed with such zest the undertakings to which he now

applied himself, since they involved reading most of the night after working all the day. First he bought a

shaded lamp for four and sixpence, and obtained a good light. Then he got pens, paper, and such other

necessary books as he had been unable to obtain elsewhere. Then, to the consternation of his landlady, he

shifted all the furniture of his rooma single one for living and sleepingrigged up a curtain on a rope

across the middle, to make a double chamber out of one, hung up a thick blind that nobody should know

Having been deeply encumbered by marrying, getting a cottage, and buying the furniture which had

disappeared in the wake of his wife, he had never been able to save any money since the time of those

disastrous ventures, and till his wages began to come in he was obliged to live in the narrowest way. After

buying a book or two he could not even afford himself a fire; and when the nights reeked with the raw and

cold air from the Meadows he sat over his lamp in a greatcoat, hat, and woollen gloves.

From his window he could perceive the spire of the cathedral, and the ogee dome under which resounded the

great bell of the city. The tall tower, tall belfry windows, and tall pinnacles of the college by the bridge he

could also get a glimpse of by going to the staircase. These objects he used as stimulants when his faith in the

Like enthusiasts in general he made no inquiries into details of procedure. Picking up general notions from

casual acquaintance, he never dwelt upon them. For the present, he said to himself, the one thing necessary

was to get ready by accumulating money and knowledge, and await whatever chances were afforded to such

an one of becoming a son of the University. "For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence; but the

excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." His desire absorbed him, and left no

At this time he received a nervously anxious letter from his poor old aunt, on the subject which had

previously distressed hera fear that Jude would not be strongminded enough to keep away from his

cousin Sue Bridehead and her relations. Sue's father, his aunt believed, had gone back to London, but the girl

remained at Christminster. To make her still more objectionable she was an artist or designer of some sort in

what was called an ecclesiastical warehouse, which was a perfect seedbed of idolatry, and she was no doubt

abandoned to mummeries on that accountif not quite a Papist. (Miss Drusilla Fawley was of her date,

As Jude was rather on an intellectual track than a theological, this news of Sue's probable opinions did not

much influence him one way or the other, but the clue to her whereabouts was decidedly interesting. With an

altogether singular pleasure he walked at his earliest spare minutes past the shops answering to his

greataunt's description; and beheld in one of them a young girl sitting behind a desk, who was suspiciously

like the original of the portrait. He ventured to enter on a trivial errand, and having made his purchase

lingered on the scene. The shop seemed to be kept entirely by women. It contained Anglican books,

stationery, texts, and fancy goods: little plaster angels on brackets, Gothicframed pictures of saints, ebony

crosses that were almost crucifixes, prayerbooks that were almost missals. He felt very shy of looking at the

girl in the desk; she was so pretty that he could not believe it possible that she should belong to him. Then she

spoke to one of the two older women behind the counter; and he recognized in the accents certain qualities of

his own voice; softened and sweetened, but his own. What was she doing? He stole a glance round. Before

her lay a piece of zinc, cut to the shape of a scroll three or four feet long, and coated with a deadsurface

paint on one side. Hereon she was designing or illuminating, in characters of Church text, the single word

Her presence here was now fairly enough explained, her skill in work of this sort having no doubt been

acquired from her father's occupation as an ecclesiastical worker in metal. The lettering on which she was

He came out. It would have been easy to speak to her there and then, but it seemed scarcely honourable

towards his aunt to disregard her request so incontinently. She had used him roughly, but she had brought

him up: and the fact of her being powerless to control him lent a pathetic force to a wish that would have

So Jude gave no sign. He would not call upon Sue just yet. He had other reasons against doing so when he

had walked away. She seemed so dainty beside himself in his rough workingjacket and dusty trousers that

he felt he was as yet unready to encounter her, as he had felt about Mr. Phillotson. And how possible it was

that she had inherited the antipathies of her family, and would scorn him, as far as a Christian could,

particularly when he had told her that unpleasant part of his history which had resulted in his becoming

Thus he kept watch over her, and liked to feel she was there. The consciousness of her living presence

stimulated him. But she remained more or less an ideal character, about whose form he began to weave

Between two and three weeks afterwards Jude was engaged with some more men, outside Crozier College in

Oldtime Street, in getting a block of worked freestone from a waggon across the pavement, before hoisting

it to the parapet which they were repairing. Standing in position the head man said, "Spaik when he heave!

All of a sudden, as he lifted, his cousin stood close to his elbow, pausing a moment on the bend of her foot till

the obstructing object should have been removed. She looked right into his face with liquid, untranslatable

eyes, that combined, or seemed to him to combine, keenness with tenderness, and mystery with both, their

expression, as well as that of her lips, taking its life from some words just spoken to a companion, and being

carried on into his face quite unconsciously. She no more observed his presence than that of the dustmotes

His closeness to her was so suggestive that he trembled, and turned his face away with a shy instinct to

prevent her recognizing him, though as she had never once seen him she could not possibly do so; and might

very well never have heard even his name. He could perceive that though she was a countrygirl at bottom, a

latter girlhood of some years in London, and a womanhood here, had taken all rawness out of her.

When she was gone he continued his work, reflecting on her. He had been so caught by her influence that he

had taken no count of her general mould and build. He remembered now that she was not a large figure, that

she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant. That was about all he had seen. There was nothing

statuesque in her; all was nervous motion. She was mobile, living, yet a painter might not have called her

handsome or beautiful. But the much that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removed from the

rusticity that was his. How could one of his crossgrained, unfortunate, almost accursed stock, have

From this moment the emotion which had been accumulating in his breast as the bottledup effect of solitude

and the poetized locality he dwelt in, insensibly began to precipitate itself on this halfvisionary form; and he

perceived that, whatever his obedient wish in a contrary direction, he would soon be unable to resist the

He affected to think of her quite in a family way, since there were crushing reasons why he should not and

The first reason was that he was married, and it would be wrong. The second was that they were cousins. It

was not well for cousins to fall in love even when circumstances seemed to favour the passion. The third:

even were he free, in a family like his own where marriage usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with a

bloodrelation would duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragic sadness might be intensified to a tragic

Therefore, again, he would have to think of Sue with only a relation's mutual interest in one belonging to

him; regard her in a practical way as some one to be proud of; to talk and nod to; later on, to be invited to tea

by, the emotion spent on her being rigorously that of a kinsman and wellwisher. So would she be to him a

kindly star, an elevating power, a companion in Anglican worship, a tender friend

BUT under the various deterrent influences Jude's instinct was to approach her timidly, and the next Sunday

he went to the morning service in the Cathedral church of Cardinal College to gain a further view of her, for

She did not come, and he awaited her in the afternoon, which was finer. He knew that if she came at all she

would approach the building along the eastern side of the great green quadrangle from which it was

accessible, and he stood in a corner while the bell was going. A few minutes before the hour for service she

appeared as one of the figures walking along under the college walls, and at sight of her he advanced up the

side opposite, and followed her into the building, more than ever glad that he had not as yet revealed himself.

To see her, and to be himself unseen and unknown, was enough for him at present.

He lingered awhile in the vestibule, and the service was some way advanced when he was put into a seat. It

was a louring, mournful, still afternoon, when a religion of some sort seems a necessity to ordinary practical

men, and not only a luxury of the emotional and leisured classes. In the dim light and the baffling glare of the

clerestory windows he could discern the opposite worshippers indistinctly only, but he saw that Sue was

among them. He had not long discovered the exact seat that she occupied when the chanting of the 119th

Psalm in which the choir was engaged reached its second part, IN QUO CORRIGET, the organ changing to a

It was the very question that was engaging Jude's attention at this moment. What a wicked worthless fellow

he had been to give vent as he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead to such

disastrous consequences; then to think of putting an end to himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The

great waves of pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on the supernatural as he had been, it is not

wonderful that he could hardly believe that the psalm was not specially set by some regardful Providence for

this moment of his first entry into the solemn building. And yet it was the ordinary psalm for the

The girl for whom he was beginning to nourish an extraordinary tenderness was at this time ensphered by the

same harmonies as those which floated into his ears; and the thought was a delight to him. She was probably

a frequenter of this place, and, steeped body and soul in church sentiment as she must be by occupation and

habit, had, no doubt, much in common with him. To an impressionable and lonely young man the

consciousness of having at last found anchorage for his thoughts, which promised to supply both social and

spiritual possibilities, was like the dew of Hermon, and he remained throughout the service in a sustaining

Though he was loth to suspect it, some people might have said to him that the atmosphere blew as distinctly

Jude waited till she had left her seat and passed under the screen before he himself moved. She did not look

towards him, and by the time he reached the door she was halfway down the broad path. Being dressed up

in his Sunday suit he was inclined to follow her and reveal himself. But he was not quite ready; and, alas,

For though it had seemed to have an ecclesiastical basis during the service, and he had persuaded himself that

such was the case, he could not altogether be blind to the real nature of the magnetism. She was such a

stranger that the kinship was affectation, and he said, "It can't be! I, a man with a wife, must not know her!"

Still Sue WAS his own kin, and the fact of his having a wife, even though she was not in evidence in this

hemisphere, might be a help in one sense. It would put all thought of a tender wish on his part out of Sue's

mind, and make her intercourse with him free and fearless. It was with some heartache that he saw how little

he cared for the freedom and fearlessness that would result in her from such knowledge.

Some little time before the date of this service in the cathedral the pretty, liquideyed, lightfooted young

woman Sue Bridehead had an afternoon's holiday, and leaving the ecclesiastical establishment in which she

not only assisted but lodged, took a walk into the country with a book in her hand. It was one of those

cloudless days which sometimes occur in Wessex and elsewhere between days of cold and wet, as if

intercalated by caprice of the weathergod. She went along for a mile or two until she came to much higher

ground than that of the city she had left behind her. The road passed between green fields, and coming to a

stile Sue paused there, to finish the page she was reading, and then looked back at the towers and domes and

On the other side of the stile, in the footpath, she beheld a foreigner with black hair and a sallow face, sitting

on the grass beside a large square board whereon were fixed, as closely as they could stand, a number of

plaster statuettes, some of them bronzed, which he was rearranging before proceeding with them on his

way. They were in the main reduced copies of ancient marbles, and comprised divinities of a very different

character from those the girl was accustomed to see portrayed, among them being a Venus of standard

pattern, a Diana, and, of the other sex, Apollo, Bacchus, and Mars. Though the figures were many yards away

from her the southwest sun brought them out so brilliantly against the green herbage that she could discern

their contours with luminous distinctness; and being almost in a line between herself and the church towers of

the city they awoke in her an oddly foreign and contrasting set of ideas by comparison. The man rose, and,

seeing her, politely took off his cap, and cried "Iiimages!" in an accent that agreed with his appearance.

In a moment he dexterously lifted upon his knee the great board with its assembled notabilities divine and

human, and raised it to the top of his head, bringing them on to her and resting the board on the stile. First he

offered her his smaller wares the busts of kings and queens, then a minstrel, then a winged Cupid. She

"How much are these two?" she said, touching with her finger the Venus and the Apollothe largest figures

"I cannot afford that," said Sue. She offered considerably less, and to her surprise the imageman drew them

from their wire stay and handed them over the stile. She clasped them as treasures.

When they were paid for, and the man had gone, she began to be concerned as to what she should do with

them. They seemed so very large now that they were in her possession, and so very naked. Being of a nervous

temperament she trembled at her enterprise. When she handled them the white pipeclay came off on her

gloves and jacket. After carrying them along a little way openly an idea came to her, and, pulling some huge

burdock leaves, parsley, and other rank growths from the hedge, she wrapped up her burden as well as she

could in these, so that what she carried appeared to be an enormous armful of green stuff gathered by a

"Well, anything is better than those everlasting church fallals!" she said. But she was still in a trembling state,

Occasionally peeping inside the leaves to see that Venus's arm was not broken, she entered with her heathen

load into the most Christian city in the country by an obscure street running parallel to the main one, and

round a corner to the side door of the establishment to which she was attached. Her purchases were taken

straight up to her own chamber, and she at once attempted to lock them in a box that was her very own

property; but finding them too cumbersome she wrapped them in large sheets of brown paper, and stood them

The mistress of the house, Miss Fontover, was an elderly lady in spectacles, dressed almost like an abbess; a

dab at Ritual, as become one of her business, and a worshipper at the ceremonial church of St. Silas, in the

suburb of Beersheba beforementioned, which Jude also had begun to attend. She was the daughter of a

clergyman in reduced circumstances, and at his death, which had occurred several years before this date, she

boldly avoided penury by taking over a little shop of church requisites and developing it to its present

creditable proportions. She wore a cross and beads round her neck as her only ornament, and knew the

She now came to call Sue to tea, and, finding that the girl did not respond for a moment, entered the room

"Something you have been buying, Miss Bridehead?" she asked, regarding the enwrapped objects.

"Well, I should have thought I had put enough here already," said Miss Fontover, looking round at the

Gothicframed prints of saints, the Churchtext scrolls, and other articles which, having become too stale to

sell, had been used to furnish this obscure chamber. "What is it? How bulky!" She tore a little hole, about as

big as a wafer, in the brown paper, and tried to peep in. "Why, statuary? Two figures? Where did you get

"Wellnow come down to tea, and go and finish that organtext, if there's light enough afterwards."

These little obstacles to the indulgence of what had been the merest passing fancy created in Sue a great zest

for unpacking her objects and looking at them; and at bedtime, when she was sure of being undisturbed, she

unrobed the divinities in comfort. Placing the pair of figures on the chest of drawers, a candle on each side of

them, she withdrew to the bed, flung herself down thereon, and began reading a book she had taken from her

box, which Miss Fontover knew nothing of. It was a volume of Gibbon, and she read the chapter dealing with

the reign of Julian the Apostate. Occasionally she looked up at the statuettes, which appeared strange and out

of place, there happening to be a Calvary print hanging between them, and, as if the scene suggested the

action, she at length jumped up and withdrew another book from her boxa volume of verse and turned

which she read to the end. Presently she put out the candles, undressed, and finally extinguished her own

She was of an age which usually sleeps soundly, yet tonight she kept waking up, and every time she opened

her eyes there was enough diffused light from the street to show her the white plaster figures, standing on the

chest of drawers in odd contrast to their environment of text and martyr, and the Gothicframed

Crucifixpicture that was only discernible now as a Latin cross, the figure thereon being obscured by the

On one of these occasions the church clocks struck some small hour. It fell upon the ears of another person

who sat bending over his books at a not very distant spot in the same city. Being Saturday night the morrow

was one on which Jude had not set his alarmclock to call him at his usually early time, and hence he had

stayed up, as was his custom, two or three hours later than he could afford to do on any other day of the

week. Just then he was earnestly reading from his Griesbach's text. At the very time that Sue was tossing and

staring at her figures, the policeman and belated citizens passing along under his window might have heard, if

they had stood still, strange syllables mumbled with fervour withinwords that had for Jude an

HE was a handy man at his trade, an allround man, as artizans in countrytowns are apt to be. In London the

man who carves the boss or knob of leafage declines to cut the fragment of moulding which merges in that

leafage, as if it were a degradation to do the second half of one whole. When there was not much Gothic

moulding for Jude to run, or much windowtracery on the bankers, he would go out lettering monuments or

The next time that he saw her was when he was on a ladder executing a job of this sort inside one of the

churches. There was a short morning service, and when the parson entered Jude came down from his ladder,

and sat with the halfdozen people forming the congregation, till the prayer should be ended, and he could

resume his tapping. He did not observe till the service was half over that one of the women was Sue, who had

Jude sat watching her pretty shoulders, her easy, curiously nonchalant risings and sittings, and her

perfunctory genuflexions, and thought what a help such an Anglican would have been to him in happier

circumstances. It was not so much his anxiety to get on with his work that made him go up to it immediately

the worshipers began to take their leave: it was that he dared not, in this holy spot, confront the woman who

was beginning to influence him in such an indescribable manner. Those three enormous reasons why he must

not attempt intimate acquaintance with Sue Bridehead, now that his interest in her had shown itself to be

unmistakably of a sexual kind, loomed as stubbornly as ever. But it was also obvious that man could not live

by work alone; that the particular man Jude, at any rate, wanted something to love. Some men would have

rushed incontinently to her, snatched the pleasure of easy friendship which she could hardly refuse, and have

But as the days, and still more particularly the lonely evenings, dragged along, he found himself, to his moral

consternation, to be thinking more of her instead of thinking less of her, and experiencing a fearful bliss in

doing what was erratic, informal, and unexpected. Surrounded by her influence all day, walking past the spots

she frequented, he was always thinking of her, and was obliged to own to himself that his conscience was

To be sure she was almost an ideality to him still. Perhaps to know her would be to cure himself of this

unexpected and unauthorized passion. A voice whispered that, though he desired to know her, he did not

There was not the least doubt that from his own orthodox point of view the situation was growing immoral.

For Sue to be the loved one of a man who was licensed by the laws of his country to love Arabella and none

other unto his life's end, was a pretty bad second beginning when the man was bent on such a course as Jude

purposed. This conviction was so real with him that one day when, as was frequent, he was at work in a

neighbouring village church alone, he felt it to be his duty to pray against his weakness. But much as he

wished to be an exemplar in these things he could not get on. It was quite impossible, he found, to ask to be

delivered from temptation when your heart's desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven. So he

excused himself. "After all," he said, "it is not altogether an EROTOLEPSY that is the matter with me, as at

that first time. I can see that she is exceptionally bright; and it is partly a wish for intellectual sympathy, and a

craving for lovingkindness in my solitude." Thus he went on adoring her, fearing to realize that it was

human perversity. For whatever Sue's virtues, talents, or ecclesiastical saturation, it was certain that those

On an afternoon at this time a young girl entered the stonemason's yard with some hesitation, and, lifting her

"I don't knowI've seen her about here and there. Why, yes, she's the daughter of that clever chap Bridehead

who did all the wrought ironwork at St. Silas' ten years ago, and went away to London afterwards. I don't

Meanwhile the young woman had knocked at the office door and asked if Mr. Jude Fawley was at work in the

yard. It so happened that Jude had gone out somewhere or other that afternoon, which information she

received with a look of disappointment, and went away immediately. When Jude returned they told him, and

He looked along the street after her, but she was out of sight. He had no longer any thought of a conscientious

avoidance of her, and resolved to call upon her that very evening. And when he reached his lodging he found

a note from hera first noteone of those documents which, simple and commonplace in themselves, are

seen retrospectively to have been pregnant with impassioned consequences. The very unconsciousness of a

looming drama which is shown in such innocent first epistles from women to men, or VICE VERSA, makes

them, when such a drama follows, and they are read over by the purple or lurid light of it, all the more

Sue's was of the most artless and natural kind. She addressed him as her dear cousin Jude; said she had only

just learnt by the merest accident that he was living in Christminster, and reproached him with not letting her

know. They might have had such nice times together, she said, for she was thrown much upon herself, and

had hardly any congenial friend. But now there was every probability of her soon going away, so that the

A cold sweat overspread Jude at the news that she was going away. That was a contingency he had never

thought of, and it spurred him to write all the more quickly to her. He would meet her that very evening, he

said, one hour from the time of writing, at the cross in the pavement which marked the spot of the

When he had despatched the note by a boy he regretted that in his hurry he should have suggested to her to

meet him out of doors, when he might have said he would call upon her. It was, in fact, the country custom to

meet thus, and nothing else had occurred to him. Arabella had been met in the same way, unfortunately, and

it might not seem respectable to a dear girl like Sue. However, it could not be helped now, and he moved

towards the point a few minutes before the hour, under the glimmer of the newly lighted lamps.

The broad street was silent, and almost deserted, although it was not late. He saw a figure on the other side,

which turned out to be hers, and they both converged towards the crossmark at the same moment. Before

"I am not going to meet you just there, for the first time in my life! Come further on."

The voice, though positive and silvery, had been tremulous. They walked on in parallel lines, and, waiting her

pleasure, Jude watched till she showed signs of closing in, when he did likewise, the place being where the

"I am sorry that I asked you to meet me, and didn't call," began Jude with the bashfulness of a lover. "But I

"OhI don't mind that," she said with the freedom of a friend. "I have really no place to ask anybody in to.

What I meant was that the place you chose was so horridI suppose I ought not to say horrid I mean

gloomy and inauspicious in its associations.... But isn't it funny to begin like this, when I don't know you

yet?" She looked him up and down curiously, though Jude did not look much at her.

"Yes. That's unfortunate. I have hardly any other friend. I have, indeed, one very old friend here somewhere,

but I don't quite like to call on him just yet. I wonder if you know anything of him Mr. Phillotson? A

"NoI only know of one Mr. Phillotson. He lives a little way out in the country, at Lumsdon. He's a village

"Ah! I wonder if he's the same. Surely it is impossible! Only a schoolmaster still! Do you know his Christian

Jude's countenance fell, for how could he succeed in an enterprise wherein the great Phillotson had failed? He

would have had a day of despair if the news had not arrived during his sweet Sue's presence, but even at this

moment he had visions of how Phillotson's failure in the grand university scheme would depress him when

"As we are going to take a walk, suppose we go and call upon him?" said Jude suddenly. "It is not late."

She agreed, and they went along up a hill, and through some prettily wooded country. Presently the embattled

tower and square turret of the church rose into the sky, and then the schoolhouse. They inquired of a person

in the street if Mr. Phillotson was likely to be at home, and were informed that he was always at home. A

knock brought him to the schoolhouse door, with a candle in his hand and a look of inquiry on his face,

That after all these years the meeting with Mr. Phillotson should be of this homely complexion destroyed at

one stroke the halo which had surrounded the schoolmaster's figure in Jude's imagination ever since their

parting. It created in him at the same time a sympathy with Phillotson as an obviously much chastened and

disappointed man. Jude told him his name, and said he had come to see him as an old friend who had been

"I don't remember you in the least," said the schoolmaster thoughtfully. "You were one of my pupils, you

say? Yes, no doubt; but they number so many thousands by this time of my life, and have naturally changed

"Nothat's my cousin.... I wrote to you for some grammars, if you recollect, and you sent them?"

"It was very kind of you to do it. And it was you who first started me on that course. On the morning you left

Marygreen, when your goods were on the waggon, you wished me goodbye, and said your scheme was to

be a university man and enter the Church that a degree was the necessary hallmark of one who wanted to

"I remember I thought all that privately; but I wonder I did not keep my own counsel. The idea was given up

"I have never forgotten it. It was that which brought me to this part of the country, and out here to see you

They entered the parlour of the schoolhouse, where there was a lamp with a paper shade, which threw the

light down on three or four books. Phillotson took it off, so that they could see each other better, and the rays

fell on the nervous little face and vivacious dark eyes and hair of Sue, on the earnest features of her cousin,

and on the schoolmaster's own maturer face and figure, showing him to be a spare and thoughtful personage

of fiveandforty, with a thinlipped, somewhat refined mouth, a slightly stooping habit, and a black frock

coat, which from continued frictions shone a little at the shoulderblades, the middle of the back, and the

The old friendship was imperceptibly renewed, the schoolmaster speaking of his experiences, and the cousins

of theirs. He told them that he still thought of the Church sometimes, and that though he could not enter it as

he had intended to do in former years he might enter it as a licentiate. Meanwhile, he said, he was

They did not stay to supper, Sue having to be indoors before it grew late, and the road was retraced to

Christminster. Though they had talked of nothing more than general subjects, Jude was surprised to find what

a revelation of woman his cousin was to him. She was so vibrant that everything she did seemed to have its

source in feeling. An exciting thought would make her walk ahead so fast that he could hardly keep up with

her; and her sensitiveness on some points was such that it might have been misread as vanity. It was with

heartsickness he perceived that, while her sentiments towards him were those of the frankest friendliness

only, he loved her more than before becoming acquainted with her; and the gloom of the walk home lay not

"Why must you leave Christminster?" he said regretfully. "How can you do otherwise than cling to a city in

"Yesthey do. Though how large do they loom in the history of the world? ... What a funny reason for

"WellI must go," she continued. "Miss Fontover, one of the partners whom I serve, is offended with me,

"Yes. She found it in my room, and though it was my property she threw it on the floor and stamped on it,

because it was not according to her taste, and ground the arms and the head of one of the figures all to bits

"Too CatholicApostolic for her, I suppose? No doubt she called them popish images and talked of the

"Yes. It was for quite some other reason that she didn't like my patronsaints. So I was led to retort upon her;

and the end of it was that I resolved not to stay, but to get into an occupation in which I shall be more

"DO let me ask Mr. Phillotson to let you try your hand in his school? If you like it, and go to a training

college, and become a firstclass certificated mistress, you get twice as large an income as any designer or

"Wellask him. Now I must go in. Goodbye, dear Jude! I am so glad we have met at last. We needn't

Jude did not like to let her see quite how much he agreed with her, and went his way to the remote street in

To keep Sue Bridehead near him was now a desire which operated without regard of consequences, and the

next evening he again set out for Lumsdon, fearing to trust to the persuasive effects of a note only. The

"What I rather wanted was a second year's transfer, as it is called," he said. "Of course your cousin would do,

personally; but she has had no experience. Ohshe has, has she? Does she really think of adopting teaching

Jude said she was disposed to do so, he thought, and his ingenious arguments on her natural fitness for

assisting Mr. Phillotson, of which Jude knew nothing whatever, so influenced the schoolmaster that he said

he would engage her, assuring Jude as a friend that unless his cousin really meant to follow on in the same

course, and regarded this step as the first stage of an apprenticeship, of which her training in a normal school

would be the second stage, her time would be wasted quite, the salary being merely nominal.

The day after this visit Phillotson received a letter from Jude, containing the information that he had again

consulted his cousin, who took more and more warmly to the idea of tuition; and that she had agreed to come.

It did not occur for a moment to the schoolmaster and recluse that Jude's ardour in promoting the arrangement

arose from any other feelings towards Sue than the instinct of cooperation common among members of the

THE schoolmaster sat in his homely dwelling attached to the school, both being modern erections; and he

looked across the way at the old house in which his teacher Sue had a lodging. The arrangement had been

concluded very quickly. A pupilteacher who was to have been transferred to Mr. Phillotson's school had

failed him, and Sue had been taken as stopgap. All such provisional arrangements as these could only last

till the next annual visit of H.M. Inspector, whose approval was necessary to make them permanent. Having

taught for some two years in London, though she had abandoned that vocation of late, Miss Bridehead was

not exactly a novice, and Phillotson thought there would be no difficulty in retaining her services, which he

already wished to do, though she had only been with him three or four weeks. He had found her quite as

bright as Jude had described her; and what mastertradesman does not wish to keep an apprentice who saves

It was a little over halfpast eight o'clock in the morning and he was waiting to see her cross the road to the

school, when he would follow. At twenty minutes to nine she did cross, a light hat tossed on her head; and he

watched her as a curiosity. A new emanation, which had nothing to do with her skill as a teacher, seemed to

surround her this morning. He went to the school also, and Sue remained governing her class at the other end

It was part of his duty to give her private lessons in the evening, and some article in the Code made it

necessary that a respectable, elderly woman should be present at these lessons when the teacher and the

taught were of different sexes. Richard Phillotson thought of the absurdity of the regulation in this case, when

he was old enough to be the girl's father; but he faithfully acted up to it; and sat down with her in a room

where Mrs. Hawes, the widow at whose house Sue lodged, occupied herself with sewing. The regulation was,

Sometimes as she figuredit was arithmetic that they were working at she would involuntarily glance up

with a little inquiring smile at him, as if she assumed that, being the master, he must perceive all that was

passing in her brain, as right or wrong. Phillotson was not really thinking of the arithmetic at all, but of her, in

a novel way which somehow seemed strange to him as preceptor. Perhaps she knew that he was thinking of

For a few weeks their work had gone on with a monotony which in itself was a delight to him. Then it

happened that the children were to be taken to Christminster to see an itinerant exhibition, in the shape of a

model of Jerusalem, to which schools were admitted at a penny a head in the interests of education. They

marched along the road two and two, she beside her class with her simple cotton sunshade, her little thumb

cocked up against its stem; and Phillotson behind in his long dangling coat, handling his walkingstick

genteelly, in the musing mood which had come over him since her arrival. The afternoon was one of sun and

dust, and when they entered the exhibition room few people were present but themselves. The model of the

ancient city stood in the middle of the apartment, and the proprietor, with a fine religious philanthropy

written on his features, walked round it with a pointer in his hand, showing the young people the various

quarters and places known to them by name from reading their Bibles, Mount Moriah, the Valley of

Jehoshaphat, the City of Zion, the walls and the gates, outside one of which there was a large mound like a

"I think," said Sue to the schoolmaster, as she stood with him a little in the background, "that this model,

elaborate as it is, is a very imaginary production. How does anybody know that Jerusalem was like this in the

"It is made after the best conjectural maps, based on actual visits to the city as it now exists."

"I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem," she said, "considering we are not descended from the Jews.

There was nothing firstrate about the place, or people, after allas there was about Athens, Rome,

She was silent, for she was easily repressed; and then perceived behind the group of children clustered round

the model a young man in a white flannel jacket, his form being bent so low in his intent inspection of the

Valley of Jehoshaphat that his face was almost hidden from view by the Mount of Olives. "Look at your

cousin Jude," continued the schoolmaster. "He doesn't think we have had enough of Jerusalem!"

"AhI didn't see him!" she cried in her quick, light voice. "Judehow seriously you are going into it!"

Jude started up from his reverie, and saw her. "OhSue!" he said, with a glad flush of embarrassment.

"These are your schoolchildren, of course! I saw that schools were admitted in the afternoons, and thought

you might come; but I got so deeply interested that I didn't remember where I was. How it carries one back,

doesn't it! I could examine it for hours, but I have only a few minutes, unfortunately; for I am in the middle of

"Your cousin is so terribly clever that she criticizes it unmercifully," said Phillotson, with goodhumoured

"No, Mr. Phillotson, I am notaltogether! I hate to be what is called a clever girlthere are too many of

that sort now!" answered Sue sensitively. "I only meantI don't know what I meant except that it was

"I know your meaning," said Jude ardently (although he did not). "And I think you are quite right."

"That's a good JudeI know you believe in me!" She impulsively seized his hand, and leaving a reproachful

look on the schoolmaster turned away to Jude, her voice revealing a tremor which she herself felt to be

absurdly uncalled for by sarcasm so gentle. She had not the least conception how the hearts of the twain went

out to her at this momentary revelation of feeling, and what a complication she was building up thereby in the

The model wore too much of an educational aspect for the children not to tire of it soon, and a little later in

the afternoon they were all marched back to Lumsdon, Jude returning to his work. He watched the juvenile

flock in their clean frocks and pinafores, filing down the street towards the country beside Phillotson and Sue,

and a sad, dissatisfied sense of being out of the scheme of the latters' lives had possession of him. Phillotson

had invited him to walk out and see them on Friday evening, when there would be no lessons to give to Sue,

Meanwhile the scholars and teachers moved homewards, and the next day, on looking on the blackboard in

Sue's class, Phillotson was surprised to find upon it, skilfully drawn in chalk, a perspective view of

"I thought you took no interest in the model, and hardly looked at it?" he said.

Her Majesty's schoolinspector was at that time paying "surprisevisits" in this neighbourhood to test the

teaching unawares; and two days later, in the middle of the morning lessons, the latch of the door was softly

To Mr. Phillotson the surprise was not great; like the lady in the story he had been played that trick too many

times to be unprepared. But Sue's class was at the further end of the room, and her back was towards the

entrance; the inspector therefore came and stood behind her and watched her teaching some halfminute

before she became aware of his presence. She turned, and realized that an oftdreaded moment had come.

The effect upon her timidity was such that she uttered a cry of fright. Phillotson, with a strange instinct of

solicitude quite beyond his control, was at her side just in time to prevent her falling from faintness. She soon

recovered herself, and laughed; but when the inspector had gone there was a reaction, and she was so white

that Phillotson took her into his room, and gave her some brandy to bring her round. She found him holding

"You ought to have told me," she gasped petulantly, "that one of the inspector's surprisevisits was

imminent! Oh, what shall I do! Now he'll write and tell the managers that I am no good, and I shall be

He looked so gently at her that she was moved, and regretted that she had upbraided him. When she was

Jude in the meantime had been waiting impatiently for Friday. On both Wednesday and Thursday he had

been so much under the influence of his desire to see her that he walked after dark some distance along the

road in the direction of the village, and, on returning to his room to read, found himself quite unable to

concentrate his mind on the page. On Friday, as soon as he had got himself up as he thought Sue would like

to see him, and made a hasty tea, he set out, notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The trees overhead

deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly upon him, impressing him with

forebodingsillogical forebodings; for though he knew that he loved her he also knew that he could not be

On turning the corner and entering the village the first sight that greeted his eyes was that of two figures

under one umbrella coming out of the vicarage gate. He was too far back for them to notice him, but he knew

in a moment that they were Sue and Phillotson. The latter was holding the umbrella over her head, and they

had evidently been paying a visit to the vicarprobably on some business connected with the school work.

And as they walked along the wet and deserted lane Jude saw Phillotson place his arm round the girl's waist;

whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it; and she let it remain, looking quickly round her with an

air of misgiving. She did not look absolutely behind her, and therefore did not see Jude, who sank into the

hedge like one struck with a blight. There he remained hidden till they had reached Sue's cottage and she had

"Oh, he's too old for hertoo old!" cried Jude in all the terrible sickness of hopeless, handicapped love.

He could not interfere. Was he not Arabella's? He was unable to go on further, and retraced his steps towards

Christminster. Every tread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no account stand in the

schoolmaster's way with Sue. Phillotson was perhaps twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had

been made in such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow was given by the thought that the

intimacy between his cousin and the schoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.

JUDE'S old and embittered aunt lay unwell at Marygreen, and on the following Sunday he went to see

hera visit which was the result of a victorious struggle against his inclination to turn aside to the village of

Lumsdon and obtain a miserable interview with his cousin, in which the word nearest his heart could not be

His aunt was now unable to leave her bed, and a great part of Jude's short day was occupied in making

arrangements for her comfort. The little bakery business had been sold to a neighbour, and with the proceeds

of this and her savings she was comfortably supplied with necessaries and more, a widow of the same village

living with her and ministering to her wants. It was not till the time had nearly come for him to leave that he

obtained a quiet talk with her, and his words tended insensibly towards his cousin.

"She wasin this room. They were living here at that time. What made 'ee ask that?"

"Now you've been seeing her!" said the harsh old woman. "And what did I tell 'ee?"

"Then don't keep it up. She was brought up by her father to hate her mother's family; and she'll look with no

favour upon a working chap like youa townish girl as she's become by now. I never cared much about her.

A pert little thing, that's what she was too often, with her tightstrained nerves. Many's the time I've smacked

her for her impertinence. Why, one day when she was walking into the pond with her shoes and stockings off,

and her petticoats pulled above her knees, afore I could cry out for shame, she said: 'Move on, Aunty! This is

"Wellof course. But now she's older she's of a thoughtful, quivering, tender nature, and as sensitive as"

"Your marrying that woman Arabella was about as bad a thing as a man could possibly do for himself by

trying hard. But she's gone to the other side of the world, and med never trouble you again. And there'll be a

worse thing if you, tied and bound as you be, should have a fancy for Sue. If your cousin is civil to you, take

her civility for what it is worth. But anything more than a relation's good wishes it is stark madness for 'ee to

A relief was afforded to him by the entry of the companion and nurse of his aunt, who must have been

listening to the conversation, for she began a commentary on past years, introducing Sue Bridehead as a

character in her recollections. She described what an odd little maid Sue had been when a pupil at the village

school across the green opposite, before her father went to Londonhow, when the vicar arranged readings

and recitations, she appeared on the platform, the smallest of them all, "in her little white frock, and shoes,

and pink sash"; how she recited "Excelsior," "There was a sound of revelry by night," and "The Raven"; how

during the delivery she would knit her little brows and glare round tragically, and say to the empty air, as if

"Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore, Tell me what thy lordly name is on the

"She'd bring up the nasty carrion bird that clear," corroborated the sick woman reluctantly, "as she stood there

in her little sash and things, that you could see un a'most before your very eyes. You too, Jude, had the same

"She was not exactly a tomboy, you know; but she could do things that only boys do, as a rule. I've seen her

hit in and steer down the long slide on yonder pond, with her little curls blowing, one of a file of twenty

moving along against the sky like shapes painted on glass, and up the back slide without stopping. All boys

except herself; and then they'd cheer her, and then she'd say, 'Don't be saucy, boys,' and suddenly run indoors.

These retrospective visions of Sue only made Jude the more miserable that he was unable to woo her, and he

left the cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the school to see the

room in which Sue's little figure had so glorified itself; but he checked his desire and went on.

It being Sunday evening some villagers who had known him during his residence here were standing in a

"Why, to the seat of l'arningthe 'City of Light' you used to talk to us about as a little boy! Is it all you

"When I was there once for an hour I didn't see much in it for my part; auld crumbling buildings, half church,

"You are wrong, John; there is more going on than meets the eye of a man walking through the streets. It is a

unique centre of thought and religionthe intellectual and spiritual granary of this country. All that silence

and absence of goingson is the stillness of infinite motionthe sleep of the spinningtop, to borrow the

"Oh, well, it med be all that, or it med not. As I say, I didn't see nothing of it the hour or two I was there; so I

went in and had a pot o' beer, and a penny loaf, and a ha'porth o' cheese, and waited till it was time to come

"Just what we thought! Such places be not for such as you only for them with plenty o' money."

"There you are wrong," said Jude, with some bitterness. "They are for such ones!"

Still, the remark was sufficient to withdraw Jude's attention from the imaginative world he had lately

inhabited, in which an abstract figure, more or less himself, was steeping his mind in a sublimation of the arts

and sciences, and making his calling and election sure to a seat in the paradise of the learned. He was set

regarding his prospects in a cold northern light. He had lately felt that he could not quite satisfy himself in his

Greek in the Greek of the dramatists particularly. So fatigued was he sometimes after his day's work that

he could not maintain the critical attention necessary for thorough application. He felt that he wanted a

coacha friend at his elbow to tell him in a moment what sometimes would occupy him a weary month in

It was decidedly necessary to consider facts a little more closely than he had done of late. What was the good,

after all, of using up his spare hours in a vague labour called "private study" without giving an outlook on

"I ought to have thought of this before," he said, as he journeyed back. "It would have been better never to

have embarked in the scheme at all than to do it without seeing clearly where I am going, or what I am

aiming at.... This hovering outside the walls of the colleges, as if expecting some arm to be stretched out from

The next week accordingly he sought it. What at first seemed an opportunity occurred one afternoon when he

saw an elderly gentleman, who had been pointed out as the head of a particular college, walking in the public

path of a parklike enclosure near the spot at which Jude chanced to be sitting. The gentleman came nearer,

and Jude looked anxiously at his face. It seemed benign, considerate, yet rather reserved. On second thoughts

Jude felt that he could not go up and address him; but he was sufficiently influenced by the incident to think

what a wise thing it would be for him to state his difficulties by letter to some of the best and most judicious

During the next week or two he accordingly placed himself in such positions about the city as would afford

him glimpses of several of the most distinguished among the provosts, wardens, and other heads of houses;

and from those he ultimately selected five whose physiognomies seemed to say to him that they were

appreciative and farseeing men. To these five he addressed letters, briefly stating his difficulties, and asking

When the letters were posted Jude mentally began to criticize them; he wished they had not been sent. "It is

just one of those intrusive, vulgar, pushing, applications which are so common in these days," he thought.

"Why couldn't I know better than address utter strangers in such a way? I may be an impostor, and idle

scamp, a man with a bad character, for all that they know to the contrary.... Perhaps that's what I am!"

Nevertheless, he found himself clinging to the hope of some reply as to his one last chance of redemption. He

waited day after day, saying that it was perfectly absurd to expect, yet expecting. While he waited he was

suddenly stirred by news about Phillotson. Phillotson was giving up the school near Christminster, for a

larger one further south, in MidWessex. What this meant; how it would affect his cousin; whether, as

seemed possible, it was a practical move of the schoolmaster's towards a larger income, in view of a

provision for two instead of one, he would not allow himself to say. And the tender relations between

Phillotson and the young girl of whom Jude was passionately enamoured effectually made it repugnant to

Meanwhile the academic dignitaries to whom Jude had written vouchsafed no answer, and the young man

was thus thrown back entirely on himself, as formerly, with the added gloom of a weakened hope. By indirect

inquiries he soon perceived clearly what he had long uneasily suspected, that to qualify himself for certain

open scholarships and exhibitions was the only brilliant course. But to do this a good deal of coaching would

be necessary, and much natural ability. It was next to impossible that a man reading on his own system,

however widely and thoroughly, even over the prolonged period of ten years, should be able to compete with

those who had passed their lives under trained teachers and had worked to ordained lines.

The other course, that of buying himself in, so to speak, seemed the only one really open to men like him, the

difficulty being simply of a material kind. With the help of his information he began to reckon the extent of

this material obstacle, and ascertained, to his dismay, that, at the rate at which, with the best of fortune, he

would be able to save money, fifteen years must elapse before he could be in a position to forward

testimonials to the head of a college and advance to a matriculation examination. The undertaking was

He saw what a curious and cunning glamour the neighbourhood of the place had exercised over him. To get

there and live there, to move among the churches and halls and become imbued with the GENIUS LOCI, had

seemed to his dreaming youth, as the spot shaped its charms to him from its halo on the horizon, the obvious

and ideal thing to do. "Let me only get there," he had said with the fatuousness of Crusoe over his big boat,

"and the rest is but a matter of time and energy." It would have been far better for him in every way if he had

never come within sight and sound of the delusive precincts, had gone to some busy commercial town with

the sole object of making money by his wits, and thence surveyed his plan in true perspective. Well, all that

was clear to him amounted to this, that the whole scheme had burst up, like an iridescent soapbubble, under

the touch of a reasoned inquiry. He looked back at himself along the vista of his past years, and his thought

Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes I see the motley mocking fool'scap rise!

Fortunately he had not been allowed to bring his disappointment into his dear Sue's life by involving her in

this collapse. And the painful details of his awakening to a sense of his limitations should now be spared her

as far as possible. After all, she had only know a little part of the miserable struggle in which he had been

He always remembered the appearance of the afternoon on which he awoke from his dream. Not quite

knowing what to do with himself, he went up to an octagonal chamber in the lantern of a singularly built

theatre that was set amidst this quaint and singular city. It had windows all round, from which an outlook

over the whole town and its edifices could be gained. Jude's eyes swept all the views in succession,

meditatively, mournfully, yet sturdily. Those buildings and their associations and privileges were not for him.

From the looming roof of the great library, into which he hardly ever had time to enter, his gaze travelled on

to the varied spires, halls, gables, streets, chapels, gardens, quadrangles, which composed the ensemble of

this unrivalled panorama. He saw that his destiny lay not with these, but among the manual toilers in the

shabby purlieu which he himself occupied, unrecognized as part of the city at all by its visitors and

panegyrists, yet without whose denizens the hard readers could not read nor the high thinkers live.

He looked over the town into the country beyond, to the trees which screened her whose presence had at first

been the support of his heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. But for this blow he might have

borne with his fate. With Sue as companion he could have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Without her

it was inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to which he had subjected himself should affect him

disastrously. Phillotson had no doubt passed through a similar intellectual disappointment to that which now

enveloped him. But the schoolmaster had been since blest with the consolation of sweet Sue, while for him

Descending to the streets, he went listlessly along till he arrived at an inn, and entered it. Here he drank

several glasses of beer in rapid succession, and when he came out it was night. By the light of the flickering

lamps he rambled home to supper, and had not long been sitting at table when his landlady brought up a letter

that had just arrived for him. She laid it down as if impressed with a sense of its possible importance, and on

looking at it Jude perceived that it bore the embossed stamp of one of the colleges whose heads he had

The communication was brief, and not exactly what he had expected; though it really was from the master in

"SIR,I have read your letter with interest; and, judging from your description of yourself as a

workingman, I venture to think that you will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in

your own sphere and sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course. That, therefore, is what I

advise you to do. Yours faithfully, "T. TETUPHENAY. "To Mr. J. FAWLEY, Stonemason."

This terribly sensible advice exasperated Jude. He had known all that before. He knew it was true. Yet it

seemed a hard slap after ten years of labour, and its effect upon him just now was to make him rise recklessly

from the table, and, instead of reading as usual, to go downstairs and into the street. He stood at a bar and

tossed off two or three glasses, then unconsciously sauntered along till he came to a spot called The Fourways

in the middle of the city, gazing abstractedly at the groups of people like one in a trance, till, coming to

That officer yawned, stretched out his elbows, elevated himself an inch and a half on the balls of his toes,

Whatever his wetness, his brains were dry enough. He only heard in part the policeman's further remarks,

having fallen into thought on what struggling people like himself had stood at that crossway, whom nobody

ever thought of now. It had more history than the oldest college in the city. It was literally teeming, stratified,

with the shades of human groups, who had met there for tragedy, comedy, farce; real enactments of the

intensest kind. At Fourways men had stood and talked of Napoleon, the loss of America, the execution of

King Charles, the burning of the Martyrs, the Crusades, the Norman Conquest, possibly of the arrival of

Caesar. Here the two sexes had met for loving, hating, coupling, parting; had waited, had suffered, for each

other; had triumphed over each other; cursed each other in jealousy, blessed each other in forgiveness.

He began to see that the town life was a book of humanity infinitely more palpitating, varied, and

compendious than the gown life. These struggling men and women before him were the reality of

Christminster, though they knew little of Christ or Minster. That was one of the humours of things. The

floating population of students and teachers, who did know both in a way, were not Christminster in a local

He looked at his watch, and, in pursuit of this idea, he went on till he came to a public hall, where a

promenade concert was in progress. Jude entered, and found the room full of shop youths and girls, soldiers,

apprentices, boys of eleven smoking cigarettes, and light women of the more respectable and amateur class.

He had tapped the real Christminster life. A band was playing, and the crowd walked about and jostled each

The spirit of Sue seemed to hover round him and prevent his flirting and drinking with the frolicsome girls

who made advances wistful to gain a little joy. At ten o'clock he came away, choosing a circuitous route

homeward to pass the gates of the college whose head had just sent him the note.

The gates were shut, and, by an impulse, he took from his pocket the lump of chalk which as a workman he

THE stroke of scorn relieved his mind, and the next morning he laughed at his selfconceit. But the laugh

was not a healthy one. He reread the letter from the master, and the wisdom in its lines, which had at first

exasperated him, chilled and depressed him now. He saw himself as a fool indeed.

Deprived of the objects of both intellect and emotion, he could not proceed to his work. Whenever he felt

reconciled to his fate as a student, there came to disturb his calm his hopeless relations with Sue. That the one

affined soul he had ever met was lost to him through his marriage returned upon him with cruel persistency,

till, unable to bear it longer, he again rushed for distraction to the real Christminster life. He now sought it out

in an obscure and lowceiled tavern up a court which was well known to certain worthies of the place, and in

brighter times would have interested him simply by its quaintness. Here he sat more or less all the day,

convinced that he was at bottom a vicious character, of whom it was hopeless to expect anything.

In the evening the frequenters of the house dropped in one by one, Jude still retaining his seat in the corner,

though his money was all spent, and he had not eaten anything the whole day except a biscuit. He surveyed

his gathering companions with all the equanimity and philosophy of a man who has been drinking long and

slowly, and made friends with several: to wit, Tinker Taylor, a decayed churchironmonger who appeared to

have been of a religious turn in earlier years, but was somewhat blasphemous now; also a rednosed

auctioneer; also two Gothic masons like himself, called Uncle Jim and Uncle Joe. There were present, too,

some clerks, and a gown and surplicemaker's assistant; two ladies who sported moral characters of various

depths of shade, according to their company, nicknamed "Bower o' Bliss" and "Freckles"; some horsey men

"in the know" of betting circles; a travelling actor from the theatre, and two devilmaycare young men who

proved to be gownless undergraduates; they had slipped in by stealth to meet a man about bullpups, and

stayed to drink and smoke short pipes with the racing gents aforesaid, looking at their watches every now and

The conversation waxed general. Christminster society was criticized, the dons, magistrates, and other people

in authority being sincerely pitied for their shortcomings, while opinions on how they ought to conduct

themselves and their affairs to be properly respected, were exchanged in a largeminded and disinterested

Jude Fawley, with the selfconceit, effrontery, and APLOMB of a strongbrained fellow in liquor, threw in

his remarks somewhat peremptorily; and his aims having been what they were for so many years, everything

the others said turned upon his tongue, by a sort of mechanical craze, to the subject of scholarship and study,

the extent of his own learning being dwelt upon with an insistence that would have appeared pitiable to

"I don't care a damn," he was saying, "for any provost, warden, principal, fellow, or cursed master of arts in

the university! What I know is that I'd lick 'em on their own ground if they'd give me a chance, and show 'em

"Hear, hear!" said the undergraduates from the corner, where they were talking privately about the pups

"You always was fond o' books, I've heard," said Tinker Taylor, "and I don't doubt what you state. Now with

me 'twas different. I always saw there was more to be learnt outside a book than in; and I took my steps

"You aim at the Church, I believe?" said Uncle Joe. "If you are such a scholar as to pitch yer hopes so high as

that, why not give us a specimen of your scholarship? Canst say the Creed in Latin, man? That was how they

"Just you shut up, Bower o' Bliss!" said one of the undergraduates. "Silence!" He drank off the spirits in his

tumbler, rapped with it on the counter, and announced, "The gentleman in the corner is going to rehearse the

Articles of his Belief, in the Latin tongue, for the edification of the company."

"I'll swear I can!" said Jude. "Well, come now, stand me a small Scotch cold, and I'll do it straight off."

"That's a fair offer," said the undergraduate, throwing down the money for the whisky.

The barmaid concocted the mixture with the bearing of a person compelled to live amongst animals of an

inferior species, and the glass was handed across to Jude, who, having drunk the contents, stood up and began

"Good! Excellent Latin!" cried one of the undergraduates, who, however, had not the slightest conception of

A silence reigned among the rest in the bar, and the maid stood still, Jude's voice echoing sonorously into the

inner parlour, where the landlord was dozing, and bringing him out to see what was going on. Jude had

"That's the Nicene," sneered the second undergraduate. "And we wanted the Apostles'!"

"You didn't say so! And every fool knows, except you, that the Nicene is the most historic creed!"

But Jude's mind seemed to grow confused soon, and he could not get on. He put his hand to his forehead, and

"Give him another glassthen he'll fetch up and get through it," said Tinker Taylor.

Somebody threw down threepence, the glass was handed, Jude stretched out his arm for it without looking,

and having swallowed the liquor, went on in a moment in a revived voice, raising it as he neared the end with

"Well done!" said several, enjoying the last word, as being the first and only one they had recognized.

Then Jude seemed to shake the fumes from his brain, as he stared round upon them.

"You pack of fools!" he cried. "Which one of you knows whether I have said it or no? It might have been the

Ratcatcher's Daughter in double Dutch for all that your besotted heads can tell! See what I have brought

The landlord, who had already had his license endorsed for harbouring queer characters, feared a riot, and

came outside the counter; but Jude, in his sudden flash of reason, had turned in disgust and left the scene, the

He hastened down the lane and round into the straight broad street, which he followed till it merged in the

highway, and all sound of his late companions had been left behind. Onward he still went, under the influence

of a childlike yearning for the one being in the world to whom it seemed possible to flyan unreasoning

desire, whose ill judgement was not apparent to him now. In the course of an hour, when it was between ten

and eleven o'clock, he entered the village of Lumsdon, and reaching the cottage, saw that a light was burning

Jude stepped close to the wall, and tapped with his finger on the pane, saying impatiently, "Sue, Sue!"

She must have recognized his voice, for the light disappeared from the apartment, and in a second or two the

"Oh, I amI couldn't help coming, Sue!" said he, sinking down upon the doorstep. "I am so wicked,

Suemy heart is nearly broken, and I could not bear my life as it was! So I have been drinking, and

blaspheming, or next door to it, and saying holy things in disreputable quartersrepeating in idle bravado

words which ought never to be uttered but reverently! Oh, do anything with me, Suekill me I don't care!

"You are ill, poor dear! No, I won't despise you; of course I won't! Come in and rest, and let me see what I

can do for you. Now lean on me, and don't mind." With one hand holding the candle and the other supporting

him, she led him indoors, and placed him in the only easy chair the meagrely furnished house afforded,

stretching his feet upon another, and pulling off his boots. Jude, now getting towards his sober senses, could

She asked him if he wanted anything to eat, but he shook his head. Then telling him to go to sleep, and that

she would come down early in the morning and get him some breakfast, she bade him goodnight and

Almost immediately he fell into a heavy slumber, and did not wake till dawn. At first he did not know where

he was, but by degrees his situation cleared to him, and he beheld it in all the ghastliness of a right mind. She

knew the worst of himthe very worst. How could he face her now? She would soon be coming down to see

about breakfast, as she had said, and there would he be in all his shame confronting her. He could not bear the

thought, and softly drawing on his boots, and taking his hat from the nail on which she had hung it, he slipped

His fixed idea was to get away to some obscure spot and hide, and perhaps pray; and the only spot which

occurred to him was Marygreen. He called at his lodging in Christminster, where he found awaiting him a

note of dismissal from his employer; and having packed up he turned his back upon the city that had been

such a thorn in his side, and struck southward into Wessex. He had no money left in his pocket, his small

savings, deposited at one of the banks in Christminster, having fortunately been left untouched. To get to

Marygreen, therefore, his only course was walking; and the distance being nearly twenty miles, he had ample

At some hour of the evening he reached Alfredston. Here he pawned his waistcoat, and having gone out of

the town a mile or two, slept under a rick that night. At dawn he rose, shook off the hayseeds and stems from

his clothes, and started again, breasting the long white road up the hill to the downs, which had been visible

to him a long way off, and passing the milestone at the top, whereon he had carved his hopes years ago.

He reached the ancient hamlet while the people were at breakfast. Weary and mudbespattered, but quite

possessed of his ordinary clearness of brain, he sat down by the well, thinking as he did so what a poor Christ

he made. Seeing a trough of water near he bathed his face, and went on to the cottage of his greataunt,

"Whatout o' work?" asked his relative, regarding him through eyes sunken deep, under lids heavy as

potcovers, no other cause for his tumbled appearance suggesting itself to one whose whole life had been a

Refreshed by some breakfast, he went up to his old room and lay down in his shirtsleeves, after the manner

of the artizan. He fell asleep for a short while, and when he awoke it was as if he had awakened in hell. It

WAS hell"the hell of conscious failure," both in ambition and in love. He thought of that previous abyss

into which he had fallen before leaving this part of the country; the deepest deep he had supposed it then; but

it was not so deep as this. That had been the breaking in of the outer bulwarks of his hope: this was of his

If he had been a woman he must have screamed under the nervous tension which he was now undergoing.

But that relief being denied to his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about his mouth like

A mournful wind blew through the trees, and sounded in the chimney like the pedal notes of an organ. Each

ivy leaf overgrowing the wall of the churchless churchyard hard by, now abandoned, pecked its neighbour

smartly, and the vane on the new VictorianGothic church in the new spot had already begun to creak. Yet

apparently it was not always the outdoor wind that made the deep murmurs; it was a voice. He guessed its

origin in a moment or two; the curate was praying with his aunt in the adjoining room. He remembered her

speaking of him. Presently the sounds ceased, and a step seemed to cross the landing. Jude sat up, and

The step made for his door, which was open, and a man looked in. It was a young clergyman.

"I think you are Mr. Highridge," said Jude. "My aunt has mentioned you more than once. Well, here I am,

just come home; a fellow gone to the bad; though I had the best intentions in the world at one time. Now I am

Slowly Jude unfolded to the curate his late plans and movements, by an unconscious bias dwelling less upon

the intellectual and ambitious side of his dream, and more upon the theological, though this had, up till now,

"Now I know I have been a fool, and that folly is with me," added Jude in conclusion. "And I don't regret the

collapse of my university hopes one jot. I wouldn't begin again if I were sure to succeed. I don't care for

social success any more at all. But I do feel I should like to do some good thing; and I bitterly regret the

The curate, who was a new man to this neighbourhood, had grown deeply interested, and at last he said: "If

you feel a real call to the ministry, and I won't say from your conversation that you do not, for it is that of a

thoughtful and educated man, you might enter the Church as a licentiate. Only you must make up your mind

IT was a new ideathe ecclesiastical and altruistic life as distinct from the intellectual and emulative life. A

man could preach and do good to his fellowcreatures without taking doublefirsts in the schools of

Christminster, or having anything but ordinary knowledge. The old fancy which had led on to the culminating

vision of the bishopric had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all, but a mundane ambition

masquerading in a surplice. He feared that his whole scheme had degenerated to, even though it might not

have originated in, a social unrest which had no foundation in the nobler instincts; which was purely an

artificial product of civilization. There were thousands of young men on the same selfseeking track at the

present moment. The sensual hind who ate, drank, and lived carelessly with his wife through the days of his

But to enter the Church in such an unscholarly way that he could not in any probability rise to a higher grade

through all his career than that of the humble curate wearing his life out in an obscure village or city

slumthat might have a touch of goodness and greatness in it; that might be true religion, and a purgatorial

The favourable light in which this new thought showed itself by contrast with his foregone intentions cheered

Jude, as he sat there, shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given, during the next few days, the

COUP DE GRACE to his intellectual career a career which had extended over the greater part of a dozen

years. He did nothing, however, for some long stagnant time to advance his new desire, occupying himself

with little local jobs in putting up and lettering headstones about the neighbouring villages, and submitting to

be regarded as a social failure, a returned purchase, by the halfdozen or so of farmers and other

The human interest of the new intentionand a human interest is indispensable to the most spiritual and

selfsacrificingwas created by a letter from Sue, bearing a fresh postmark. She evidently wrote with

anxiety, and told very little about her own doings, more than that she had passed some sort of examination for

a Queen's Scholarship, and was going to enter a training college at Melchester to complete herself for the

vocation she had chosen, partly by his influence. There was a theological college at Melchester; Melchester

was a quiet and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its tone; a spot where worldly learning and

intellectual smartness had no establishment; where the altruistic feeling that he did possess would perhaps be

As it would be necessary that he should continue for a time to work at his trade while reading up Divinity,

which he had neglected at Christminster for the ordinary classical grind, what better course for him than to

get employment at the further city, and pursue this plan of reading? That his excessive human interest in the

new place was entirely of Sue's making, while at the same time Sue was to be regarded even less than

formerly as proper to create it, had an ethical contradictoriness to which he was not blind. But that much he

conceded to human frailty, and hoped to learn to love her only as a friend and kinswoman.

He considered that he might so mark out his coming years as to begin his ministry at the age of thirtyan

age which much attracted him as being that of his exemplar when he first began to teach in Galilee. This

would allow him plenty of time for deliberate study, and for acquiring capital by his trade to help his

Christmas had come and passed, and Sue had gone to the Melchester Normal School. The time was just the

worst in the year for Jude to get into new employment, and he had written suggesting to her that he should

postpone his arrival for a month or so, till the days had lengthened. She had acquiesced so readily that he

wished he had not proposed it she evidently did not much care about him, though she had never once

reproached him for his strange conduct in coming to her that night, and his silent disappearance. Neither had

Suddenly, however, quite a passionate letter arrived from Sue. She was quite lonely and miserable, she told

him. She hated the place she was in; it was worse than the ecclesiastical designer's; worse than anywhere. She

felt utterly friendless; could he come immediately?though when he did come she would only be able to see

him at limited times, the rules of the establishment she found herself in being strict to a degree. It was Mr.

Phillotson who had advised her to come there, and she wished she had never listened to him.

Phillotson's suit was not exactly prospering, evidently; and Jude felt unreasonably glad. He packed up his

things and went to Melchester with a lighter heart than he had known for months.

This being the turning over a new leaf he duly looked about for a temperance hotel, and found a little

establishment of that description in the street leading from the station. When he had had something to eat he

walked out into the dull winter light over the town bridge, and turned the corner towards the Close. The day

was foggy, and standing under the walls of the most graceful architectural pile in England he paused and

looked up. The lofty building was visible as far as the roofridge; above, the dwindling spire rose more and

The lamps now began to be lighted, and turning to the west front he walked round. He took it as a good omen

that numerous blocks of stone were lying about, which signified that the cathedral was undergoing restoration

or repair to a considerable extent. It seemed to him, full of the superstitions of his beliefs, that this was an

exercise of forethought on the part of a ruling Power, that he might find plenty to do in the art he practised

Then a wave of warmth came over him as he thought how near he now stood to the brighteyed vivacious

girl with the broad forehead and pile of dark hair above it; the girl with the kindling glance, daringly soft at

timessomething like that of the girls he had seen in engravings from paintings of the Spanish school. She

was here actually in this Closein one of the houses confronting this very west facade.

He went down the broad gravel path towards the building. It was an ancient edifice of the fifteenth century,

once a palace, now a trainingschool, with mullioned and transomed windows, and a courtyard in front shut

in from the road by a wall. Jude opened the gate and went up to the door through which, on inquiring for his

cousin, he was gingerly admitted to a waitingroom, and in a few minutes she came.

Though she had been here such a short while, she was not as he had seen her last. All her bounding manner

was gone; her curves of motion had become subdued lines. The screens and subtleties of convention had

likewise disappeared. Yet neither was she quite the woman who had written the letter that summoned him.

That had plainly been dashed off in an impulse which second thoughts had somewhat regretted; thoughts that

"You don'tthink me a demoralized wretchfor coming to you as I was and going so shamefully, Sue?"

"Oh, I have tried not to! You said enough to let me know what had caused it. I hope I shall never have any

She wore a murreycoloured gown with a little lace collar. It was made quite plain, and hung about her slight

figure with clinging gracefulness. Her hair, which formerly she had worn according to the custom of the day

was now twisted up tightly, and she had altogether the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe

discipline, an underbrightness shining through from the depths which that discipline had not yet been able to

She had come forward prettily, but Jude felt that she had hardly expected him to kiss her, as he was burning

to do, under other colours than those of cousinship. He could not perceive the least sign that Sue regarded

him as a lover, or ever would do so, now that she knew the worst of him, even if he had the right to behave as

one; and this helped on his growing resolve to tell her of his matrimonial entanglement, which he had put off

Sue came out into the town with him, and they walked and talked with tongues centred only on the passing

moments. Jude said he would like to buy her a little present of some sort, and then she confessed, with

something of shame, that she was dreadfully hungry. They were kept on very short allowances in the college,

and a dinner, tea, and supper all in one was the present she most desired in the world. Jude thereupon took her

to an inn and ordered whatever the house afforded, which was not much. The place, however, gave them a

delightful opportunity for a TETEATETE, nobody else being in the room, and they talked freely.

She told him about the school as it was at that date, and the rough living, and the mixed character of her

fellowstudents, gathered together from all parts of the diocese, and how she had to get up and work by

gaslight in the early morning, with all the bitterness of a young person to whom restraint was new. To all

this he listened; but it was not what he wanted especially to know her relations with Phillotson. That was

what she did not tell. When they had sat and eaten, Jude impulsively placed his hand upon hers; she looked

up and smiled, and took his quite freely into her own little soft one, dividing his fingers and coolly examining

"I don't dislike it, you know. I think it is noble to see a man's hands subdued to what he works in.... Well, I'm

rather glad I came to this trainingschool, after all. See how independent I shall be after the two years'

training! I shall pass pretty high, I expect, and Mr. Phillotson will use his influence to get me a big school."

She had touched the subject at last. "I had a suspicion, a fear," said Jude, "that hecared about you rather

Her eversensitive lip began to quiver, and her eye to blink, at something this reproof was deciding her to

"I know you'll be angry if I tell you everything, and that's why I don't want to!"

"Very well, then, dear," he said soothingly. "I have no real right to ask you, and I don't wish to know."

"I shall tell you!" said she, with the perverseness that was part of her. "This is what I have done: I have

promisedI have promised that I will marry him when I come out of the trainingschool two years hence,

and have got my certificate; his plan being that we shall then take a large double school in a great townhe

the boys' and I the girls'as married schoolteachers often do, and make a good income between us."

He glanced at her and their eyes met, the reproach in his own belying his words. Then he drew his hand quite

away from hers, and turned his face in estrangement from her to the window. Sue regarded him passively

"I knew you would be angry!" she said with an air of no emotion whatever. "Very wellI am wrong, I

suppose! I ought not to have let you come to see me! We had better not meet again; and we'll only correspond

This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear, as she probably knew, and it brought him round at

once. "Oh yes, we will," he said quickly. "Your being engaged can make no difference to me whatever. I

"Then don't let us talk of it any more. It is quite spoiling our evening together. What does it matter about what

She was something of a riddle to him, and he let the subject drift away. "Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?"

"Cathedral? Yes. Though I think I'd rather sit in the railway station," she answered, a remnant of vexation still

in her voice. "That's the centre of the town life now. The cathedral has had its day!"

"So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as I have done these last few years! The

cathedral was a very good place four or five centuries ago; but it is played out now ... I am not modern, either.

"ThereI won't say any more of that!" she cried. "Only you don't know how bad I am, from your point of

view, or you wouldn't think so much of me, or care whether I was engaged or not. Now there's just time for

us to walk round the Close, then I must go in, or I shall be locked out for the night."

He took her to the gate and they parted. Jude had a conviction that his unhappy visit to her on that sad night

had precipitated this marriage engagement, and it did anything but add to his happiness. Her reproach had

taken that shape, then, and not the shape of words. However, next day he set about seeking employment,

which it was not so easy to get as at Christminster, there being, as a rule, less stonecutting in progress in this

quiet city, and hands being mostly permanent. But he edged himself in by degrees. His first work was some

carving at the cemetery on the hill; and ultimately he became engaged on the labour he most desired the

cathedral repairs, which were very extensive, the whole interior stonework having been overhauled, to be

largely replaced by new. It might be a labour of years to get it all done, and he had confidence enough in his

own skill with the mallet and chisel to feel that it would be a matter of choice with himself how long he

The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would not have disgraced a curate, the rent representing a higher

percentage on his wages than mechanics of any sort usually care to pay. His combined bed and sittingroom

was furnished with framed photographs of the rectories and deaneries at which his landlady had lived as

trusted servant in her time, and the parlour downstairs bore a clock on the mantelpiece inscribed to the effect

that it was presented to the same seriousminded woman by her fellowservants on the occasion of her

marriage. Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpacking photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and

monuments that he had executed with his own hands; and he was deemed a satisfactory acquisition as tenant

He found an ample supply of theological books in the city bookshops, and with these his studies were

recommenced in a different spirit and direction from his former course. As a relaxation from the Fathers, and

such stock works as Paley and Butler, he read Newman, Pusey, and many other modern lights. He hired a

harmonium, set it up in his lodging, and practised chants thereon, single and double.

"I have leave from three till nine. Wherever we can get to and come back from in that time. Not ruins,

"WellWardour Castle. And then we can do Fonthill if we like all in the same afternoon."

"No. Quite otherwise. It is a classic buildingCorinthian, I think; with a lot of pictures."

Their conversation had run thus some few weeks later, and next morning they prepared to start. Every detail

of the outing was a facet reflecting a sparkle to Jude, and he did not venture to meditate on the life of

inconsistency he was leading. His Sue's conduct was one lovely conundrum to him; he could say no more.

There duly came the charm of calling at the college door for her; her emergence in a nunlike simplicity of

costume that was rather enforced than desired; the traipsing along to the station, the porters' "B'your leave!,"

the screaming of the trains everything formed the basis of a beautiful crystallization. Nobody stared at Sue,

because she was so plainly dressed, which comforted Jude in the thought that only himself knew the charms

those habiliments subdued. A matter of ten pounds spent in a draperyshop, which had no connection with

her real life or her real self, would have set all Melchester staring. The guard of the train thought they were

Jude did not respond. He thought the remark unnecessarily cruel, and partly untrue.

They reached the park and castle and wandered through the picturegalleries, Jude stopping by preference in

front of the devotional pictures by Del Sarto, Guido Reni, Spagnoletto, Sassoferrato, Carlo Dolci, and others.

Sue paused patiently beside him, and stole critical looks into his face as, regarding the Virgins, Holy

Families, and Saints, it grew reverent and abstracted. When she had thoroughly estimated him at this, she

would move on and wait for him before a Lely or Reynolds. It was evident that her cousin deeply interested

her, as one might be interested in a man puzzling out his way along a labyrinth from which one had one's self

When they came out a long time still remained to them and Jude proposed that as soon as they had had

something to eat they should walk across the high country to the north of their present position, and intercept

the train of another railway leading back to Melchester, at a station about seven miles off. Sue, who was

inclined for any adventure that would intensify the sense of her day's freedom, readily agreed; and away they

It was indeed open country, wide and high. They talked and bounded on, Jude cutting from a little covert a

long walkingstick for Sue as tall as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a shepherdess.

About halfway on their journey they crossed a main road running due east and westthe old road from

London to Land's End. They paused, and looked up and down it for a moment, and remarked upon the

desolation which had come over this once lively thoroughfare, while the wind dipped to earth and scooped

They crossed the road and passed on, but during the next halfmile Sue seemed to grow tired, and Jude began

to be distressed for her. They had walked a good distance altogether, and if they could not reach the other

station it would be rather awkward. For a long time there was no cottage visible on the wide expanse of down

and turnipland; but presently they came to a sheepfold, and next to the shepherd, pitching hurdles. He told

them that the only house near was his mother's and his, pointing to a little dip ahead from which a faint blue

This they did, and entered the house, admitted by an old woman without a single tooth, to whom they were as

civil as strangers can be when their only chance of rest and shelter lies in the favour of the householder.

"Oh, I don't know about the niceness. I shall have to thatch it soon, and where the thatch is to come from I

can't tell, for straw do get that dear, that 'twill soon be cheaper to cover your house wi' chainey plates than

They sat resting, and the shepherd came in. "Don't 'ee mind I," he said with a deprecating wave of the hand

"bide here as long as ye will. But mid you be thinking o' getting back to Melchester tonight by train?

Because you'll never do it in this world, since you don't know the lie of the country. I don't mind going with

"You can bide here, you know, over the nightcan't 'em, Mother? The place is welcome to ye. 'Tis hard

lying, rather, but volk may do worse." He turned to Jude and asked privately: "Be you a married couple?"

"OhI meant nothing ba'dynot I! Well then, she can go into Mother's room, and you and I can lie in the

outer chimmer after they've gone through. I can call ye soon enough to catch the first train back. You've lost

On consideration they decided to close with this offer, and drew up and shared with the shepherd and his

"I rather like this," said Sue, while their entertainers were clearing away the dishes. "Outside all laws except

"You only think you like it; you don't: you are quite a product of civilization," said Jude, a recollection of her

"Indeed I am not, Jude. I like reading and all that, but I crave to get back to the life of my infancy and its

"Do you remember it so well? You seem to me to have nothing unconventional at all about you."

The shepherd aroused them the next morning, as he had said. It was bright and clear, and the four miles to the

train were accomplished pleasantly. When they had reached Melchester, and walked to the Close, and the

gables of the old building in which she was again to be immured rose before Sue's eyes, she looked a little

"Oh, I bought something for you, which I had nearly forgotten," she said quickly, searching her pocket. "It is

"WOULD I!" He took it gladly, and the porter came. There seemed to be an ominous glance on his face when

THE seventy young women, of ages varying in the main from nineteen to oneandtwenty, though several

were older, who at this date filled the species of nunnery known as the TrainingSchool at Melchester,

formed a very mixed community, which included the daughters of mechanics, curates, surgeons,

shopkeepers, farmers, dairymen, soldiers, sailors, and villagers. They sat in the large schoolroom of the

establishment on the evening previously described, and word was passed round that Sue Bridehead had not

"She went out with her young man," said a secondyear's student, who knew about young men. "And Miss

Traceley saw her at the station with him. She'll have it hot when she does come."

"That excuse has been made a little too often in this school to be effectual in saving our souls," said the head

The fact was that, only twelve months before, there had occurred a lamentable seduction of one of the pupils

who had made the same statement in order to gain meetings with her lover. The affair had created a scandal,

At nine o'clock the names were called, Sue's being pronounced three times sonorously by Miss Traceley

At a quarter past nine the seventy stood up to sing the "Evening Hymn," and then knelt down to prayers.

After prayers they went in to supper, and every girl's thought was, Where is Sue Bridehead? Some of the

students, who had seen Jude from the window, felt that they would not mind risking her punishment for the

pleasure of being kissed by such a kindlyfaced young men. Hardly one among them believed in the

Half an hour later they all lay in their cubicles, their tender feminine faces upturned to the flaring gasjets

which at intervals stretched down the long dormitories, every face bearing the legend "The Weaker" upon it,

as the penalty of the sex wherein they were moulded, which by no possible exertion of their willing hearts

and abilities could be made strong while the inexorable laws of nature remain what they are. They formed a

pretty, suggestive, pathetic sight, of whose pathos and beauty they were themselves unconscious, and would

not discover till, amid the storms and strains of afteryears, with their injustice, loneliness, childbearing,

and bereavement, their minds would revert to this experience as to something which had been allowed to slip

One of the mistresses came in to turn out the lights, and before doing so gave a final glance at Sue's cot,

which remained empty, and at her little dressingtable at the foot, which, like all the rest, was ornamented

with various girlish trifles, framed photographs being not the least conspicuous among them. Sue's table had a

moderate show, two men in their filigree and velvet frames standing together beside her lookingglass.

"Who are these mendid she ever say?" asked the mistress. "Strictly speaking, relations' portraits only are

"Onethe middleaged man," said a student in the next bed"is the schoolmaster she served underMr.

The lights were promptly extinguished, and till they fell asleep the girls indulged in conjectures about Sue,

and wondered what games she had carried on in London and at Christminster before she came here, some of

the more restless ones getting out of bed and looking from the mullioned windows at the vast west front of

When they awoke the next morning they glanced into Sue's nook, to find it still without a tenant. After the

early lessons by gaslight, in halftoilet, and when they had come up to dress for breakfast, the bell of the

entrance gate was heard to ring loudly. The mistress of the dormitory went away, and presently came back to

say that the principal's orders were that nobody was to speak to Bridehead without permission.

When, accordingly, Sue came into the dormitory to hastily tidy herself, looking flushed and tired, she went to

her cubicle in silence, none of them coming out to greet her or to make inquiry. When they had gone

downstairs they found that she did not follow them into the dininghall to breakfast, and they then learnt that

she had been severely reprimanded, and ordered to a solitary room for a week, there to be confined, and take

At this the seventy murmured, the sentence being, they thought, too severe. A round robin was prepared and

sent in to the principal, asking for a remission of Sue's punishment. No notice was taken. Towards evening,

when the geography mistress began dictating her subject, the girls in the class sat with folded arms.

"You mean that you are not going to work?" said the mistress at last. "I may as well tell you that it has been

ascertained that the young man Bridehead stayed out with was not her cousin, for the very good reason that

"This young man was discharged from his work at Christminster for drunkenness and blasphemy in

However, they remained stolid and motionless, and the mistress left the room to inquire from her superiors

Presently, towards dusk, the pupils, as they sat, heard exclamations from the firstyear's girls in an adjoining

classroom, and one rushed in to say that Sue Bridehead had got out of the back window of the room in which

she had been confined, escaped in the dark across the lawn, and disappeared. How she had managed to get

out of the garden nobody could tell, as it was bounded by the river at the bottom, and the side door was

They went and looked at the empty room, the casement between the middle mullions of which stood open.

The lawn was again searched with a lantern, every bush and shrub being examined, but she was nowhere

hidden. Then the porter of the front gate was interrogated, and on reflection he said that he remembered

hearing a sort of splashing in the stream at the back, but he had taken no notice, thinking some ducks had

The mind of the matron was horrifiednot so much at the possible death of Sue as at the possible

halfcolumn detailing that event in all the newspapers, which, added to the scandal of the year before, would

More lanterns were procured, and the river examined; and then, at last, on the opposite shore, which was

open to the fields, some little boottracks were discerned in the mud, which left no doubt that the too

excitable girl had waded through a depth of water reaching nearly to her shouldersfor this was the chief

river of the county, and was mentioned in all the geography books with respect. As Sue had not brought

disgrace upon the school by drowning herself, the matron began to speak superciliously of her, and to express

On the selfsame evening Jude sat in his lodgings by the Close Gate. Often at this hour after dusk he would

enter the silent Close, and stand opposite the house that contained Sue, and watch the shadows of the girls'

heads passing to and fro upon the blinds, and wish he had nothing else to do but to sit reading and learning all

day what many of the thoughtless inmates despised. But tonight, having finished tea and brushed himself

up, he was deep in the perusal of the Twentyninth Volume of Pusey's Library of the Fathers, a set of books

which he had purchased of a secondhand dealer at a price that seemed to him to be one of miraculous

cheapness for that invaluable work. He fancied he heard something rattle lightly against his window; then he

heard it again. Certainly somebody had thrown gravel. He rose and gently lifted the sash.

Jude waited, knowing that she could enter easily enough, the front door being opened merely by a knob

which anybody could turn, as in most old country towns. He palpitated at the thought that she had fled to him

in her trouble as he had fled to her in his. What counterparts they were! He unlatched the door of his room,

heard a stealthy rustle on the dark stairs, and in a moment she appeared in the light of his lamp. He went up to

seize her hand, and found she was clammy as a marine deity, and that her clothes clung to her like the robes

"I'm so cold!" she said through her chattering teeth. "Can I come by your fire, Jude?"

She crossed to his little grate and very little fire, but as the water dripped from her as she moved, the idea of

drying herself was absurd. "Whatever have you done, darling?" he asked, with alarm, the tender epithet

"Walked through the largest river in the countythat's what I've done! They locked me up for being out with

you; and it seemed so unjust that I couldn't bear it, so I got out of the window and escaped across the stream!"

She had begun the explanation in her usual slightly independent tones, but before she had finished the thin

"Dear Sue!" he said. "You must take off all your things! And let me seeyou must borrow some from the

"No, no! Don't let her know, for God's sake! We are so near the school that they'll come after me!"

"My Sunday suit, you know. It is close here." In fact, everything was close and handy in Jude's single

chamber, because there was not room for it to be otherwise. He opened a drawer, took out his best dark suit,

Jude left the room and went into the street, where he walked up and down. A clock struck halfpast seven,

and he returned. Sitting in his only armchair he saw a slim and fragile being masquerading as himself on a

Sunday, so pathetic in her defencelessness that his heart felt big with the sense of it. On two other chairs

before the fire were her wet garments. She blushed as he sat down beside her, but only for a moment.

"I suppose, Jude, it is odd that you should see me like this and all my things hanging there? Yet what

nonsense! They are only a woman's clothes sexless cloth and linen.... I wish I didn't feel so ill and sick!

Will you dry my clothes now? Please do, Jude, and I'll get a lodging by and by. It is not late yet."

"No, you shan't, if you are ill. You must stay here. Dear, dear Sue, what can I get for you?"

"I don't know! I can't help shivering. I wish I could get warm." Jude put on her his greatcoat in addition, and

then ran out to the nearest publichouse, whence he returned with a little bottle in his hand. "Here's six of

"I can't out of the bottle, can I?" Jude fetched the glass from the dressingtable, and administered the spirit in

some water. She gasped a little, but gulped it down, and lay back in the armchair.

She then began to relate circumstantially her experiences since they had parted; but in the middle of her story

her voice faltered, her head nodded, and she ceased. She was in a sound sleep. Jude, dying of anxiety lest she

should have caught a chill which might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He

softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her

hanging hand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her, and saw in her almost

He whisked Sue's clothing from the chair where it was drying, thrust it under the bed, and sat down to his

"Oh, I didn't know whether you was in or not, Mr. Fawley. I wanted to know if you would require supper. I

"Yes, ma'am. But I think I won't come down tonight. Will you bring supper up on a tray, and I'll have a cup

It was Jude's custom to go downstairs to the kitchen, and eat his meals with the family, to save trouble. His

landlady brought up the supper, however, on this occasion, and he took it from her at the door.

When she had descended he set the teapot on the hob, and drew out Sue's clothes anew; but they were far

from dry. A thick woollen gown, he found, held a deal of water. So he hung them up again, and enlarged his

"Better. Quite well. Why, I fell asleep, didn't I? What time is it? Not late surely?"

"Yes; that's what I want to do. But I don't know what they would say! And what will you do?"

"I am going to sit here by the fire all night, and read. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I haven't to go out

anywhere. Perhaps you will be saved a severe illness by resting there. Don't be frightened. I'm all right. Look

When she had sat upright she breathed plaintively and said, "I do feel rather weak still. l thought I was well;

and I ought not to be here, ought I?" But the supper fortified her somewhat, and when she had had some tea

The tea must have been green, or too long drawn, for she seemed preternaturally wakeful afterwards, though

Jude, who had not taken any, began to feel heavy; till her conversation fixed his attention.

"You called me a creature of civilization, or something, didn't you?" she said, breaking a silence. "It was very

"Nonot learned. Only you don't talk quite like a girlwell, a girl who has had no advantages."

"I have had advantages. I don't know Latin and Greek, though I know the grammars of those tongues. But I

know most of the Greek and Latin classics through translations, and other books too. I read Lempriere,

Catullus, Martial, Juvenal, Lucian, Beaumont and Fletcher, Boccaccio, Scarron, De Brantame, Sterne, De

Foe, Smollett, Fielding, Shakespeare, the Bible, and other such; and found that all interest in the

"You have read more than I," he said with a sigh. "How came you to read some of those queerer ones?"

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "it was by accident. My life has been entirely shaped by what people call a

peculiarity in me. I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them one or two of

them particularlyalmost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not felt about them as most women are

taught to feelto be on their guard against attacks on their virtue; for no average manno man short of a

sensual savagewill molest a woman by day or night, at home or abroad, unless she invites him. Until she

says by a look 'Come on' he is always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he never comes. However,

what I was going to say is that when I was eighteen I formed a friendly intimacy with an undergraduate at

Christminster, and he taught me a great deal, and lent me books which I should never have got hold of

"Oh yes. He died, poor fellow, two or three years after he had taken his degree and left Christminster."

"Yes. We used to go about togetheron walking tours, reading tours, and things of that sortlike two men

almost. He asked me to live with him, and I agreed to by letter. But when I joined him in London I found he

meant a different thing from what I meant. He wanted me to be his mistress, in fact, but I wasn't in love with

him and on my saying I should go away if he didn't agree to MY plan, he did so. We shared a sittingroom

for fifteen months; and he became a leaderwriter for one of the great London dailies; till he was taken ill,

and had to go abroad. He said I was breaking his heart by holding out against him so long at such close

quarters; he could never have believed it of woman. I might play that game once too often, he said. He came

home merely to die. His death caused a terrible remorse in me for my cruelty though I hope he died of

consumption and not of me entirely. l went down to Sandbourne to his funeral, and was his only mourner. He

left me a little moneybecause I broke his heart, I suppose. That's how men areso much better than

"Ahnow you are angry with me!" she said, a contralto note of tragedy coming suddenly into her silvery

"Well, I invested his money, poor fellow, in a bubble scheme, and lost it. I lived about London by myself for

some time, and then I returned to Christminster, as my fatherwho was also in London, and had started as

an art metalworker near LongAcre wouldn't have me back; and I got that occupation in the artistshop

Jude looked round upon the armchair and its occupant, as if to read more carefully the creature he had given

shelter to. His voice trembled as he said: "However you have lived, Sue, I believe you are as innocent as you

said she, with an ostensible sneer, though he could hear that she was brimming with tears. "But I have never

yielded myself to any lover, if that's what you mean! I have remained as I began."

"Pehaps not. Better women would not. People say I must be coldnaturedsexlesson account of it. But I

won't have it! Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most selfcontained in their daily

"He did not pass any criticismonly said I was everything to him, whatever I did; and things like that."

Jude felt much depressed; she seemed to get further and further away from him with her strange ways and

"Aren't you REALLY vexed with me, dear Jude?" she suddenly asked, in a voice of such extraordinary

tenderness that it hardly seemed to come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly. "I

There was another long silence. He felt that she was treating him cruelly, though he could not quite say in

"I am awfully ignorant on general matters, although I have worked so hard," he said, to turn the subject. "I am

absorbed in theology, you know. And what do you think I should be doing just about now, if you weren't

"Oh no, no," she answered, "I would rather not, if you don't mind. I should seem sosuch a hypocrite."

"I thought you wouldn't join, so I didn't propose it. You must remember that I hope to be a useful minister

"Then you haven't given up the idea?I thought that perhaps you had by this time."

"Of course not. I fondly thought at first that you felt as I do about that, as you were so mixed up in

"I have no respect for Christminster whatever, except, in a qualified degree, on its intellectual side," said Sue

Bridehead earnestly. "My friend I spoke of took that out of me. He was the most irreligious man I ever knew,

and the most moral. And intellect at Christminster is new wine in old bottles. The mediaevalism of

Christminster must go, be sloughed off, or Christminster itself will have to go. To be sure, at times one

couldn't help having a sneaking liking for the traditions of the old faith, as preserved by a section of the

thinkers there in touching and simple sincerity; but when I was in my saddest, rightest mind I always felt,

"Then I won't, dear Jude!" The emotional throatnote had come back, and she turned her face away.

"I still think Christminster has much that is glorious; though I was resentful because I couldn't get there." He

"It is an ignorant place, except as to the townspeople, artizans, drunkards, and paupers," she said, perverse

still at his differing from her. "THEY see life as it is, of course; but few of the people in the colleges do. You

prove it in your own person. You are one of the very men Christminster was intended for when the colleges

were founded; a man with a passion for learning, but no money, or opportunities, or friends. But you were

"And I for something broader, truer," she insisted. "At present intellect in Christminster is pushing one way,

and religion the other; and so they stand stockstill, like two rams butting each other."

He noticed that whenever he tried to speak of the schoolmaster she turned the conversation to some

generalizations about the offending university. Jude was extremely, morbidly, curious about her life as

"Well, that's just what I am, too," he said. "I am fearful of life, spectreseeing always."

"You are in the Tractarian stage just now, are you not?" she added, putting on flippancy to hide real feeling, a

common trick with her. "Let me seewhen was I there? In the year eighteen hundred and"

"There's a sarcasm in that which is rather unpleasant to me, Sue. Now will you do what I want you to? At this

time I read a chapter, and then say prayers, as I told you. Now will you concentrate your attention on any

book of these you like, and sit with your back to me, and leave me to my custom? You are sure you won't

"Very wellI'll do just as you bid me, and I won't vex you, Jude," she replied, in the tone of a child who was

going to be good for ever after, turning her back upon him accordingly. A small Bible other than the one he

was using lay near her, and during his retreat she took it up, and turned over the leaves.

"Jude," she said brightly, when he had finished and come back to her; "will you let me make you a NEW

"I altered my old one by cutting up all the Epistles and Gospels into separate BROCHURES, and rearranging

them in chronological order as written, beginning the book with Thessalonians, following on with the

Epistles, and putting the Gospels much further on. Then I had the volume rebound. My university friend Mr.

but never mind his name, poor boysaid it was an excellent idea. I know that reading it afterwards

"And what a literary enormity this is," she said, as she glanced into the pages of Solomon's Song. "I mean the

synopsis at the head of each chapter, explaining away the real nature of that rhapsody. You needn't be

alarmed: nobody claims inspiration for the chapter headings. Indeed, many divines treat them with contempt.

It seems the drollest thing to think of the fourandtwenty elders, or bishops, or whatever number they were,

"Indeed? Then I won't say any more, except that people have no right to falsify the Bible! I HATE such

humbug as could attempt to plaster over with ecclesiastical abstractions such ecstatic, natural, human love

as lies in that great and passionate song!" Her speech had grown spirited, and almost petulant at his rebuke,

and her eyes moist. "I WISH I had a friend here to support me; but nobody is ever on my side!"

"But my dear Sue, my very dear Sue, I am not against you!" he said, taking her hand, and surprised at her

"Yes you are, yes you are!" she cried, turning away her face that he might not see her brimming eyes. "You

are on the side of the people in the trainingschoolat least you seem almost to be! What I insist on is, that

to explain such verses as this: 'Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?' by the note: 'THE

"Well then, let it be! You make such a personal matter of everything! I amonly too inclined just now to

apply the words profanely. You know YOU are fairest among women to me, come to that!"

"But you are not to say it now!" Sue replied, her voice changing to its softest note of severity. Then their eyes

met, and they shook hands like cronies in a tavern, and Jude saw the absurdity of quarrelling on such a

hypothetical subject, and she the silliness of crying about what was written in an old book like the Bible.

"I won't disturb your convictionsI really won't!" she went on soothingly, for now he was rather more

ruffled than she. "But I did want and long to ennoble some man to high aims; and when I saw you, and knew

you wanted to be my comrade, Ishall I confess it? thought that man might be you. But you take so much

"Well, dear; I suppose one must take some things on trust. Life isn't long enough to work out everything in

"I won't ask what, because we are going to be VERY nice with each other, aren't we, and never, never, vex

each other any more?" She looked up trustfully, and her voice seemed trying to nestle in his breast.

"And I for you. Because you are singlehearted, and forgiving to your faulty and tiresome little Sue!"

He looked away, for that epicene tenderness of hers was too harrowing. Was it that which had broken the

heart of the poor leaderwriter; and was he to be the next one? ... But Sue was so dear! ... If he could only get

over the sense of her sex, as she seemed to be able to do so easily of his, what a comrade she would make; for

their difference of opinion on conjectural subjects only drew them closer together on matters of daily human

experience. She was nearer to him than any other woman he had ever met, and he could scarcely believe that

But his grief at her incredulities returned. They sat on till she fell asleep again, and he nodded in his chair

likewise. Whenever he aroused himself he turned her things, and made up the fire anew. About six o'clock he

awoke completely, and lighting a candle, found that her clothes were dry. Her chair being a far more

comfortable one than his she still slept on inside his greatcoat, looking warm as a new bun and boyish as a

Ganymede. Placing the garments by her and touching her on the shoulder he went downstairs, and washed

"Now could I get out without anybody seeing me?" she asked. "The town is not yet astir."

"Oh, I don't want any! I fear I ought not to have run away from that school! Things seem so different in the

cold light of morning, don't they? What Mr. Phillotson will say I don't know! It was quite by his wish that I

went there. He is the only man in the world for whom I have any respect or fear. I hope he'll forgive me; but

"Oh no, you shan't. I don't care for him! He may think what he likes I shall do just as I choose!"

"Well, if I did, I shall do as I like for all him! I have thought of what I shall dogo to the sister of one of my

fellowstudents in the trainingschool, who has asked me to visit her. She has a school near Shaston, about

eighteen miles from here and I shall stay there till this has blown over, and I get back to the

At the last moment he persuaded her to let him make her a cup of coffee, in a portable apparatus he kept in

his room for use on rising to go to his work every day before the household was astir.

"Now a dewbit to eat with it," he said; "and off we go. You can have a regular breakfast when you get

They went quietly out of the house, Jude accompanying her to the station. As they departed along the street a

head was thrust out of an upper window of his lodging and quickly withdrawn. Sue still seemed sorry for her

rashness, and to wish she had not rebelled; telling him at parting that she would let him know as soon as she

got readmitted to the trainingschool. They stood rather miserably together on the platform; and it was

"I want to tell you somethingtwo things," he said hurriedly as the train came up. "One is a warm one, the

Jude's face became so full of complicated glooms that hers was agitated in sympathy as she bade him adieu

through the carriage window. And then the train moved on, and waving her pretty hand to him she vanished

Melchester was a dismal place enough for Jude that Sunday of her departure, and the Close so hateful that he

did not go once to the cathedral services. The next morning there came a letter from her, which, with her

usual promptitude, she had written directly she had reached her friend's house. She told him of her safe

What I really write about, dear Jude, is something I said to you at parting. You had been so very good and

kind to me that when you were out of sight I felt what a cruel and ungrateful woman I was to say it, and it has

reproached me ever since. IF YOU WANT TO LOVE ME, JUDE, YOU MAY: I don't mind at all; and I'll

Now I won't write any more about that. You do forgive your thoughtless friend for her cruelty? and won't

It would be superfluous to say what his answer was; and how he thought what he would have done had he

been free, which should have rendered a long residence with a female friend quite unnecessary for Sue. He

felt he might have been pretty sure of his own victory if it had come to a conflict between Phillotson and

Yet Jude was in danger of attaching more meaning to Sue's impulsive note than it really was intended to bear.

After the lapse of a few days he found himself hoping that she would write again. But he received no further

communication; and in the intensity of his solicitude he sent another note, suggesting that he should pay her a

He expected a reply on the second morning after despatching his missive; but none came. The third morning

arrived; the postman did not stop. This was Saturday, and in a feverish state of anxiety about her he sent off

three brief lines stating that he was coming the following day, for he felt sure something had happened.

His first and natural thought had been that she was ill from her immersion; but it soon occurred to him that

somebody would have written for her in such a case. Conjectures were put an end to by his arrival at the

village schoolhouse near Shaston on the bright morning of Sunday, between eleven and twelve o'clock,

when the parish was as vacant as a desert, most of the inhabitants having gathered inside the church, whence

A little girl opened the door. "Miss Bridehead is upstairs," she said. "And will you please walk up to her?"

Jude entered and ascended. On reaching the landing a voice told him which way to turnthe voice of Sue

calling his name. He passed the doorway, and found her lying in a little bed in a room a dozen feet square.

"Oh, Sue!" he cried, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. "How is this! You couldn't write?"

"Noit wasn't that!" she answered. "I did catch a bad cold but I could have written. Only I wouldn't!"

"Yesthat was what I was afraid of! But I had decided not to write to you any more. They won't have me

She did not answer directly. "I vowed I never would tell you, Jude it is so vulgar and distressing!"

"Wellsomebody has sent them baseless reports about us, and they say you and I ought to marry as soon as

possible, for the sake of my reputation! ... Therenow I have told you, and I wish I hadn't!"

"I don't think of you like that means! It did just OCCUR to me to regard you in the way they think I do, but I

hadn't begun to. I HAVE recognized that the cousinship was merely nominal, since we met as total strangers.

But my marrying you, dear Judewhy, of course, if I had reckoned upon marrying you l shouldn't have

come to you so often! And I never supposed you thought of such a thing as marrying me till the other

evening; when I began to fancy you did love me a little. Perhaps I ought not to have been so intimate with

The speech seemed a little forced and unreal, and they regarded each other with a mutual distress.

"I was so blind at first!" she went on. "I didn't see what you felt at all. Oh, you have been unkind to meyou

have to look upon me as a sweetheart without saying a word, and leaving me to discover it myself! Your

attitude to me has become known; and naturally they think we've been doing wrong! I'll never trust you

"Yes, Sue," he said simply; "I am to blamemore than you think. I was quite aware that you did not suspect

till within the last meeting or two what I was feeling about you. I admit that our meeting as strangers

prevented a sense of relationship, and that it was a sort of subterfuge to avail myself of it. But don't you think

l deserve a little consideration for concealing my wrong, very wrong, sentiments, since I couldn't help having

She turned her eyes doubtfully towards him, and then looked away as if afraid she might forgive him.

By every law of nature and sex a kiss was the only rejoinder that fitted the mood and the moment, under the

suasion of which Sue's undemonstrative regard of him might not inconceivably have changed its temperature.

Some men would have cast scruples to the winds, and ventured it, oblivious both of Sue's declaration of her

neutral feelings, and of the pair of autographs in the vestry chest of Arabella's parish church. Jude did not. He

had, in fact, come in part to tell his own fatal story. It was upon his lips; yet at the hour of this distress he

could not disclose it. He preferred to dwell upon the recognized barriers between them.

"Of courseI know you don'tcare about me in any particular way," he sorrowed. "You ought not, and you

"Yes," she said shortly, her face changing a little. "Though I didn't ask him to come. You are glad, of course,

It was very perplexing to her lover that she should be piqued at his honest acquiescence in his rival, if Jude's

"This will blow over, dear Sue," he said. "The trainingschool authorities are not all the world. You can get

Sue's kind hostess now returned from church, and there was no more intimate conversation. Jude left in the

afternoon, hopelessly unhappy. But he had seen her, and sat with her. Such intercourse as that would have to

content him for the remainder of his life. The lesson of renunciation it was necessary and proper that he, as a

But the next morning when he awoke he felt rather vexed with her, and decided that she was rather

unreasonable, not to say capricious. Then, in illustration of what he had begun to discern as one of her

redeeming characteristics there came promptly a note, which she must have written almost immediately he

Forgive me for my petulance yesterday! I was horrid to you; I know it, and I feel perfectly miserable at my

horridness. It was so dear of you not to be angry! Jude please still keep me as your friend and associate, with

I am coming to Melchester on Saturday, to get my things away from the T.S., I could walk with you for half

Jude forgave her straightway, and asked her to call for him at the cathedral works when she came.

MEANWHILE a middleaged man was dreaming a dream of great beauty concerning the writer of the above

letter. He was Richard Phillotson, who had recently removed from the mixed village school at Lumsdon near

Christminster, to undertake a large boys' school in his native town of Shaston, which stood on a hill sixty

A glance at the place and its accessories was almost enough to reveal that the schoolmaster's plans and

dreams so long indulged in had been abandoned for some new dream with which neither the Church nor

literature had much in common. Essentially an unpractical man, he was now bent on making and saving

money for a practical purpose that of keeping a wife, who, if she chose, might conduct one of the girls'

schools adjoining his own; for which purpose he had advised her to go into training, since she would not

About the time that Jude was removing from Marygreen to Melchester, and entering on adventures at the

latter place with Sue, the schoolmaster was settling down in the new schoolhouse at Shaston. All the

furniture being fixed, the books shelved, and the nails driven, he had begun to sit in his parlour during the

dark winter nights and reattempt some of his old studies one branch of which had included

RomanBritannic antiquities an unremunerative labour for a national schoolmaster but a subject, that,

after his abandonment of the university scheme, had interested him as being a comparatively unworked mine;

practicable to those who, like himself, had lived in lonely spots where these remains were abundant, and were

seen to compel inferences in startling contrast to accepted views on the civilization of that time.

A resumption of this investigation was the outward and apparent hobby of Phillotson at presenthis

ostensible reason for going alone into fields where causeways, dykes, and tumuli abounded, or shutting

himself up in his house with a few urns, tiles, and mosaics he had collected, instead of calling round upon his

new neighbours, who for their part had showed themselves willing enough to be friendly with him. But it was

not the real, or the whole, reason, after all. Thus on a particular evening in the month, when it had grown

quite late to near midnight, indeedand the light of his lamp, shining from his window at a salient angle

of the hilltop town over infinite miles of valley westward, announced as by words a place and person given

The interior of the roomthe books, the furniture, the schoolmaster's loose coat, his attitude at the table,

even the flickering of the fire, bespoke the same dignified tale of undistracted research more than

creditable to a man who had had no advantages beyond those of his own making. And yet the tale, true

enough till latterly, was not true now. What he was regarding was not history. They were historic notes,

written in a bold womanly hand at his dictation some months before, and it was the clerical rendering of word

He presently took from a drawer a carefully tied bundle of letters, few, very few, as correspondence counts

nowadays. Each was in its envelope just as it had arrived, and the handwriting was of the same womanly

character as the historic notes. He unfolded them one by one and read them musingly. At first sight there

seemed in these small documents to be absolutely nothing to muse over. They were straightforward, frank

letters, signed "Sue B"; just such ones as would be written during short absences, with no other thought

than their speedy destruction, and chiefly concerning books in reading and other experiences of a training

school, forgotten doubtless by the writer with the passing of the day of their inditing. In one of themquite a

recent notethe young woman said that she had received his considerate letter, and that it was honourable

and generous of him to say he would not come to see her oftener than she desired (the school being such an

awkward place for callers, and because of her strong wish that her engagement to him should not be known,

which it would infallibly be if he visited her often). Over these phrases the schoolmaster pored. What

precise shade of satisfaction was to be gathered from a woman's gratitude that the man who loved her had not

He opened another drawer, and found therein an envelope, from which he drew a photograph of Sue as a

child, long before he had known her, standing under trelliswork with a little basket in her hand. There was

another of her as a young woman, her dark eyes and hair making a very distinct and attractive picture of her,

which just disclosed, too, the thoughtfulness that lay behind her lighter moods. It was a duplicate of the one

she had given Jude, and would have given to any man. Phillotson brought it halfway to his lips, but

withdrew it in doubt at her perplexing phrases: ultimately kissing the dead pasteboard with all the

The schoolmaster's was an unhealthylooking, oldfashioned face, rendered more oldfashioned by his style

of shaving. A certain gentlemanliness had been imparted to it by nature, suggesting an inherent wish to do

rightly by all. His speech was a little slow, but his tones were sincere enough to make his hesitation no defect.

His greying hair was curly, and radiated from a point in the middle of his crown. There were four lines across

his forehead, and he only wore spectacles when reading at night. It was almost certainly a renunciation forced

upon him by his academic purpose, rather than a distaste for women, which had hitherto kept him from

Such silent proceedings as those of this evening were repeated many and oft times when he was not under the

eye of the boys, whose quick and penetrating regard would frequently become almost intolerable to the

selfconscious master in his present anxious care for Sue, making him, in the grey hours of morning, dread to

meet anew the gimlet glances, lest they should read what the dream within him was.

He had honourably acquiesced in Sue's announced wish that he was not often to visit her at the training

school; but at length, his patience being sorely tried, he set out one Saturday afternoon to pay her an

unexpected call. There the news of her departure expulsion as it might almost have been consideredwas

flashed upon him without warning or mitigation as he stood at the door expecting in a few minutes to behold

Sue had, in fact, never written a line to her suitor on the subject, although it was fourteen days old. A short

reflection told him that this proved nothing, a natural delicacy being as ample a reason for silence as any

They had informed him at the school where she was living, and having no immediate anxiety about her

comfort his thoughts took the direction of a burning indignation against the training school committee. In his

bewilderment Phillotson entered the adjacent cathedral, just now in a direly dismantled state by reason of the

repairs. He sat down on a block of freestone, regardless of the dusty imprint it made on his breeches; and his

listless eyes following the movements of the workmen he presently became aware that the reputed culprit,

Jude had never spoken to his former hero since the meeting by the model of Jerusalem. Having inadvertently

witnessed Phillotson's tentative courtship of Sue in the lane there had grown up in the younger man's mind a

curious dislike to think of the elder, to meet him, to communicate in any way with him; and since Phillotson's

success in obtaining at least her promise had become known to Jude, he had frankly recognized that he did

not wish to see or hear of his senior any more, learn anything of his pursuits, or even imagine again what

excellencies might appertain to his character. On this very day of the schoolmaster's visit Jude was expecting

Sue, as she had promised; and when therefore he saw the school master in the nave of the building, saw,

moreover, that he was coming to speak to him, he felt no little embarrassment; which Phillotson's own

Jude joined him, and they both withdrew from the other workmen to the spot where Phillotson had been

sitting. Jude offered him a piece of sackcloth for a cushion, and told him it was dangerous to sit on the bare

"Yes; yes," said Phillotson abstractedly, as he reseated himself, his eyes resting on the ground as if he were

trying to remember where he was. "I won't keep you long. It was merely that I have heard that you have seen

my little friend Sue recently. It occurred to me to speak to you on that account. I merely want to ask about

"I think I know what!" Jude hurriedly said. "About her escaping from the training school, and her coming to

"Well"Jude for a moment felt an unprincipled and fiendish wish to annihilate his rival at all cost. By the

exercise of that treachery which love for the same woman renders possible to men the most honourable in

every other relation of life, he could send off Phillotson in agony and defeat by saying that the scandal was

true, and that Sue had irretrievably committed herself with him. But his action did not respond for a moment

to his animal instinct; and what he said was, "I am glad of your kindness in coming to talk plainly to me

Phillotson trembled, and his naturally pale face acquired a corpselike sharpness in its lines. "I had no idea that

"No, no!" said Jude aghast. "I thought you understood? I mean that were I in a position to marry her, or

someone, and settle down, instead of living in lodgings here and there, I should be glad!"

"Butsince this painful matter has been opened upwhat really happened?" asked Phillotson, with the

firmness of a man who felt that a sharp smart now was better than a long agony of suspense hereafter. "Cases

arise, and this is one, when even ungenerous questions must be put to make false assumptions impossible,

Jude explained readily; giving the whole series of adventures, including the night at the shepherd's, her wet

arrival at his lodging, her indisposition from her immersion, their vigil of discussion, and his seeing her off

"Well now," said Phillotson at the conclusion, "I take it as your final word, and I know I can believe you, that

The schoolmaster rose. Each of the twain felt that the interview could not comfortably merge in a friendly

discussion of their recent experiences, after the manner of friends; and when Jude had taken him round, and

shown him some features of the renovation which the old cathedral was undergoing, Phillotson bade the

This visit took place about eleven o'clock in the morning; but no Sue appeared. When Jude went to his dinner

at one he saw his beloved ahead of him in the street leading up from the North Gate, walking as if no way

looking for him. Speedily overtaking her he remarked that he had asked her to come to him at the cathedral,

"I have been to get my things from the college," she saidan observation which he was expected to take as

an answer, though it was not one. Finding her to be in this evasive mood he felt inclined to give her the

"I have not. But I am not going to be crossexamined about him; and if you ask anything more I won't

"That you are often not so nice in your real presence as you are in your letters!"

"Does it really seem so to you?" said she, smiling with quick curiosity. "Well, that's strange; but I feel just the

As she knew his sentiment towards her Jude saw that they were getting upon dangerous ground. It was now,

But he did not speak, and she continued: "It was that which made me write and sayI didn't mind your

The exultation he might have felt at what that implied, or seemed to imply, was nullified by his intention, and

Jude looked up. Could she possibly know of that morning performance of his with Arabella; which in a few

months had ceased to be a marriage more completely than by death? He saw that she did not.

"I can't quite tell you here in the street," he went on with a gloomy tongue. "And you had better not come to

The building by which they stood was the markethouse, it was the only place available; and they entered,

the market being over, and the stalls and areas empty. He would have preferred a more congenial spot, but, as

usually happens, in place of a romantic field or solemn aisle for his tale, it was told while they walked up and

down over a floor littered with rotten cabbageleaves, and amid all the usual squalors of decayed vegetable

matter and unsaleable refuse. He began and finished his brief narrative, which merely led up to the

information that he had married a wife some years earlier, and that his wife was living still. Almost before her

"No, dear darling!" cried Jude passionately. He tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it. Their old relations

of confidence seemed suddenly to have ended, and the antagonisms of sex to sex were left without any

counterpoising predilections. She was his comrade, friend, unconscious sweetheart no longer; and her eyes

"I was ashamed of the episode in my life which brought about the marriage," he continued. "I can't explain it

"But how can I?" she burst out. "Here I have been saying, or writing, thatthat you might love me, or

something of the sort! just out of charityand all the timeoh, it is perfectly damnable how things are!"

"You take me wrong, Sue! I never thought you cared for me at all, till quite lately; so I felt it did not matter!

Do you care for me, Sue?you know how I mean?I don't like 'out of charity' at all!"

"I suppose sheyour wifeisa very pretty woman even if she's wicked?" she asked quickly.

"You are not the least alike. And I have never seen her for years.... But she's sure to come backthey always

"How strange of you to stay apart from her like this!" said Sue, her trembling lip and lumpy throat belying

her irony. "You, such a religious man. How will the demigods in your PantheonI mean those legendary

persons you call saintsintercede for you after this? Now if I had done such a thing it would have been

different, and not remarkable, for I at least don't regard marriage as a sacrament. Your theories are not so

"Sue, you are terribly cutting when you like to bea perfect Voltaire! But you must treat me as you will!"

When she saw how wretched he was she softened, and trying to blink away her sympathetic tears said with

all the winning reproachfulness of a hearthurt woman: "Ahyou should have told me before you gave me

that idea that you wanted to be allowed to love me! I had no feeling before that moment at the

railwaystation, except" For once Sue was as miserable as he, in her attempts to keep herself free from

"I amnot cryingbecause I meant tolove you; but because of your want ofconfidence!"

They were quite screened from the marketsquare without, and he could not help putting out his arm towards

her waist. His momentary desire was the means of her rallying. "No, no!" she said, drawing back stringently,

and wiping her eyes. "Of course not! It would be hypocrisy to pretend that it would be meant as from my

They moved on a dozen paces, and she showed herself recovered. It was distracting to Jude, and his heart

would have ached less had she appeared anyhow but as she did appear; essentially largeminded and

generous on reflection, despite a previous exercise of those narrow womanly humours on impulse that were

"I don't blame you for what you couldn't help," she said, smiling. "How should I be so foolish? I do blame

you a little bit for not telling me before. But, after all, it doesn't matter. We should have had to keep apart,

"You forget that I must have loved you, and wanted to be your wife, even if there had been no obstacle," said

Sue, with a gentle seriousness which did not reveal her mind. "And then we are cousins, and it is bad for

cousins to marry. AndI am engaged to somebody else. As to our going on together as we were going, in a

sort of friendly way, the people round us would have made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations

of man and woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from the school. Their philosophy only

recognizes relations based on animal desire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, at least,

Her being able to talk learnedly showed that she was mistress of herself again; and before they parted she had

almost regained her vivacious glance, her reciprocity of tone, her gay manner, and her secondthought

He could speak more freely now. "There were several reasons against my telling you rashly. One was what I

have said; another, that it was always impressed upon me that I ought not to marrythat I belonged to an

They stood possessed by the same thought, ugly enough, even as an assumption: that a union between them,

had such been possible, would have meant a terrible intensification of unfitness two bitters in one dish.

"Oh, but there can't be anything in it!" she said with nervous lightness. "Our family have been unlucky of late

And then they pretended to persuade themselves that all that had happened was of no consequence, and that

they could still be cousins and friends and warm correspondents, and have happy genial times when they met,

even if they met less frequently than before. Their parting was in good friendship, and yet Jude's last look

into her eyes was tinged with inquiry, for he felt that he did not even now quite know her mind.

Before reading the letter he was led to suspect that its contents were of a somewhat serious kind by catching

sight of the signature which was in her full name, never used in her correspondence with him since her

MY DEAR JUDE,I have something to tell you which perhaps you will not be surprised to hear, though

certainly it may strike you as being accelerated (as the railway companies say of their trains). Mr. Phillotson

and I are to be married quite soonin three or four weeks. We had intended, as you know, to wait till I had

gone through my course of training and obtained my certificate, so as to assist him, if necessary, in the

teaching. But he generously says he does not see any object in waiting, now I am not at the training school. It

is so good of him, because the awkwardness of my situation has really come about by my fault in getting

Wish me joy. Remember I say you are to, and you mustn't refuse! Your affectionate cousin,

Jude staggered under the news; could eat no breakfast; and kept on drinking tea because his mouth was so

dry. Then presently he went back to his work and laughed the usual bitter laugh of a man so confronted.

Everything seemed turning to satire. And yet, what could the poor girl do? he asked himself: and felt worse

"O Susanna Florence Mary!" he said as he worked. "You don't know what marriage means!"

Could it be possible that his announcement of his own marriage had pricked her on to this, just as his visit to

her when in liquor may have pricked her on to her engagement? To be sure, there seemed to exist these other

and sufficient reasons, practical and social, for her decision; but Sue was not a very practical or calculating

person; and he was compelled to think that a pique at having his secret sprung upon her had moved her to

give way to Phillotson's probable representations, that the best course to prove how unfounded were the

suspicions of the school authorities would be to marry him offhand, as in fulfilment of an ordinary

He determined to play the Spartan; to make the best of it, and support her; but he could not write the

requested good wishes for a day or two. Meanwhile there came another note from his impatient little dear:

Jude, will you give me away? I have nobody else who could do it so conveniently as you, being the only

married relation I have here on the spot, even if my father were friendly enough to be willing, which he isn't.

I hope you won't think it a trouble? I have been looking at the marriage service in the prayerbook, and it

seems to me very humiliating that a giveraway should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there

printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don't choose him. Somebody GIVES

me to him, like a sheass or shegoat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views of woman, O

MY DEAR SUE,Of course I wish you joy! And also of course I will give you away. What I suggest is that,

as you have no house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend's, but from mine. It would be

more proper, I think, since I am, as you say, the person nearest related to you in this part of the world.

I don't see why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way? Surely you care a bit about me

What had jarred on him even more than the signature was a little sting he had been silent onthe phrase

"married relation" What an idiot it made him seem as her lover! If Sue had written that in satire, he could

His offer of his lodging must have commended itself to Phillotson at any rate, for the schoolmaster sent him a

line of warm thanks, accepting the convenience. Sue also thanked him. Jude immediately moved into more

commodious quarters, as much to escape the espionage of the suspicious landlady who had been one cause of

Then Sue wrote to tell him the day fixed for the wedding; and Jude decided, after inquiry, that she should

come into residence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days' stay in the city prior to the

She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the day aforesaid, Jude not going to meet her at the station, by her

special request, that he should not lose a morning's work and pay, she said (if this were her true reason). But

so well by this time did he know Sue that the remembrance of their mutual sensitiveness at emotional crises

might, he thought, have weighed with her in this. When he came home to dinner she had taken possession of

She lived in the same house with him, but on a different floor, and they saw each other little, an occasional

supper being the only meal they took together, when Sue's manner was something like that of a scared child.

What she felt he did not know; their conversation was mechanical, though she did not look pale or ill.

Phillotson came frequently, but mostly when Jude was absent. On the morning of the wedding, when Jude

had given himself a holiday, Sue and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and last time during this

curious interval; in his roomthe parlour which he had hired for the period of Sue's residence. Seeing, as

women do, how helpless he was in making the place comfortable, she bustled about.

He was leaning with his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, looking into a futurity which seemed

Jude could have said "Phillotson's age entitles him to be called that!" But he would not annoy her by such a

She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded his indulgence in reflection, and before the meal was over both he

and she wished they had not put such confidence in their new view of things, and had taken breakfast apart.

What oppressed Jude was the thought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he was aiding and

abetting the woman he loved in doing a like wrong thing, instead of imploring and warning her against it. It

After breakfast they went out on an errand together moved by a mutual thought that it was the last

opportunity they would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship. By the irony of fate, and the

curious trick in Sue's nature of tempting Providence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked through

the muddy street a thing she had never done before in her lifeand on turning the corner they found

themselves close to a grey perpendicular church with a lowpitched roofthe church of St. Thomas.

"Indeed!" she exclaimed with curiosity. "How I should like to go in and see what the spot is like where I am

He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, and they entered by the western door. The only person inside

the gloomy building was a charwoman cleaning. Sue still held Jude's arm, almost as if she loved him. Cruelly

sweet, indeed, she had been to him that morning; but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were tempered

... I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood!

They strolled undemonstratively up the nave towards the altar railing, which they stood against in silence,

turning then and walking down the nave again, her hand still on his arm, precisely like a couple just married.

"I like to do things like this," she said in the delicate voice of an epicure in emotions, which left no doubt that

"They are interesting, because they have probably never been done before. I shall walk down the church like

"Good God, Suedon't be so awfully merciless! ... There, dear one, I didn't mean it!"

"Ahyou are vexed!" she said regretfully, as she blinked away an access of eye moisture. "And I promised

never to vex you! ... I suppose I ought not to have asked you to bring me in here. Oh, I oughtn't! I see it now.

My curiosity to hunt up a new sensation always leads me into these scrapes. Forgive me! ... You will, won't

The appeal was so remorseful that Jude's eyes were even wetter than hers as he pressed her hand for Yes.

"Now we'll hurry away, and I won't do it any more!" she continued humbly; and they came out of the

building, Sue intending to go on to the station to meet Phillotson. But the first person they encountered on

entering the main street was the schoolmaster himself, whose train had arrived sooner than Sue expected.

There was nothing really to demur to in her leaning on Jude's arm; but she withdrew her hand, and Jude

"We have been doing such a funny thing!" said she, smiling candidly. "We've been to the church, rehearsing

Jude inwardly deplored what he thought to be unnecessary frankness; but she had gone too far not to explain

all, which she accordingly did, telling him how they had marched up to the altar.

Seeing how puzzled Phillotson seemed, Jude said as cheerfully as he could, "I am going to buy her another

"No," said Sue, "I'll go on to the house with him"; and requesting her lover not to be a long time she departed

Jude soon joined them at his rooms, and shortly after they prepared for the ceremony. Phillotson's hair was

brushed to a painful extent, and his shirt collar appeared stiffer than it had been for the previous twenty years.

Beyond this he looked dignified and thoughtful, and altogether a man of whom it was not unsafe to predict

that he would make a kind and considerate husband. That he adored Sue was obvious; and she could almost

Although the distance was so short he had hired a fly from the Red Lion, and six or seven women and

children had gathered by the door when they came out. The schoolmaster and Sue were unknown, though

Jude was getting to be recognized as a citizen; and the couple were judged to be some relations of his from a

distance, nobody supposing Sue to have been a recent pupil at the training school.

In the carriage Jude took from his pocket his extra little weddingpresent, which turned out to be two or three

When they had passed up the church and were standing in their places Jude found that the antecedent visit

had certainly taken off the edge of this performance, but by the time they were halfway on with the service

he wished from his heart that he had not undertaken the business of giving her away. How could Sue have

had the temerity to ask him to do ita cruelty possibly to herself as well as to him? Women were different

from men in such matters. Was it that they were, instead of more sensitive, as reputed, more callous, and less

romantic; or were they more heroic? Or was Sue simply so perverse that she wilfully gave herself and him

pain for the odd and mournful luxury of practising longsuffering in her own person, and of being touched

with tender pity for him at having made him practise it? He could perceive that her face was nervously set,

and when they reached the trying ordeal of Jude giving her to Phillotson she could hardly command herself;

rather, however, as it seemed, from her knowledge of what her cousin must feel, whom she need not have had

there at all, than from selfconsideration. Possibly she would go on inflicting such pains again and again, and

Phillotson seemed not to notice, to be surrounded by a mist which prevented his seeing the emotions of

others. As soon as they had signed their names and come away, and the suspense was over, Jude felt relieved.

The meal at his lodging was a very simple affair, and at two o'clock they went off. In crossing the pavement

to the fly she looked back; and there was a frightened light in her eyes. Could it be that Sue had acted with

such unusual foolishness as to plunge into she knew not what for the sake of asserting her independence of

him, of retaliating on him for his secrecy? Perhaps Sue was thus venturesome with men because she was

childishly ignorant of that side of their natures which wore out women's hearts and lives.

When her foot was on the carriagestep she turned round, saying that she had forgotten something. Jude and

Jude followed her back. She had found it, and came holding it in her hand. She looked into his eyes with her

own tearful ones, and her lips suddenly parted as if she were going to avow something. But she went on; and

JUDE wondered if she had really left her handkerchief behind; or whether it were that she had miserably

wished to tell him of a love that at the last moment she could not bring herself to express.

He could not stay in his silent lodging when they were gone, and fearing that he might be tempted to drown

his misery in alcohol he went upstairs, changed his dark clothes for his white, his thin boots for his thick, and

But in the cathedral he seemed to hear a voice behind him, and to be possessed with an idea that she would

come back. She could not possibly go home with Phillotson, he fancied. The feeling grew and stirred. The

moment that the clock struck the last of his working hours he threw down his tools and rushed homeward.

As he could claim the downstairs sittingroom till twelve o'clock that night he sat in it all the evening; and

even when the clock had struck eleven, and the family had retired, he could not shake off the feeling that she

would come back and sleep in the little room adjoining his own in which she had slept so many previous

days. Her actions were always unpredictable: why should she not come? Gladly would he have compounded

for the denial of her as a sweetheart and wife by having her live thus as a fellowlodger and friend, even on

the most distant terms. His supper still remained spread, and going to the front door, and softly setting it

open, he returned to the room and sat as watchers sit on OldMidsummer eves, expecting the phantom of

Having indulged in this wild hope he went upstairs, and looked out of the window, and pictured her through

the evening journey to London, whither she and Phillotson had gone for their holiday; their rattling along

through the damp night to their hotel, under the same sky of ribbed cloud as that he beheld, through which the

moon showed its position rather than its shape, and one or two of the larger stars made themselves visible as

faint nebulae only. It was a new beginning of Sue's history. He projected his mind into the future, and saw her

with children more or less in her own likeness around her. But the consolation of regarding them as a

continuation of her identity was denied to him, as to all such dreamers, by the wilfulness of Nature in not

allowing issue from one parent alone. Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy.

"If at the estrangement or death of my lost love, I could go and see her childhers solelythere would be

comfort in it!" said Jude. And then he again uneasily saw, as he had latterly seen with more and more

frequency, the scorn of Nature for man's finer emotions, and her lack of interest in his aspirations.

The oppressive strength of his affection for Sue showed itself on the morrow and following days yet more

clearly. He could no longer endure the light of the Melchester lamps; the sunshine was as drab paint, and the

blue sky as zinc. Then he received news that his old aunt was dangerously ill at Marygreen, which

intelligence almost coincided with a letter from his former employer at Christminster, who offered him

permanent work of a good class if he would come back. The letters were almost a relief to him. He started to

visit Aunt Drusilla, and resolved to go onward to Christminster to see what worth there might be in the

Jude found his aunt even worse than the communication from the Widow Edlin had led him to expect. There

was every possibility of her lingering on for weeks or months, though little likelihood. He wrote to Sue

informing her of the state of her aunt, and suggesting that she might like to see her aged relative alive. He

would meet her at Alfredston Road, the following evening, Monday, on his way back from Christminster, if

she could come by the uptrain which crossed his downtrain at that station. Next morning, according, he

went on to Christminster, intending to return to Alfredston soon enough to keep the suggested appointment

The city of learning wore an estranged look, and he had lost all feeling for its associations. Yet as the sun

made vivid lights and shades of the mullioned architecture of the facades, and drew patterns of the crinkled

battlements on the young turf of the quadrangles, Jude thought he had never seen the place look more

beautiful. He came to the street in which he had first beheld Sue. The chair she had occupied when, leaning

over her ecclesiastical scrolls, a hoghair brush in her hand, her girlish figure had arrested the gaze of his

inquiring eyes, stood precisely in its former spot, empty. It was as if she were dead, and nobody had been

found capable of succeeding her in that artistic pursuit. Hers was now the city phantom, while those of the

intellectual and devotional worthies who had once moved him to emotion were no longer able to assert their

However, here he was; and in fulfilment of his intention he went on to his former lodging in "Beersheba,"

near the ritualistic church of St. Silas. The old landlady who opened the door seemed glad to see him again,

and bringing some lunch informed him that the builder who had employed him had called to inquire his

Jude went on to the stoneyard where he had worked. But the old sheds and bankers were distasteful to him;

he felt it impossible to engage himself to return and stay in this place of vanished dreams. He longed for the

Then, for one ghastly halfhour of depression caused by these scenes, there returned upon him that feeling

which had been his undoing more than oncethat he was not worth the trouble of being taken care of either

by himself or others; and during this halfhour he met Tinker Taylor, the bankrupt ecclesiastical ironmonger,

at Fourways, who proposed that they should adjourn to a bar and drink together. They walked along the street

till they stood before one of the great palpitating centres of Christminster life, the inn wherein he formerly

had responded to the challenge to rehearse the Creed in Latin now a popular tavern with a spacious and

inviting entrance, which gave admittance to a bar that had been entirely renovated and refitted in modern

Tinker Taylor drank off his glass and departed, saying it was too stylish a place now for him to feel at home

in unless he was drunker than he had money to be just then. Jude was longer finishing his, and stood

abstractedly silent in the, for the minute, almost empty place. The bar had been gutted and newly arranged

throughout, mahogany fixtures having taken the place of the old painted ones, while at the back of the

standingspace there were stuffed sofabenches. The room was divided into compartments in the approved

manner, between which were screens of ground glass in mahogany framing, to prevent topers in one

compartment being put to the blush by the recognitions of those in the next. On the inside of the counter two

barmaids leant over the whitehandled beerengines, and the row of little silvered taps inside, dripping into a

Feeling tired, and having nothing more to do till the train left, Jude sat down on one of the sofas. At the back

of the barmaids rose beveledged mirrors, with glass shelves running along their front, on which stood

precious liquids that Jude did not know the name of, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby and amethyst. The

moment was enlivened by the entrance of some customers into the next compartment, and the starting of the

mechanical telltale of monies received, which emitted a tingting every time a coin was put in.

The barmaid attending to this compartment was invisible to Jude's direct glance, though a reflection of her

back in the glass behind her was occasionally caught by his eyes. He had only observed this listlessly, when

she turned her face for a moment to the glass to set her hair tidy. Then he was amazed to discover that the

If she had come on to his compartment she would have seen him. But she did not, this being presided over by

the maiden on the other side. Abby was in a black gown, with white linen cuffs and a broad white collar, and

her figure, more developed than formerly, was accentuated by a bunch of daffodils that she wore on her left

bosom. In the compartment she served stood an electroplated fountain of water over a spiritlamp, whose

blue flame sent a steam from the top, all this being visible to him only in the mirror behind her; which also

reflected the faces of the men she was attending to one of them a handsome, dissipated young fellow,

possibly an undergraduate, who had been relating to her an experience of some humorous sort.

"Oh, Mr. Cockman, now! How can you tell such a tale to me in my innocence!" she cried gaily. "Mr.

Cockman, what do you use to make your moustache curl so beautiful?" As the young man was clean shaven

She served the liqueur from one of the lovely bottles and striking a match held it to his cigarette with

"Come then, give me my change, which you've been keeping from me for the last quarter of an hour; and I'll

She handed the change over the counter, in taking which he caught her fingers and held them. There was a

Jude had looked on with the eye of a dazed philosopher. It was extraordinary how far removed from his life

Arabella now seemed to be. He could not realize their nominal closeness. And, this being the case, in his

present frame of mind he was indifferent to the fact that Arabella was his wife indeed.

The compartment that she served emptied itself of visitors, and after a brief thought he entered it, and went

forward to the counter. Arabella did not recognize him for a moment. Then their glances met. She started; till

"I never heard anything of you, or I don't know that I should have come here. But never mind! What shall I

treat you to this afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house will afford, for old

"Thanks, Arabella," said Jude without a smile. "But I don't want anything more than I've had." The fact was

that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for strong liquor as

"About six weeks. I returned from Sydney three months ago. I always liked this business, you know."

"Well, as I say, I thought you were gone to glory, and being in London I saw the situation in an

advertisement. Nobody was likely to know me here, even if I had minded, for I was never in Christminster in

"Trueyou look so." She idly allowed her fingers to rest on the pull of the beerengine as she inspected him

critically. He observed that her hands were smaller and whiter than when he had lived with her, and that on

the hand which pulled the engine she wore an ornamental ring set with what seemed to be real sapphires

which they were, indeed, and were much admired as such by the young men who frequented the bar.

"Yes. I thought it might be awkward if I called myself a widow, as I should have liked."

"I didn't mean on that accountfor as I said I didn't expect you. It was for other reasons."

"I don't care to go into them," she replied evasively. "I make a very good living, and I don't know that I want

Here a chappie with no chin, and a moustache like a lady's eyebrow, came and asked for a curiously

compounded drink, and Arabella was obliged to go and attend to him. "We can't talk here," she said, stepping

back a moment. "Can't you wait till nine? Say yes, and don't be a fool. I can get off duty two hours sooner

He reflected and said gloomily, "I'll come back. I suppose we'd better arrange something."

"But I must know a thing or two; and, as you say, we can't talk here. Very well; I'll call for you."

Depositing his unemptied glass he went out and walked up and down the street. Here was a rude flounce into

the pellucid sentimentality of his sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutely

untrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in her implication that she had not wished to disturb him,

and had really supposed him dead. However, there was only one thing now to be done, and that was to play a

straightforward part, the law being the law, and the woman between whom and himself there was no more

unity than between east and west being in the eye of the Church one person with him.

Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue at Alfredston as he had promised. At every

thought of this a pang had gone through him; but the conjuncture could not be helped. Arabella was perhaps

an intended intervention to punish him for his unauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in a

desultory waiting about the town wherein he avoided the precincts of every cloister and hall, because he

could not bear to behold them, he repaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes were

resounding from the Great Bell of Cardinal College, a coincidence which seemed to him gratuitous irony.

The inn was now brilliantly lighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. The faces of the

barmaidens had risen in colour, each having a pink flush on her cheek; their manners were still more

vivacious than beforemore abandoned, more excited, more sensuous, and they expressed their sentiments

and desires less euphemistically, laughing in a lackadaisical tone, without reserve.

The bar had been crowded with men of all sorts during the previous hour, and he had heard from without the

hubbub of their voices; but the customers were fewer at last. He nodded to Arabella, and told her that she

"But you must have something with me first," she said with great good humour. "Just an early nightcap: I

always do. Then you can go out and wait a minute, as it is best we should not be seen going together." She

drew a couple of liqueur glasses of brandy; and though she had evidently, from her countenance, already

taken in enough alcohol either by drinking or, more probably, from the atmosphere she had breathed for so

many hours, she finished hers quickly. He also drank his, and went outside the house.

In a few minutes she came, in a thick jacket and a hat with a black feather. "l live quite near," she said, taking

his arm, "and can let myself in by a latchkey at any time. What arrangement do you want to come to?"

"Ohnone in particular," he answered, thoroughly sick and tired, his thoughts again reverting to Alfredston,

and the train he did not go by; the probable disappointment of Sue that he was not there when she arrived,

and the missed pleasure of her company on the long and lonely climb by starlight up the hills to Marygreen.

There was something particularly uncongenial in the idea of Arabella, who had no more sympathy than a

tigress with his relations or him, coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, and meeting Sue. Yet he said, "Of

"Well, that we'll consider.... Now, until we have come to some agreement it is awkward our being together

herewhere you are known, and I am getting known, though without any suspicion that I have anything to

do with you. As we are going towards the station, suppose we take the nineforty train to Aldbrickham? We

shall be there in little more than half an hour, and nobody will know us for one night, and we shall be quite

free to act as we choose till we have made up our minds whether we'll make anything public or not."

"Then wait till I get two or three things. This is my lodging. Sometimes when late I sleep at the hotel where I

She speedily returned, and they went on to the railway, and made the halfhour's journey to Aldbrickham,

ON the morrow between nine and halfpast they were journeying back to Christminster, the only two

occupants of a compartment in a thirdclass railwaycarriage. Having, like Jude, made rather a hasty toilet to

catch the train, Arabella looked a little frowsy, and her face was very far from possessing the animation

which had characterized it at the bar the night before. When they came out of the station she found that she

still had half an hour to spare before she was due at the bar. They walked in silence a little way out of the

"This is the very road by which I came into Christminster years ago full of plans!"

"Well, whatever the road is I think my time is nearly up, as I have to be in the bar by eleven o'clock. And as I

said, I shan't ask for the day to go with you to see your aunt. So perhaps we had better part here. I'd sooner

"Very well. But you said when we were getting up this morning that you had something you wished to tell

"So I hadtwo thingsone in particular. But you wouldn't promise to keep it a secret. I'll tell you now if

you promise? As an honest woman I wish you to know it.... It was what I began telling you in the

nightabout that gentleman who managed the Sydney hotel." Arabella spoke somewhat hurriedly for her.

"YesyesI promise!" said Jude impatiently. "Of course I don't want to reveal your secrets."

"Whenever I met him out for a walk, he used to say that he was much taken with my looks, and he kept

pressing me to marry him. I never thought of coming back to England again; and being out there in Australia,

"Yes. And lived with him till shortly before I left. It was stupid, I know; but I did! There, now I've told you.

Don't round upon me! He talks of coming back to England, poor old chap. But if he does, he won't be likely

"So in talking of 'your husband' to the bar gentlemen you meant him, of coursenot me!"

"I have nothing more to say!" replied Jude. "I have nothing at all to say about thecrimeyou've confessed

"Crime! Pooh. They don't think much of such as that over there! Lots of 'em do it.... Well, if you take it like

that I shall go back to him! He was very fond of me, and we lived honourable enough, and as respectable as

"I won't go blaming you. I could say a good deal; but perhaps it would be misplaced. What do you wish me to

"Nothing. There was one thing more I wanted to tell you; but I fancy we've seen enough of one another for

the present! I shall think over what you said about your circumstances, and let you know."

Thus they parted. Jude watched her disappear in the direction of the hotel, and entered the railway station

close by. Finding that it wanted threequarters of an hour of the time at which he could get a train back to

Alfredston, he strolled mechanically into the city as far as to the Fourways, where he stood as he had so often

stood before, and surveyed Chief Street stretching ahead, with its college after college, in picturesqueness

unrivalled except by such Continental vistas as the Street of Palaces in Genoa; the lines of the buildings being

as distinct in the morning air as in an architectural drawing. But Jude was far from seeing or criticizing these

things; they were hidden by an indescribable consciousness of Arabella's midnight contiguity, a sense of

degradation at his revived experiences with her, of her appearance as she lay asleep at dawn, which set upon

his motionless face a look as of one accurst. If he could only have felt resentment towards her he would have

Jude turned and retraced his steps. Drawing again towards the station he started at hearing his name

pronouncedless at the name than at the voice. To his great surprise no other than Sue stood like a vision

before him her look bodeful and anxious as in a dream, her little mouth nervous, and her strained eyes

"Oh, JudeI am so gladto meet you like this!" she said in quick, uneven accents not far from a sob. Then

she flushed as she observed his thought that they had not met since her marriage.

They looked away from each other to hide their emotion, took each other's hand without further speech, and

went on together awhile, till she glanced at him with furtive solicitude. "I arrived at Alfredston station last

night, as you asked me to, and there was nobody to meet me! But I reached Marygreen alone, and they told

me Aunt was a trifle better. I sat up with her, and as you did not come all night I was frightened about you

I thought that perhaps, when you found yourself back in the old city, you were upset atat thinking I

wasmarried, and not there as I used to be; and that you had nobody to speak to; so you had tried to drown

your gloomas you did at that former time when you were disappointed about entering as a student, and had

forgotten your promise to me that you never would again. And this, I thought, was why you hadn't come to

"I thought I would come by the morning train and try to find you in casein case"

"I did think of my promise to you, dear, continually! I shall never break out again as I did, I am sure. I may

have been doing nothing better, but I was not doing thatI loathe the thought of it."

"I am glad your staying had nothing to do with that. But," she said, the faintest pout entering into her tone,

"I didn'tI am sorry to say. I had an appointment at nine o'clock too late for me to catch the train that

Looking at his loved one as she appeared to him now, in his tender thought the sweetest and most

disinterested comrade that he had ever had, living largely in vivid imaginings, so ethereal a creature that her

spirit could be seen trembling through her limbs, he felt heartily ashamed of his earthliness in spending the

hours he had spent in Arabella's company. There was something rude and immoral in thrusting these recent

facts of his life upon the mind of one who, to him, was so uncarnate as to seem at times impossible as a

human wife to any average man. And yet she was Phillotson's. How she had become such, how she lived as

"You'll go back with me?" he said. "There's a train just now. I wonder how my aunt is by this time.... And so,

Sue, you really came on my account all this way! At what an early time you must have started, poor thing!"

"Yes. Sitting up watching alone made me all nerves for you, and instead of going to bed when it got light I

started. And now you won't frighten me like this again about your morals for nothing?"

He was not so sure that she had been frightened about his morals for nothing. He released her hand till they

had entered the train, it seemed the same carriage he had lately got out of with another where they sat

down side by side, Sue between him and the window. He regarded the delicate lines of her profile, and the

small, tight, applelike convexities of her bodice, so different from Arabella's amplitudes. Though she knew he

was looking at her she did not turn to him, but kept her eyes forward, as if afraid that by meeting his own

"Sueyou are married now, you know, like me; and yet we have been in such a hurry that we have not said

"Judedon't talk about MEI wish you wouldn't!" she entreated. "It distresses me, rather. Forgive my

She had asked the question in perfect innocence, to change the topic. He knew that, and said merely, "At an

inn," though it would have been a relief to tell her of his meeting with an unexpected one. But the latter's final

announcement of her marriage in Australia bewildered him lest what he might say should do his ignorant

Their talk proceeded but awkwardly till they reached Alfredston. That Sue was not as she had been, but was

labelled "Phillotson," paralyzed Jude whenever he wanted to commune with her as an individual. Yet she

seemed unalteredhe could not say why. There remained the fivemile extra journey into the country,

which it was just as easy to walk as to drive, the greater part of it being uphill. Jude had never before in his

life gone that road with Sue, though he had with another. It was now as if he carried a bright light which

Sue talked; but Jude noticed that she still kept the conversation from herself. At length he inquired if her

"O yes," she said. "He is obliged to be in the school all the day, or he would have come with me. He is so

good and kind that to accompany me he would have dismissed the school for once, even against his

principlesfor he is strongly opposed to giving casual holidays only I wouldn't let him. I felt it would be

better to come alone. Aunt Drusilla, I knew, was so very eccentric; and his being almost a stranger to her now

would have made it irksome to both. Since it turns out that she is hardly conscious I am glad I did not ask

Jude had walked moodily while this praise of Phillotson was being expressed. "Mr. Phillotson obliges you in

"Bride, I might almost have said, as yet. It is not so many weeks since I gave you to him, and"

"Yes, I know! I know!" There was something in her face which belied her late assuring words, so strictly

proper and so lifelessly spoken that they might have been taken from a list of model speeches in "The Wife's

Guide to Conduct." Jude knew the quality of every vibration in Sue's voice, could read every symptom of her

mental condition; and he was convinced that she was unhappy, although she had not been a month married.

But her rushing away thus from home, to see the last of a relative whom she had hardly known in her life,

"No, you are not Mrs. Phillotson," murmured Jude. "You are dear, free Sue Bridehead, only you don't know

it! Wifedom has not yet squashed up and digested you in its vast maw as an atom which has no further

Sue put on a look of being offended, till she answered, "Nor has husbandom you, so far as I can see!"

When they reached the lone cottage under the firs, between the Brown House and Marygreen, in which Jude

and Arabella had lived and quarrelled, he turned to look at it. A squalid family lived there now. He could not

help saying to Sue: "That's the house my wife and I occupied the whole of the time we lived together. I

She closed her lips in retortive silence, and they walked some way till she glanced at him to see how he was

taking it. "Of course I may have exaggerated your happinessone never knows," he continued blandly.

"Don't think that, Jude, for a moment, even though you may have said it to sting me! He's as good to me as a

man can be, and gives me perfect libertywhich elderly husbands don't do in general.... If you think I am

He said no more, but he knew that, from some cause or other, in taking Phillotson as a husband, Sue felt that

They plunged into the concave field on the other side of which rose the villagethe field wherein Jude had

received a thrashing from the farmer many years earlier. On ascending to the village and approaching the

house they found Mrs. Edlin standing at the door, who at sight of them lifted her hands deprecatingly. "She's

downstairs, if you'll believe me!" cried the widow. "Out o' bed she got, and nothing could turn her. What will

On entering, there indeed by the fireplace sat the old woman, wrapped in blankets, and turning upon them a

countenance like that of Sebastiano's Lazarus. They must have looked their amazement, for she said in a

"Ahsceered ye, have I! I wasn't going to bide up there no longer, to please nobody! 'Tis more than flesh

and blood can bear, to be ordered to do this and that by a feller that don't know half as well as you do

yourself! ... Ahyou'll rue this marrying as well as he!" she added, turning to Sue. "All our family do

and nearly all everybody else's. You should have done as I did, you simpleton! And Phillotson the

"I can mind the man very well. A very civil, honourable liver; but Lord!I don't want to wownd your

feelings, butthere be certain men here and there that no woman of any niceness can stomach. I should have

said he was one. I don't say so NOW, since you must ha' known better than Ibut that's what I SHOULD

Sue jumped up and went out. Jude followed her, and found her in the outhouse, crying.

"Don't cry, dear!" said Jude in distress. "She means well, but is very crusty and queer now, you know."

"Oh noit isn't that!" said Sue, trying to dry her eyes. "I don't mind her roughness one bit."

"I don't mean that!" she said hastily. "That I oughtperhaps I ought not to have married!"

He wondered if she had really been going to say that at first. They went back, and the subject was smoothed

over, and her aunt took rather kindly to Sue, telling her that not many young women newly married would

have come so far to see a sick old crone like her. In the afternoon Sue prepared to depart, Jude hiring a

She would not let him. The man came round with the trap, and Jude helped her into it, perhaps with

"I supposeI may come to see you some day, when I am back again at Melchester?" he halfcrossly

She bent down and said softly: "No, dearyou are not to come yet. I don't think you are in a good mood."

He passed the evening and following days in mortifying by every possible means his wish to see her, nearly

starving himself in attempts to extinguish by fasting his passionate tendency to love her. He read sermons on

discipline, and hunted up passages in Church history that treated of the Ascetics of the second century. Before

he had returned from Marygreen to Melchester there arrived a letter from Arabella. The sight of it revived a

stronger feeling of selfcondemnation for his brief return to her society than for his attachment to Sue.

The letter, he perceived, bore a London postmark instead of the Christminster one. Arabella informed him

that a few days after their parting in the morning at Christminster, she had been surprised by an affectionate

letter from her Australian husband, formerly manager of the hotel in Sydney. He had come to England on

purpose to find her; and had taken a free, fullylicensed public, in Lambeth, where he wished her to join him

in conducting the business, which was likely to be a very thriving one, the house being situated in an

excellent, densely populated, gindrinking neighbourhood, and already doing a trade of 200 pounds a month,

As he had said that he loved her very much still, and implored her to tell him where she was, and as they had

only parted in a slight tiff, and as her engagement in Christminster was only temporary, she had just gone to

join him as he urged. She could not help feeling that she belonged to him more than to Jude, since she had

properly married him, and had lived with him much longer than with her first husband. In thus wishing Jude

goodbye she bore him no illwill, and trusted he would not turn upon her, a weak woman, and inform

against her, and bring her to ruin now that she had a chance of improving her circumstances and leading a

JUDE returned to Melchester, which had the questionable recommendation of being only a dozen and a half

miles from his Sue's now permanent residence. At first he felt that this nearness was a distinct reason for not

going southward at all; but Christminster was too sad a place to bear, while the proximity of Shaston to

Melchester might afford him the glory of worsting the Enemy in a close engagement, such as was

deliberately sought by the priests and virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominious flight from

temptation, became even chamberpartners with impunity. Jude did not pause to remember that, in the

laconic words of the historian, "insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights" in such circumstances.

He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the priesthood in the recognition that the

singlemindedness of his aims, and his fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable of late. His

passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful abandonment to the society of Arabella for twelve hours

seemed instinctively a worse thingeven though she had not told him of her Sydney husband till afterwards.

He had, he verily believed, overcome all tendency to fly to liquorwhich, indeed, he had never done from

taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind. Yet he perceived with despondency that,

taken all round, he was a man of too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he could hope for

was that in a life of constant internal warfare between flesh and spirit the former might not always be

As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity, he developed his slight skill in churchmusic and

thoroughbass, till he could join in partsinging from notation with some accuracy. A mile or two from

Melchester there was a restored village church, to which Jude had originally gone to fix the new columns and

capitals. By this means he had become acquainted with the organist, and the ultimate result was that he joined

He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday, and sometimes in the week. One evening about Easter the

choir met for practice, and a new hymn which Jude had heard of as being by a Wessex composer was to be

tried and prepared for the following week. It turned out to be a strangely emotional composition. As they all

sang it over and over again its harmonies grew upon Jude, and moved him exceedingly.

When they had finished he went round to the organist to make inquiries. The score was in manuscript, the

name of the composer being at the head, together with the title of the hymn: "The Foot of the Cross."

"Yes," said the organist. "He is a local man. He is a professional musician at Kennetbridgebetween here

and Christminster. The vicar knows him. He was brought up and educated in Christminster traditions, which

accounts for the quality of the piece. I think he plays in the large church there, and has a surpliced choir. He

comes to Melchester sometimes, and once tried to get the cathedral organ when the post was vacant. The

As he walked humming the air on his way home, Jude fell to musing on its composer, and the reasons why he

composed it. What a man of sympathies he must be! Perplexed and harassed as he himself was about Sue and

Arabella, and troubled as was his conscience by the complication of his position, how he would like to know

that man!" He of all men would understand my difficulties," said the impulsive Jude. If there were any person

in the world to choose as a confidant, this composer would be the one, for he must have suffered, and

In brief, ill as he could afford the time and money for the journey, Fawley resolved, like the child that he was,

to go to Kennetbridge the very next Sunday. He duly started, early in the morning, for it was only by a series

of crooked railways that he could get to the town. About midday he reached it, and crossing the bridge into

They told him it was a red brick building some little way further on. Also that the gentleman himself had just

Jude hastened on, and soon had the pleasure of observing a man in a black coat and a black slouched felt hat

no considerable distance ahead. Stretching out his legs yet more widely he stalked after. "A hungry soul in

He could not, however, overtake the musician before he had entered his own house, and then arose the

question if this were an expedient time to call. Whether or not he decided to do so there and then, now that he

had got here, the distance home being too great for him to wait till late in the afternoon. This man of soul

would understand scant ceremony, and might be quite a perfect adviser in a case in which an earthly and

illegitimate passion had cunningly obtained entrance into his heart through the opening afforded for religion.

The musician came to him in a moment, and being respectably dressed, goodlooking, and frank in manner,

Jude obtained a favourable reception. He was nevertheless conscious that there would be a certain

"I have been singing in the choir of a little church near Melchester," he said. "And we have this week

"Ah wellother people have said so too. Yes, there's money in it, if I could only see about getting it

published. I have other compositions to go with it, too; I wish I could bring them out; for I haven't made a

fivepound note out of any of them yet. These publishing people they want the copyright of an obscure

composer's work, such as mine is, for almost less than I should have to pay a person for making, a fair

manuscript copy of the score. The one you speak of I have lent to various friends about here and Melchester,

and so it has got to be sung a little. But music is a poor staff to lean on I am giving it up entirely. You must

go into trade if you want to make money nowadays. The wine business is what I am thinking of. This is my

He handed Jude an advertisement list of several pages in booklet shape, ornamentally margined with a red

line, in which were set forth the various clarets, champagnes, ports, sherries, and other wines with which he

purposed to initiate his new venture. It took Jude more than by surprise that the man with the soul was thus

They talked a little longer, but constrainedly, for when the musician found that Jude was a poor man his

manner changed from what it had been while Jude's appearance and address deceived him as to his position

and pursuits. Jude stammered out something about his feelings in wishing to congratulate the author on such

All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sitting in the fireless waitingrooms on this cold spring day, he

was depressed enough at his simplicity in taking such a journey. But no sooner did he reach his Melchester

lodging than he found awaiting him a letter which had arrived that morning a few minutes after he had left

the house. It was a contrite little note from Sue, in which she said, with sweet humility, that she felt she had

been horrid in telling him he was not to come to see her, that she despised herself for having been so

conventional; and that he was to be sure to come by the elevenfortyfive train that very Sunday, and have

Jude almost tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was too late to act upon its contents; but he had

chastened himself considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition to Kennetbridge really did seem

to have been another special intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation. But a growing

impatience of faith, which he had noticed in himself more than once of late, made him pass over in ridicule

the idea that God sent people on fools' errands. He longed to see her; he was angry at having missed her: and

he wrote instantly, telling her what had happened, and saying he had not enough patience to wait till the

Since he wrote a little overardently, Sue, as her manner was, delayed her reply till Thursday before Good

Friday, when she said he might come that afternoon if he wished, this being the earliest day on which she

could welcome him, for she was now assistantteacher in her husband's school. Jude therefore got leave from

"Whoso prefers either Matrimony or other Ordinance before the Good of Man and the plain Exigence of

Charity, let him profess Papist, or Protestant, or what he will, he is no better than a Pharisee."

(as Drayton sang it), was, and is, in itself the city of a dream. Vague imaginings of its castle, its three mints,

its magnificent apsidal abbey, the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, chantries,

hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions all now ruthlessly swept awaythrow the visitor, even against his

will, into a pensive melancholy, which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can

scarcely dispel. The spot was the burialplace of a king and a queen, of abbots and abbesses, saints and

bishops, knights and squires. The bones of King Edward "the Martyr," carefully removed hither for holy

preservation, brought Shaston a renown which made it the resort of pilgrims from every part of Europe, and

enabled it to maintain a reputation extending far beyond English shores. To this fair creation of the great

MiddleAge the Dissolution was, as historians tell us, the deathknell. With the destruction of the enormous

abbey the whole place collapsed in a general ruin: the Martyr's bones met with the fate of the sacred pile that

The natural picturesqueness and singularity of the town still remain; but strange to say these qualities, which

were noted by many writers in ages when scenic beauty is said to have been unappreciated, are passed over in

this, and one of the queerest and quaintest spots in England stands virtually unvisited today.

It has a unique position on the summit of a steep and imposing scarp, rising on the north, south, and west

sides of the borough out of the deep alluvial Vale of Blackmoor, the view from the Castle Green over three

counties of verdant pastureSouth, Mid, and Nether Wessex being as sudden a surprise to the

unexpectant traveller's eyes as the medicinal air is to his lungs. Impossible to a railway, it can best be reached

on foot, next best by light vehicles; and it is hardly accessible to these but by a sort of isthmus on the

Such is, and such was, the now worldforgotten Shaston or Palladour. Its situation rendered water the great

want of the town; and within living memory, horses, donkeys and men may have been seen toiling up the

winding ways to the top of the height, laden with tubs and barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain,

This difficulty in the water supply, together with two other odd facts, namely, that the chief graveyard slopes

up as steeply as a roof behind the church, and that in former times the town passed through a curious period

of corruption, conventual and domestic, gave rise to the saying that Shaston was remarkable for three

consolations to man, such as the world afforded not elsewhere. It was a place where the churchyard lay nearer

heaven than the church steeple, where beer was more plentiful than water, and where there were more wanton

women than honest wives and maids. It is also said that after the Middle Ages the inhabitants were too poor

to pay their priests, and hence were compelled to pull down their churches, and refrain altogether from the

public worship of God; a necessity which they bemoaned over their cups in the settles of their inns on Sunday

afternoons. In those days the Shastonians were apparently not without a sense of humour.

There was another peculiaritythis a modern onewhich Shaston appeared to owe to its site. It was the

restingplace and headquarters of the proprietors of wandering vans, shows, shootinggalleries, and other

itinerant concerns, whose business lay largely at fairs and markets. As strange wild birds are seen assembled

on some lofty promontory, meditatively pausing for longer flights, or to return by the course they followed

thither, so here, in this clifftown, stood in stultified silence the yellow and green caravans bearing names not

local, as if surprised by a change in the landscape so violent as to hinder their further progress; and here they

usually remained all the winter till they turned to seek again their old tracks in the following spring.

It was to this breezy and whimsical spot that Jude ascended from the nearest station for the first time in his

life about four o'clock one afternoon, and entering on the summit of the peak after a toilsome climb, passed

the first houses of the aerial town; and drew towards the schoolhouse. The hour was too early; the pupils

were still in school, humming small, like a swarm of gnats; and he withdrew a few steps along Abbey Walk,

whence he regarded the spot which fate had made the home of all he loved best in the world. In front of the

schools, which were extensive and stonebuilt, grew two enormous beeches with smooth mousecoloured

trunks, as such trees will only grow on chalk uplands. Within the mullioned and transomed windows he could

see the black, brown, and flaxen crowns of the scholars over the sills, and to pass the time away he walked

down to the level terrace where the abbey gardens once had spread, his heart throbbing in spite of him.

Unwilling to enter till the children were dismissed he remained here till young voices could be heard in the

open air, and girls in white pinafores over red and blue frocks appeared dancing along the paths which the

abbess, prioress, subprioress, and fifty nuns had demurely paced three centuries earlier. Retracing his steps he

found that he had waited too long, and that Sue had gone out into the town at the heels of the last scholar, Mr.

Phillotson having been absent all the afternoon at a teachers' meeting at Shottsford.

Jude went into the empty schoolroom and sat down, the girl who was sweeping the floor having informed

him that Mrs. Phillotson would be back again in a few minutes. A piano stood near actually the old piano

that Phillotson had possessed at Marygreen and though the dark afternoon almost prevented him seeing the

notes Jude touched them in his humble way, and could not help modulating into the hymn which had so

A figure moved behind him, and thinking it was still the girl with the broom Jude took no notice, till the

person came close and laid her fingers lightly upon his bass hand. The imposed hand was a little one he

"Don't stop," said Sue. "I like it. I learnt it before I left Melchester. They used to play it in the training

Sue sat down, and her rendering of the piece, though not remarkable, seemed divine as compared with his

own. She, like him, was evidently touchedto her own surpriseby the recalled air; and when she had

finished, and he moved his hand towards hers, it met his own halfway. Jude grasped itjust as he had done

"It is odd," she said, in a voice quite changed, "that I should care about that air; because"

She played on and suddenly turned round; and by an unpremeditated instinct each clasped the other's hand

She uttered a forced little laugh as she relinquished his quickly. "How funny!" she said. "I wonder what we

"And they rule thoughts.... Isn't it enough to make one blaspheme that the composer of that hymn is one of

"Now we'll have some tea," said Sue. "Shall we have it here instead of in my house? It is no trouble to get the

kettle and things brought in. We don't live at the school you know, but in that ancient dwelling across the way

called OldGrove Place. It is so antique and dismal that it depresses me dreadfully. Such houses are very well

to visit, but not to live inI feel crushed into the earth by the weight of so many previous lives there spent.

In a new place like these schools there is only your own life to support. Sit down, and I'll tell Ada to bring the

He waited in the light of the stove, the door of which she flung open before going out, and when she returned,

followed by the maiden with tea, they sat down by the same light, assisted by the blue rays of a spiritlamp

The kettle of his gift sang with some satire in its note, to his mind; and to change the subject he said, "Do you

know of any good readable edition of the uncanonical books of the New Testament? You don't read them in

"Oh dear no!'twould alarm the neighbourhood.... Yes, there is one. I am not familiar with it now, though I

was interested in it when my former friend was alive. Cowper's APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS."

"That sounds like what I want." His thoughts, however reverted with a twinge to the "former friend"by

whom she meant, as he knew, the university comrade of her earlier days. He wondered if she talked of him to

"The Gospel of Nicodemus is very nice," she went on to keep him from his jealous thoughts, which she read

clearly, as she always did. Indeed when they talked on an indifferent subject, as now, there was ever a second

silent conversation passing between their emotions, so perfect was the reciprocity between them. "It is quite

like the genuine article. All cut up into verses, too; so that it is like one of the other evangelists read in a

dream, when things are the same, yet not the same. But, Jude, do you take an interest in those questions still?

"I am sure you can tell me anything I may be ignorant of in that subject. You must have learnt a lot of

"We won't get on to that now!" she coaxed. "Will you be carving out at that church again next week, where

"That will be very nice. Shall I come and see you there? It is in this direction, and I could come any afternoon

"What have I done, then? I am sure I thought we two " The TREMOLO in her voice caused her to break

There was a momentary pause, till she suddenly jumped up; and to his surprise he saw by the kettleflame

"I can't talk to you any longer, Jude!" she said, the tragic contralto note having come back as of old. "It is

getting too dark to stay together like this, after playing morbid Good Friday tunes that make one feel what

one shouldn't! ... We mustn't sit and talk in this way any more. Yesyou must go away, for you mistake me!

I am very much the reverse of what you say so cruellyOh, Jude, it WAS cruel to say that! Yet I can't tell

you the truthI should shock you by letting you know how I give way to my impulses, and how much I feel

that I shouldn't have been provided with attractiveness unless it were meant to be exercised! Some women's

love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that

they can't give it continuously to the chamberofficer appointed by the bishop's licence to receive it. But you

are so straightforward, Jude, that you can't understand me! ... Now you must go. I am sorry my husband is not

"I perceive I have said that in mere convention! Honestly I don't think I am sorry. It does not matter, either

As they had overdone the grasp of hands some time sooner, she touched his fingers but lightly when he went

out now. He had hardly gone from the door when, with a dissatisfied look, she jumped on a form and opened

the iron casement of a window beneath which he was passing in the path without. "When do you leave here

He looked up in some surprise. "The coach that runs to meet it goes in threequarters of an hour or so."

"It does seem hard of me to pack you off so! You have thought enough of churches, Heaven knows, without

"Where you are. I can talk to you better like this than when you were inside.... It was so kind and tender of

you to give up half a day's work to come to see me! ... You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude. And

a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are St. Stephen, who, while they were stoning him, could see

Now that the high windowsill was between them, so that he could not get at her, she seemed not to mind

"I have been thinking," she continued, still in the tone of one brimful of feeling, "that the social moulds

civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the

constellations have to the real starpatterns. I am called Mrs. Richard Phillotson, living a calm wedded life

with my counterpart of that name. But I am not really Mrs. Richard Phillotson, but a woman tossed about, all

alone, with aberrant passions, and unaccountable antipathies.... Now you mustn't wait longer, or you will lose

"Tomorrow week. Goodbyegoodbye!" She stretched out her hand and stroked his forehead

Passing along Bimport Street he thought he heard the wheels of the coach departing, and, truly enough, when

he reached the Duke's Arms in the Market Place the coach had gone. It was impossible for him to get to the

station on foot in time for this train, and he settled himself perforce to wait for the next the last to

He wandered about awhile, obtained something to eat; and then, having another halfhour on his hands, his

feet involuntarily took him through the venerable graveyard of Trinity Church, with its avenues of limes, in

the direction of the schools again. They were entirely in darkness. She had said she lived over the way at

OldGrove Place, a house which he soon discovered from her description of its antiquity.

A glimmering candlelight shone from a front window, the shutters being yet unclosed. He could see the

interior clearly the floor sinking a couple of steps below the road without, which had become raised during

the centuries since the house was built. Sue, evidently just come in, as standing with her hat on in this front

parlour or sittingroom, whose walls were lined with wainscoting of panelled oak reaching from floor to

ceiling, the latter being crossed by huge moulded beams only a little way above her head. The mantelpiece

was of the same heavy description, carved with Jacobean pilasters and scrollwork. The centuries did,

She had opened a rosewood workbox, and was looking at a photograph. Having contemplated it a little

Then becoming aware that she had not obscured the windows she came forward to do so, candle in hand. It

was too dark for her to see Jude without, but he could see her face distinctly, and there was an unmistakable

She closed the shutters, and Jude turned away to pursue his solitary journey home. "Whose photograph was

she looking at?" he said. He had once given her his; but she had others, he knew. Yet it was his, surely?

He knew he should go to see her again, according to her invitation. Those earnest men he read of, the saints,

whom Sue, with gentle irreverence, called his demigods, would have shunned such encounters if they

doubted their own strength. But he could not. He might fast and pray during the whole interval, but the

HOWEVER, if God disposed not, woman did. The next morning but one brought him this note from her:

Don't come next week. On your own account don't! We were too free, under the influence of that morbid

hymn and the twilight. Think no more than you can help of SUSANNA FLORENCE MARY.

The disappointment was keen. He knew her mood, the look of her face, when she subscribed herself at length

thus. But whatever her mood he could not say she was wrong in her view. He replied:

I acquiesce. You are right. It is a lesson in renunciation which I suppose I ought to learn at this season. JUDE

He despatched the note on Easter Eve, and there seemed a finality in their decisions. But other forces and

laws than theirs were in operation. On Easter Monday morning he received a message from the Widow Edlin,

He threw down his tools and went. Three and a half hours later he was crossing the downs about Marygreen,

and presently plunged into the concave field across which the short cut was made to the village. As he

ascended on the other side a labouring man, who had been watching his approach from a gate across the path,

moved uneasily, and prepared to speak. "I can see in his face that she is dead," said Jude. "Poor Aunt

It was as he had supposed, and Mrs. Edlin had sent out the man to break the news to him.

"She wouldn't have knowed 'ee. She lay like a doll wi' glass eyes; so it didn't matter that you wasn't here,"

Jude went on to the house, and in the afternoon, when everything was done, and the layersout had finished

their beer, and gone, he sat down alone in the silent place. It was absolutely necessary to communicate with

Sue, though two or three days earlier they had agreed to mutual severance. He wrote in the briefest terms:

Aunt Drusilla is dead, having been taken almost suddenly. The funeral is on Friday afternoon.

He remained in and about Marygreen through the intervening days, went out on Friday morning to see that

the grave was finished, and wondered if Sue would come. She had not written, and that seemed to signify

rather that she would come than that she would not. Having timed her by her only possible train, he locked

the door about midday, and crossed the hollow field to the verge of the upland by the Brown House, where

he stood and looked over the vast prospect northwards, and over the nearer landscape in which Alfredston

stood. Two miles behind it a jet of white steam was travelling from the left to the right of the picture.

There was a long time to wait, even now, till he would know if she had arrived. He did wait, however, and at

last a small hired vehicle pulled up at the bottom of the hill, and a person alighted, the conveyance going

back, while the passenger began ascending the hill. He knew her; and she looked so slender today that it

seemed as if she might be crushed in the intensity of a too passionate embrace such as it was not for him to

give. Twothirds of the way up her head suddenly took a solicitous poise, and he knew that she had at that

moment recognized him. Her face soon began a pensive smile, which lasted till, having descended a little

"I thought," she began with nervous quickness, "that it would be so sad to let you attend the funeral alone!

With the elusiveness of her curious double nature, however, Sue did not stand still for any further greeting,

though it wanted some time to the burial. A pathos so unusually compounded as that which attached to this

hour was unlikely to repeat itself for years, if ever, and Jude would have paused, and meditated, and

conversed. But Sue either saw it not at all, or, seeing it more than he, would not allow herself to feel it.

The sad and simple ceremony was soon over, their progress to the church being almost at a trot, the bustling

undertaker having a more important funeral an hour later, three miles off. Drusilla was put into the new

ground, quite away from her ancestors. Sue and Jude had gone side by side to the grave, and now sat down to

tea in the familiar house; their lives united at least in this last attention to the dead.

"She said we made bad husbands and wives. Certainly we make unhappy ones. At all events, I do, for one!"

Sue was silent. "Is it wrong, Jude," she said with a tentative tremor, "for a husband or wife to tell a third

person that they are unhappy in their marriage? If a marriage ceremony is a religious thing, it is possibly

wrong; but if it is only a sordid contract, based on material convenience in householding, rating, and taxing,

and the inheritance of land and money by children, making it necessary that the male parent should be

knownwhich it seems to be why surely a person may say, even proclaim upon the housetops, that it

Presently she went on: "Are there many couples, do you think, where one dislikes the other for no definite

"But even apart from that? Wouldn't the woman, for example, be very badnatured if she didn't like to live

with her husband; merely"her voice undulated, and he guessed things"merely because she had a

personal feeling against ita physical objection a fastidiousness, or whatever it may be calledalthough

she might respect and be grateful to him? I am merely putting a case. Ought she to try to overcome her

Jude threw a troubled look at her. He said, looking away: "It would be just one of those cases in which my

experiences go contrary to my dogmas. Speaking as an orderloving man which I hope I am, though I fear

I am notI should say, yes. Speaking from experience and unbiased nature, I should say, no.... Sue, I believe

"Of course I am!" she contradicted. "How can a woman be unhappy who has only been married eight weeks

"Why do you repeat it? ... But I have to go back by the six o'clock train. You will be staying on here, I

"For a few days to wind up Aunt's affairs. This house is gone now. Shall I go to the train with you?"

A little laugh of objection came from Sue. "I think not. You may come part of the way."

"But stopyou can't go tonight! That train won't take you to Shaston. You must stay and go back

Jude went to the widow's house adjoining, to let her know; and returning in a few minutes sat down again.

"It is horrible how we are circumstanced, Suehorrible!" he said abruptly, with his eyes bent to the floor.

"I can't tell you all my part of the gloom. Your part is that you ought not to have married him. I saw it before

you had done it, but I thought I mustn't interfere. I was wrong. I ought to have!"

"That's absurd, Sue," cried he, "after what we've been talking about! I am more strict and formal than you, if

it comes to that; and that you should object to such an innocent action shows that you are ridiculously

"Perhaps it was too prudish," she said repentantly. "Only I have fancied it was a sort of trick of ourstoo

frequent perhaps. There, you may hold it as much as you like. Is that good of me?"

"Ohof course, if you think it necessary. But as it means nothing it may be bothering him needlessly."

"So she's come back; and you never told me! I suppose you will live with her now?"

She looked at the window pots with the geraniums and cactuses, withered for want of attention, and through

them at the outer distance, till her eyes began to grow moist. "What is it?" said Jude, in a softened tone.

"Why should you be so glad to go back to her ifif what you used to say to me is still trueI mean if it

were true then! Of course it is not now! How could your heart go back to Arabella so soon?"

"Ahit isn't true!" she said with gentle resentment. "You are teasing methat's allbecause you think I

"If I were unhappy it would be my fault, my wickedness; not that I should have a right to dislike him! He is

considerate to me in everything; and he is very interesting, from the amount of general knowledge he has

acquired by reading everything that comes in his way.... Do you think, Jude, that a man ought to marry a

He gave her no opportunity of selfsatisfaction, and she had to go on unaided, which she did in a vanquished

"II think I must be equally honest with you as you have been with me. Perhaps you have seen what it is I

want to say?that though I like Mr. Phillotson as a friend, I don't like himit is a torture to me tolive

with him as a husband!There, now I have let it out I couldn't help it, although I have beenpretending

I am happy. Now you'll have a contempt for me for ever, I suppose!" She bent down her face upon her

hands as they lay upon the cloth, and silently sobbed in little jerks that made the fragile threelegged table

"I have only been married a month or two!" she went on, still remaining bent upon the table, and sobbing into

her hands. "And it is said that what a woman shrinks fromin the early days of her marriage she shakes

down to with comfortable indifference in half a dozen years. But that is much like saying that the amputation

of a limb is no affliction, since a person gets comfortably accustomed to the use of a wooden leg or arm in the

Jude could hardly speak, but he said, "I thought there was something wrong, Sue! Oh, I thought there was!"

"But it is not as you think!there is nothing wrong except my own wickedness, I suppose you'd call ita

repugnance on my part, for a reason I cannot disclose, and what would not be admitted as one by the world in

general! ... What tortures me so much is the necessity of being responsive to this man whenever he wishes,

good as he is morally! the dreadful contract to feel in a particular way in a matter whose essence is its

voluntariness! ... I wish he would beat me, or be faithless to me, or do some open thing that I could talk about

as a justification for feeling as I do! But he does nothing, except that he has grown a little cold since he has

found out how I feel. That's why he didn't come to the funeral.... Oh, I am very miserable I don't know

But he had jumped up and put his face against hersor rather against her ear, her face being inaccessible.

"I know you didI only wish toconsole you! It all arose through my being married before we met, didn't

it? You would have been my wife, Sue, wouldn't you, if it hadn't been for that?"

Instead of replying she rose quickly, and saying she was going to walk to her aunt's grave in the churchyard

to recover herself, went out of the house. Jude did not follow her. Twenty minutes later he saw her cross the

village green towards Mrs. Edlin's, and soon she sent a little girl to fetch her bag, and tell him she was too

In the lonely room of his aunt's house, Jude sat watching the cottage of the Widow Edlin as it disappeared

behind the night shade. He knew that Sue was sitting within its walls equally lonely and disheartened; and

He retired to rest early, but his sleep was fitful from the sense that Sue was so near at hand. At some time

near two o'clock, when he was beginning to sleep more soundly, he was aroused by a shrill squeak that had

been familiar enough to him when he lived regularly at Marygreen. It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin.

As was the little creature's habit, it did not soon repeat its cry; and probably would not do so more than once

or twice; but would remain bearing its torture till the morrow when the trapper would come and knock it on

He who in his childhood had saved the lives of the earthworms now began to picture the agonies of the rabbit

from its lacerated leg. If it were a "bad catch" by the hindleg, the animal would tug during the ensuing six

hours till the iron teeth of the trap had stripped the legbone of its flesh, when, should a weakspringed

instrument enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from the mortification of the limb. If it were a "good

catch," namely, by the foreleg, the bone would be broken and the limb nearly torn in two in attempts at an

Almost half an hour passed, and the rabbit repeated its cry. Jude could rest no longer till he had put it out of

its pain, so dressing himself quickly he descended, and by the light of the moon went across the green in the

direction of the sound. He reached the hedge bordering the widow's garden, when he stood still. The faint

click of the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now, and reaching the spot he struck the

rabbit on the back of the neck with the side of his palm, and it stretched itself out dead.

He was turning away when he saw a woman looking out of the open casement at a window on the ground

floor of the adjacent cottage. "Jude!" said a voice timidlySue's voice. "It is you is it not?"

"I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then I heard the rabbit, and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered,

till I felt I must come down and kill it! But I am so glad you got there first.... They ought not to be allowed to

Jude had reached the window, which was quite a low one, so that she was visible down to her waist. She let

go the casementstay and put her hand upon his, her moonlit face regarding him wistfully.

"Oh, you knownow! I know you, with your religious doctrines, think that a married woman in trouble of a

kind like mine commits a mortal sin in making a man the confidant of it, as I did you. I wish I hadn't, now!"

"Don't wish it, dear," he said. "That may have BEEN my view; but my doctrines and I begin to part

"I knew itI knew it! And that's why I vowed I wouldn't disturb your belief. ButI am SO GLAD to see

you!and, oh, I didn't mean to see you again, now the last tie between us, Aunt Drusilla, is dead!"

Jude seized her hand and kissed it. "There is a stronger one left!" he said. "I'll never care about my doctrines

or my religion any more! Let them go! Let me help you, even if I do love you, and even if you ..."

"Don't say it!I know what you mean; but I can't admit so much as that. There! Guess what you like, but

"I CAN'T be! So few could enter into my feelingthey would say 'twas my fanciful fastidiousness, or

something of that sort, and condemn me.... It is none of the natural tragedies of love that's love's usual tragedy

in civilized life, but a tragedy artificially manufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief in

parting! ... It would have been wrong, perhaps, for me to tell my distress to you, if I had been able to tell it to

anybody else. But I have nobody. And I MUST tell somebody! Jude, before I married him I had never

thought out fully what marriage meant, even though I knew. It was idiotic of methere is no excuse. I was

old enough, and I thought I was very experienced. So I rushed on, when I had got into that training school

scrape, with all the cocksureness of the fool that I was! ... I am certain one ought to be allowed to undo what

one had done so ignorantly! I daresay it happens to lots of women, only they submit, and I kick.... When

people of a later age look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the times that we have the

In a moment of impulse she bent over the sill, and laid her face upon his hair, weeping, and then imprinting a

scarcely perceptible little kiss upon the top of his head, withdrawing quickly, so that he could not put his

arms round her, as otherwise he unquestionably would have done. She shut the casement, and he returned to

SUE'S distressful confession recurred to Jude's mind all the night as being a sorrow indeed.

The morning after, when it was time for her to go, the neighbours saw her companion and herself

disappearing on foot down the hill path which led into the lonely road to Alfredston. An hour passed before

he returned along the same route, and in his face there was a look of exaltation not unmixed with

They had stood parting in the silent highway, and their tense and passionate moods had led to bewildered

inquiries of each other on how far their intimacy ought to go; till they had almost quarrelled, and she said

tearfully that it was hardly proper of him as a parson in embryo to think of such a thing as kissing her even in

farewell as he now wished to do. Then she had conceded that the fact of the kiss would be nothing: all would

depend upon the spirit of it. If given in the spirit of a cousin and a friend she saw no objection: if in the spirit

of a lover she could not permit it. "Will you swear that it will not be in that spirit?" she had said.

No: he would not. And then they had turned from each other in estrangement, and gone their several ways,

till at a distance of twenty or thirty yards both had looked round simultaneously. That look behind was fatal

to the reserve hitherto more or less maintained. They had quickly run back, and met, and embracing most

unpremeditatedly, kissed close and long. When they parted for good it was with flushed cheeks on her side,

The kiss was a turningpoint in Jude's career. Back again in the cottage, and left to reflection, he saw one

thing: that though his kiss of that aerial being had seemed the purest moment of his faultful life, as long as he

nourished this unlicensed tenderness it was glaringly inconsistent for him to pursue the idea of becoming the

soldier and servant of a religion in which sexual love was regarded as at its best a frailty, and at its worst

damnation. What Sue had said in warmth was really the cold truth. When to defend his affection tooth and

nail, to persist with headlong force in impassioned attentions to her, was all he thought of, he was condemned

IPSO FACTO as a professor of the accepted school of morals. He was as unfit, obviously, by nature, as he

had been by social position, to fill the part of a propounder of accredited dogma.

Strange that his first aspirationtowards academical proficiency had been checked by a woman, and that

his second aspiration towards apostleshiphad also been checked by a woman. "Is it," he said, "that the

women are to blame; or is it the artificial system of things, under which the normal seximpulses are turned

into devilish domestic gins and springs to noose and hold back those who want to progress?"

It had been his standing desire to become a prophet, however humble, to his struggling fellowcreatures,

without any thought of personal gain. Yet with a wife living away from him with another husband, and

himself in love erratically, the loved one's revolt against her state being possibly on his account, he had sunk

It was not for him to consider further: he had only to confront the obvious, which was that he had made

At dusk that evening he went into the garden and dug a shallow hole, to which he brought out all the

theological and ethical works that he possessed, and had stored here. He knew that, in this country of true

believers, most of them were not saleable at a much higher price than wastepaper value, and preferred to get

rid of them in his own way, even if he should sacrifice a little money to the sentiment of thus destroying

them. Lighting some loose pamphlets to begin with, he cut the volumes into pieces as well as he could, and

with a threepronged fork shook them over the flames. They kindled, and lighted up the back of the house,

Though he was almost a stranger here now, passing cottagers talked to him over the garden hedge.

"Burning up your awld aunt's rubbidge, I suppose? Ay; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning before the leaves, covers, and binding of Jeremy Taylor, Butler,

Doddridge, Paley, Pusey, Newman and the rest had gone to ashes, but the night was quiet, and as he turned

and turned the paper shreds with the fork, the sense of being no longer a hypocrite to himself afforded his

mind a relief which gave him calm. He might go on believing as before, but he professed nothing, and no

longer owned and exhibited engines of faith which, as their proprietor, he might naturally be supposed to

exercise on himself first of all. In his passion for Sue he could not stand as an ordinary sinner, and not as a

Meanwhile Sue, after parting from him earlier in the day, had gone along to the station, with tears in her eyes

for having run back and let him kiss her. Jude ought not to have pretended that he was not a lover, and made

her give way to an impulse to act unconventionally, if not wrongly. She was inclined to call it the latter; for

Sue's logic was extraordinarily compounded, and seemed to maintain that before a thing was done it might be

right to do, but that being done it became wrong; or, in other words, that things which were right in theory

"I have been too weak, I think!" she jerked out as she pranced on, shaking down teardrops now and then. "It

was burning, like a lover'soh, it was! And I won't write to him any more, or at least for a long time, to

impress him with my dignity! And I hope it will hurt him very muchexpecting a letter tomorrow

morning, and the next, and the next, and no letter coming. He'll suffer then with suspensewon't he, that's

all!and I am very glad of it!"Tears of pity for Jude's approaching sufferings at her hands mingled with

Then the slim little wife or a husband whose person was disagreeable to her, the ethereal, finenerved,

sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation

with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man, walked fitfully along, and panted, and brought weariness into

Phillotson met her at the arrival station, and, seeing that she was troubled, thought it must be owing to the

depressing effect of her aunt's death and funeral. He began telling her of his day's doings, and how his friend

Gillingham, a neighbouring schoolmaster whom he had not seen for years, had called upon him. While

ascending to the town, seated on the top of the omnibus beside him, she said suddenly and with an air of

"RichardI let Mr. Fawley hold my hand a long while. I don't know whether you think it wrong?"

He, waking apparently from thoughts of far different mould, said vaguely, "Oh, did you? What did you do

They lapsed into silence. Had this been a case in the court of an omniscient judge, he might have entered on

his notes the curious fact that Sue had placed the minor for the major indiscretion, and had not said a word

After tea that evening Phillotson sat balancing the school registers. She remained in an unusually silent,

tense, and restless condition, and at last, saying she was tired, went to bed early. When Phillotson arrived

upstairs, weary with the drudgery of the attendancenumbers, it was a quarter to twelve o'clock. Entering

their chamber, which by day commanded a view of some thirty or forty miles over the Vale of Blackmoor,

and even into Outer Wessex, he went to the window, and, pressing his face against the pane, gazed with

hardbreathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the farreaching scene. He was

musing, "I think," he said at last, without turning his head, "that I must get the committee to change the

"And there must be a rearrangement of that ventilator in the classroom. The wind blows down upon my

As the silence seemed more absolute than ordinarily he turned round. The heavy, gloomy oak wainscot,

which extended over the walls upstairs and down in the dilapidated "OldGrove Place," and the massive

chimneypiece reaching to the ceiling, stood in odd contrast to the new and shining brass bedstead, and the

new suite of birch furniture that he had bought for her, the two styles seeming to nod to each other across

She was not in the bed, though she had apparently been there the clothes on her side being flung back.

Thinking she might have forgotten some kitchen detail and gone downstairs for a moment to see to it, he

pulled off his coat and idled quietly enough for a few minutes, when, finding she did not come, he went out

He went to bed. Some time in the night he awoke. She was not there, even now. Lighting a candle he hastily

She answered "Yes!" as before, but the tones were small and confined, and whence they came he could not at

first understand. Under the staircase was a large clothescloset, without a window; they seemed to come from

it. The door was shut, but there was no lock or other fastening. Phillotson, alarmed, went towards it,

"But there's no bed, is there? And no ventilation! Why, you'll be suffocated if you stay all night!"

"But" Phillotson seized the knob and pulled at the door. She had fastened it inside with a piece of string,

which broke at his pull. There being no bedstead she had flung down some rugs and made a little nest for

"You ought not to have pulled open the door!" she cried excitedly. "It is not becoming in you! Oh, will you

She looked so pitiful and pleading in her white nightgown against the shadowy lumberhole that he was quite

He said: "I've been kind to you, and given you every liberty; and it is monstrous that you should feel in this

"Yes," said she, weeping. "I know that! It is wrong and wicked of me, I suppose! I am very sorry. But it is not

"NoI don't know! The universe, I supposethings in general, because they are so horrid and cruel!"

"Well, it is no use talking like that. Making a man's house so unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if

we don't mind." (He meant the servant.) "Just think if either of the parsons in this town was to see us now! I

hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no order or regularity in your sentiments! ... But I won't intrude on you

further; only I would advise you not to shut the door too tight, or I shall find you stifled tomorrow."

On rising the next morning he immediately looked into the closet, but Sue had already gone downstairs.

There was a little nest where she had lain, and spiders' webs hung overhead. "What must a woman's aversion

He found her sitting at the breakfasttable, and the meal began almost in silence, the burghers walking past

upon the pavement or rather roadway, pavements being scarce herewhich was two or three feet above

the level of the parlour floor. They nodded down to the happy couple their morning greetings, as they went

"Away from me? Why, that's what you were doing when I married you. What then was the meaning of

"Because I thought I could do nothing else. You had got my promise a long time before that, remember.

Then, as time went on, I regretted I had promised you, and was trying to see an honourable way to break it

off. But as I couldn't I became rather reckless and careless about the conventions. Then you know what

scandals were spread, and how I was turned out of the training school you had taken such time and trouble to

prepare me for and get me into; and this frightened me and it seemed then that the one thing I could do would

be to let the engagement stand. Of course I, of all people, ought not to have cared what was said, for it was

just what I fancied I never did care for. But I was a coward as so many women areand my theoretic

unconventionality broke down. If that had not entered into the case it would have been better to have hurt

your feelings once for all then, than to marry you and hurt them all my life after.... And you were so generous

"I am bound in honesty to tell you that I weighed its probability and inquired of your cousin about it."

Her eyes had filled. "HE wouldn't have inquired!" she said. "But you haven't answered me. Will you let me

"But I do ask it! Domestic laws should be made according to temperaments, which should be classified. If

people are at all peculiar in character they have to suffer from the very rules that produce comfort in others!

"What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances," she burst out, "if they make you miserable when you

"I DO like you! But I didn't reflect it would bethat it would be so much more than that.... For a man and

woman to live on intimate terms when one feels as I do is adultery, in any circumstances, however legal.

"Why can't we agree to free each other? We made the compact, and surely we can cancel itnot legally of

course; but we can morally, especially as no new interests, in the shape of children, have arisen to be looked

after. Then we might be friends, and meet without pain to either. Oh Richard, be my friend and have pity! We

shall both be dead in a few years, and then what will it matter to anybody that you relieved me from

constraint for a little while? I daresay you think me eccentric, or supersensitive, or something absurd.

Wellwhy should I suffer for what I was born to be, if it doesn't hurt other people?"

"Yesthat's it! I am in the wrong. I always am! It is as culpable to bind yourself to love always as to believe

a creed always, and as silly as to vow always to like a particular food or drink!"

Sue continued: "She, or he, 'who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has

no need of any other faculty than the apelike one of imitation.' J. S. Mill's words, those are. I have been

"What do I care about J. S. Mill!" moaned he. "I only want to lead a quiet life! Do you mind my saying that I

have guessed what never once occurred to me before our marriagethat you were in love, and are in love,

"You may go on guessing that I am, since you have begun. But do you suppose that if I had been I should

The ringing of the school bell saved Phillotson from the necessity of replying at present to what apparently

did not strike him as being such a convincing ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM as she, in her loss of

courage at the last moment, meant it to appear. She was beginning to be so puzzling and unstateable that he

was ready to throw in with her other little peculiarities the extremest request which a wife could make.

They proceeded to the schools that morning as usual, Sue entering the classroom, where he could see the

back of her head through the glass partition whenever he turned his eyes that way. As he went on giving and

hearing lessons his forehead and eyebrows twitched from concentrated agitation of thought, till at length he

Your request prevents my attending to work at all. I don't know what I am doing! Was it seriously made?

He folded the piece of paper very small, and gave it to a little boy to take to Sue. The child toddled off into

the classroom. Phillotson saw his wife turn and take the note, and the bend of her pretty head as she read it,

her lips slightly crisped, to prevent undue expression under fire of so many young eyes. He could not see her

hands, but she changed her position, and soon the child returned, bringing nothing in reply. In a few minutes,

however, one of Sue's class appeared, with a little note similar to his own. These words only were pencilled

Phillotson looked more disturbed than before, and the meetingplace of his brows twitched again. In ten

minutes he called up the child he had just sent to her, and dispatched another missive:

God knows I don't want to thwart you in any reasonable way. My whole thought is to make you comfortable

and happy. But I cannot agree to such a preposterous notion as your going to live with your lover. You would

After an interval a similar part was enacted in the classroom, and an answer came:

I know you mean my good. But I don't want to be respectable! To produce "Human development in its richest

diversity" (to quote your Humboldt) is to my mind far above respectability. No doubt my tastes are lowin

your viewhopelessly low! If you won t let me go to him, will you grant me this one requestallow me to

I know what you think. But cannot you have pity on me? I beg you to; I implore you to be merciful! I would

not ask if I were not almost compelled by what I can't bear! No poor woman has ever wished more than I that

Eve had not fallen, so that (as the primitive Christians believed) some harmless mode of vegetation might

have peopled Paradise. But I won't trifle! Be kind to meeven though I have not been kind to you! I will go

I do not wish to pain you. How well you KNOW I don't! Give me a little time. I am disposed to agree to your

All day Phillotson bent a dazed regard upon her through the glazed partition; and he felt as lonely as when he

But he was as good as his word, and consented to her living apart in the house. At first, when they met at

meals, she had seemed more composed under the new arrangement; but the irksomeness of their position

worked on her temperament, and the fibres of her nature seemed strained like harpstrings. She talked

PHILLOTSON was sitting up late, as was often his custom, trying to get together the materials for his

longneglected hobby of Roman antiquities. For the first time since reviving the subject he felt a return of his

old interest in it. He forgot time and place, and when he remembered himself and ascended to rest it was

His preoccupation was such that, though he now slept on the other side of the house, he mechanically went to

the room that he and his wife had occupied when he first became a tenant of OldGrove Place, which since

his differences with Sue had been hers exclusively. He entered, and unconsciously began to undress.

There was a cry from the bed, and a quick movement. Before the schoolmaster had realized where he was he

perceived Sue starting up halfawake, staring wildly, and springing out upon the floor on the side away from

him, which was towards the window. This was somewhat hidden by the canopy of the bedstead, and in a

moment he heard her flinging up the sash. Before he had thought that she meant to do more than get air she

had mounted upon the sill and leapt out. She disappeared in the darkness, and he heard her fall below.

Phillotson, horrified, ran downstairs, striking himself sharply against the newel in his haste. Opening the

heavy door he ascended the two or three steps to the level of the ground, and there on the gravel before him

lay a white heap. Phillotson seized it in his arms, and bringing Sue into the hall seated her on a chair, where

he gazed at her by the flapping light of the candle which he had set down in the draught on the bottom stair.

She had certainly not broken her neck. She looked at him with eyes that seemed not to take him in; and

She pressed her side and rubbed her arm, as if conscious of pain; then stood up, averting her face, in evident

"Thank Godyou are not killed! Though it's not for want of trying not much hurt I hope?"

Her fall, in fact, had not been a serious one, probably owing to the lowness of the old rooms and to the high

level of the ground without. Beyond a scraped elbow and a blow in the side she had apparently incurred little

"I was asleep, I think!" she began, her pale face still turned away from him. "And something frightened

mea terrible dreamI thought I saw you" The actual circumstances seemed to come back to her, and

Her cloak was hanging at the back of the door, and the wretched Phillotson flung it round her. "Shall I help

you upstairs?" he asked drearily; for the significance of all this sickened him of himself and of everything.

"You ought to lock your door," he mechanically said, as if lecturing in school. "Then no one could intrude

The aspect of things was not improved by her admission. She ascended the staircase slowly, the waving light

of the candle shining on her. Phillotson did not approach her, or attempt to ascend himself till he heard her

enter her room. Then he fastened up the front door, and returning, sat down on the lower stairs, holding the

newel with one hand, and bowing his face into the other. Thus he remained for a long long timea pitiable

object enough to one who had seen him; till, raising his head and sighing a sigh which seemed to say that the

business of his life must be carried on, whether he had a wife or no, he took the candle and went upstairs to

No further incident touching the matter between them occurred till the following evening, when, immediately

school was over, Phillotson walked out of Shaston, saying he required no tea, and not informing Sue where

he was going. He descended from the town level by a steep road in a northwesterly direction, and continued

to move downwards till the soil changed from its white dryness to a tough brown clay. He was now on the

More than once he looked back in the increasing obscurity of evening. Against the sky was Shaston, dimly

The newlit lights from its windows burnt with a steady shine as if watching him, one of which windows was

his own. Above it he could just discern the pinnacled tower of Trinity Church. The air down here, tempered

by the thick damp bed of tenacious clay, was not as it had been above, but soft and relaxing, so that when he

Leaving Duncliffe Hill on the left he proceeded without hesitation through the shade, as a man goes on, night

or day, in a district over which he has played as a boy. He had walked altogether about four and a half miles

when he crossed a tributary of the Stour, and reached Leddenton a little town of three or four thousand

inhabitantswhere he went on to the boys' school, and knocked at the door of the master's residence.

A boy pupilteacher opened it, and to Phillotson's inquiry if Mr. Gillingham was at home replied that he was,

going at once off to his own house, and leaving Phillotson to find his way in as he could. He discovered his

friend putting away some books from which he had been giving evening lessons. The light of the paraffin

lamp fell on Phillotson's facepale and wretched by contrast with his friend's, who had a cool, practical

look. They had been schoolmates in boyhood, and fellowstudents at Wintoncester Training College, many

Phillotson advanced without replying, and Gillingham closed the cupboard and pulled up beside his visitor.

"Why you haven't been herelet me seesince you were married? I called, you know, but you were out;

and upon my word it is such a climb after dark that I have been waiting till the days are longer before

Though welltrained and even proficient masters, they occasionally used a dialectword of their boyhood to

"I've come, George, to explain to you my reasons for taking a step that I am about to take, so that you, at

least, will understand my motives if other people question them anywhenas they may, indeed certainly

will.... But anything is better than the present condition of things God forbid that you should ever have such

"I do.... My wretched state is that I've a wife I love who not only does not love me, butbut Well, I won't

"And the sad part of it is that she is not so much to blame as I. She was a pupilteacher under me, as you

know, and I took advantage of her inexperience, and toled her out for walks, and got her to agree to a long

engagement before she well knew her own mind. Afterwards she saw somebody else, but she blindly fulfilled

"Yes; with a curious tender solicitude seemingly; though her exact feeling for him is a riddle to meand to

him too, I thinkpossibly to herself. She is one of the oddest creatures I ever met. However, I have been

struck with these two facts; the extraordinary sympathy, or similarity, between the pair. He is her cousin,

which perhaps accounts for some of it. They seem to be one person split in two! And with her unconquerable

aversion to myself as a husband, even though she may like me as a friend, 'tis too much to bear longer. She

has conscientiously struggled against it, but to no purpose. I cannot bear itI cannot! I can't answer her

argumentsshe has read ten times as much as I. Her intellect sparkles like diamonds, while mine smoulders

"Never! It isbut I won't go into itthere are reasons why she never will. At last she calmly and firmly

asked if she might leave me and go to him. The climax came last night, when, owing to my entering her room

by accident, she jumped out of window so strong was her dread of me! She pretended it was a dream, but

that was to soothe me. Now when a woman jumps out of window without caring whether she breaks her neck

or no, she's not to be mistaken; and this being the case I have come to a conclusion: that it is wrong to so

torture a fellowcreature any longer; and I won't be the inhuman wretch to do it, cost what it may!"

"Whom with is her matter. I shall let her go; with him certainly, if she wishes. I know I may be wrongI

know I can't logically, or religiously, defend my concession to such a wish of hers, or harmonize it with the

doctrines I was brought up in. Only I know one thing: something within me tells me I am doing wrong in

refusing her. I, like other men, profess to hold that if a husband gets such a socalled preposterous request

from his wife, the only course that can possibly be regarded as right and proper and honourable in him is to

refuse it, and put her virtuously under lock and key, and murder her lover perhaps. But is that essentially

right, and proper, and honourable, or is it contemptibly mean and selfish? I don't profess to decide. I simply

am going to act by instinct, and let principles take care of themselves. If a person who has blindly walked into

"Butyou see, there's the question of neighbours and society what will happen if everybody"

"Oh, I am not going to be a philosopher any longer! I only see what's under my eyes."

"WellI don't agree with your instinct, Dick!" said Gillingham gravely. "I am quite amazed, to tell the truth,

that such a sedate, plodding fellow as you should have entertained such a craze for a moment. You said when

"Have you ever stood before a woman whom you know to be intrinsically a good woman, while she has

"Then I don't think you are in a position to give an opinion. I have been that man, and it makes all the

difference in the world, if one has any manliness or chivalry in him. I had not the remotest idea living apart

from women as I have done for so many years that merely taking a woman to church and putting a ring

upon her finger could by any possibility involve one in such a daily, continuous tragedy as that now shared

"Well, I could admit some excuse for letting her leave you, provided she kept to herself. But to go attended

"Not a bit. Suppose, as I believe, she would rather endure her present misery than be made to promise to keep

apart from him? All that is a question for herself. It is not the same thing at all as the treachery of living on

with a husband and playing him false.... However, she has not distinctly implied living with him as wife,

though I think she means to.... And to the best of my understanding it is not an ignoble, merely animal,

feeling between the two: that is the worst of it; because it makes me think their affection will be enduring. I

did not mean to confess to you that in the first jealous weeks of my marriage, before I had come to my right

mind, I hid myself in the school one evening when they were together there, and I heard what they said. I am

ashamed of it now, though I suppose I was only exercising a legal right. I found from their manner that an

extraordinary affinity, or sympathy, entered into their attachment, which somehow took away all flavour of

grossness. Their supreme desire is to be togetherto share each other's emotions, and fancies, and dreams."

"Well no. Shelleyan would be nearer to it. They remind me of what are their namesLaon and Cythna.

Also of Paul and Virginia a little. The more I reflect, the more ENTIRELY I am on their side!"

"But if people did as you want to do, there'd be a general domestic disintegration. The family would no

"YesI am all abroad, I suppose!" said Phillotson sadly. "I was never a very bright reasoner, you

remember.... And yet, I don't see why the woman and the children should not be the unit without the man."

"Oh no. She little thinks I have outSued Sue in this all in the last twelve hours!"

"I don't say that it won't. I don't knowI don't know! ... As I say, I am only a feeler, not a reasoner."

"Now," said Gillingham, "let us take it quietly, and have something to drink over it." He went under the

stairs, and produced a bottle of ciderwine, of which they drank a rummer each. "I think you are rafted, and

not yourself," he continued. "Do go back and make up your mind to put up with a few whims. But keep her. I

"Ah yes! That's the bitterness of it! Well, I won't stay. I have a long walk before me."

Gillingham accompanied his friend a mile on his way, and at parting expressed his hope that this

consultation, singular as its subject was, would be the renewal of their old comradeship. "Stick to her!" were

his last words, flung into the darkness after Phillotson; from which his friend answered "Aye, aye!"

But when Phillotson was alone under the clouds of night, and no sound was audible but that of the purling

tributaries of the Stour, he said, "So Gillingham, my friend, you had no stronger arguments against it than

"I think she ought to be smacked, and brought to her senses that's what I think!" murmured Gillingham, as

Having once come to this conclusion it seemed to Phillotson more and more indubitably the true one. His

mild serenity at the sense that he was doing his duty by a woman who was at his mercy almost overpowered

Some days passed, and the evening of their last meal together had come a cloudy evening with

windwhich indeed was very seldom absent in this elevated place. How permanently it was imprinted upon

his vision; that look of her as she glided into the parlour to tea; a slim flexible figure; a face, strained from its

roundness, and marked by the pallors of restless days and nights, suggesting tragic possibilities quite at

variance with her times of buoyancy; a trying of this morsel and that, and an inability to eat either. Her

nervous manner, begotten of a fear lest he should be injured by her course, might have been interpreted by a

stranger as displeasure that Phillotson intruded his presence on her for the few brief minutes that remained.

"You had better have a slice of ham or an egg, or something with your tea? You can't travel on a mouthful of

She took the slice he helped her to; and they discussed as they sat trivial questions of housekeeping, such as

where he would find the key of this or that cupboard, what little bills were paid, and what not.

"I am a bachelor by nature, as you know, Sue," he said, in a heroic attempt to put her at her ease. "So that

being without a wife will not really be irksome to me, as it might be to other men who have had one a little

while. I have, too, this grand hobby in my head of writing 'The Roman Antiquities of Wessex,' which will

"If you will send me some of the manuscript to copy at any time, as you used to, I will do it with so much

pleasure!" she said with amenable gentleness. "I should much like to be some help to you still as

Phillotson mused, and said: "No, I think we ought to be really separate, if we are to be at all. And for this

reason, that I don't wish to ask you any questions, and particularly wish you not to give me information as to

your movements, or even your address.... Now, what money do you want? You must have some, you know."

"Oh, of course, Richard, I couldn't think of having any of your money to go away from you with! I don't want

any either. I have enough of my own to last me for a long while, and Jude will let me have"

"I would rather not know anything about him, if you don't mind. You are free, absolutely; and your course is

"Very well. But I'll just say that I have packed only a change or two of my own personal clothing, and one or

two little things besides that are my very own. I wish you would look into my trunk before it is closed.

"Of course I shall do no such thing as examine your luggage! I wish you would take threequarters of the

household furniture. I don't want to be bothered with it. I have a sort of affection for a little of it that belonged

to my poor mother and father. But the rest you are welcome to whenever you like to send for it."

"I like you much for how you have behaved. It is a curious thing that directly I have begun to regard you as

not my husband, but as my old teacher, I like you. I won't be so affected as to say I love you, because you

Sue was for a few moments a little tearful at these reflections, and then the station omnibus came round to

take her up. Phillotson saw her things put on the top, handed her in, and was obliged to make an appearance

of kissing her as he wished her goodbye, which she quite understood and imitated. From the cheerful

manner in which they parted the omnibusman had no other idea than that she was going for a short visit.

When Phillotson got back into the house he went upstairs and opened the window in the direction the

omnibus had taken. Soon the noise of its wheels died away. He came down then, his face compressed like

that of one bearing pain; he put on his hat and went out, following by the same route for nearly a mile.

He had no sooner entered than the voice of his friend Gillingham greeted him from the front room.

"I could make nobody hear; so finding your door open I walked in, and made myself comfortable. I said I

"She is quite well. She is gonejust gone. That's her teacup, that she drank out of only an hour ago. And

that's the plate she" Phillotson's throat got choked up, and he could not go on. He turned and pushed the

"Yes.... I would have died for her; but I wouldn't be cruel to her in the name of the law. She is, as I

understand, gone to join her lover. What they are going to do I cannot say. Whatever it may be she has my

There was a stability, a ballast, in Phillotson's pronouncement which restrained his friend's comment. "Shall

"No, no. It is a mercy to me that you have come. I have some articles to arrange and clear away. Would you

Gillingham assented; and having gone to the upper rooms the schoolmaster opened drawers, and began taking

out all Sue's things that she had left behind, and laying them in a large box. "She wouldn't take all I wanted

her to," he continued. "But when I made up my mind to her going to live in her own way I did make up my

"I've gone into all that, and don't wish to argue it. I was, and am, the most oldfashioned man in the world on

the question of marriage in fact I had never thought critically about its ethics at all. But certain facts stared

They went on with the packing silently. When it was done Phillotson closed the box and turned the key.

FOURANDTWENTY hours before this time Sue had written the following note to Jude:

It is as I told you; and I am leaving tomorrow evening. Richard and I thought it could be done with less

obtrusiveness after dark. I feel rather frightened, and therefore ask you to be sure you are on the Melchester

platform to meet me. I arrive at a little to seven. I know you will, of course, dear Jude; but I feel so timid that

I can't help begging you to be punctual. He has been so VERY kind to me through it all!

As she was carried by the omnibus farther and farther down from the mountain townthe single passenger

that evening she regarded the receding road with a sad face. But no hesitation was apparent therein.

The uptrain by which she was departing stopped by signal only. To Sue it seemed strange that such a

powerful organization as a railway train should be brought to a standstill on purpose for her a fugitive

The twenty minutes' journey drew towards its close, and Sue began gathering her things together to alight. At

the moment that the train came to a standstill by the Melchester platform a hand was laid on the door and

she beheld Jude. He entered the compartment promptly. He had a black bag in his hand, and was dressed in

the dark suit he wore on Sundays and in the evening after work. Altogether he looked a very handsome young

"Oh Jude!" She clasped his hand with both hers, and her tense state caused her to simmer over in a little

"No. I get in, dear one! I've packed. Besides this bag I've only a big box which is labelled."

"We couldn't possibly, don't you see. We are known hereI, at any rate, am well known. I've booked for

Aldbrickham; and here's your ticket for the same place, as you have only one to here."

"There wasn't time for me to write and say the place I had decided on. Aldbrickham is a much bigger

townsixty or seventy thousand inhabitants and nobody knows anything about us there."

"Yes. It was rather suddenyour message coming unexpectedly. Strictly, I might have been made to finish

out the week. But I pleaded urgency and I was let off. I would have deserted any day at your command, dear

"I fear I am doing you a lot of harm. Ruining your prospects of the Church; ruining your progress in your

"Oh I seem so badupsetting men's courses like this!" said she, taking up in her voice the emotion that had

begun in his. But she recovered her equanimity by the time they had travelled a dozen miles.

"He has been so good in letting me go," she resumed. "And here's a note I found on my dressingtable,

"Yes. He's not an unworthy fellow," said Jude, glancing at the note. "And I am ashamed of myself for hating

"According to the rule of women's whims I suppose I ought to suddenly love him, because he has let me go

so generously and unexpectedly," she answered smiling. "But I am so cold, or devoid of gratitude, or so

something, that even this generosity hasn't made me love him, or repent, or want to stay with him as his wife;

"It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and you had run away against his will," murmured

Jude's eyes rested musingly on her face. Then he suddenly kissed her; and was going to kiss her again.

"That's rather cruel," he answered; but acquiesced. "Such a strange thing has happened to me," Jude

continued after a silence. "Arabella has actually written to ask me to get a divorce from her in kindness to

her, she says. She wants to honestly and legally marry that man she has already married virtually; and begs

"I have agreed. I thought at first I couldn't do it without getting her into trouble about that second marriage,

and I don't want to injure her in any way. Perhaps she's no worse than I am, after all! But nobody knows

about it over here, and I find it will not be a difficult proceeding at all. If she wants to start afresh I have only

"Where are we booked for?" she asked, with the discontinuity that marked her tonight.

"Yes. I thought of that, and I wired for a room for us at the Temperance Hotel there."

She looked at him. "Oh Jude!" Sue bent her forehead against the corner of the compartment. "I thought you

In the pause which followed, Jude's eyes fixed themselves with a stultified expression on the opposite seat.

He remained in silence; and seeing how discomfited he was she put her face against his cheek, murmuring,

"Ohthere's no harm done," he said. "ButI understood it like that.... Is this a sudden change of mind?"

"You have no right to ask me such a question; and I shan't answer!" she said, smiling.

"My dear one, your happiness is more to me than anythingalthough we seem to verge on quarrelling so

often!and your will is law to me. I am something more than a mereselfish fellow, I hope. Have it as you

wish!" On reflection his brow showed perplexity. "But perhaps it is that you don't love menot that you

have become conventional! Much as, under your teaching, I hate convention, I hope it IS that, not the other

Even at this obvious moment for candour Sue could not be quite candid as to the state of that mystery, her

heart. "Put it down to my timidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; "to a woman's natural timidity when

the crisis comes. I may feel as well as you that I have a perfect right to live with you as you thoughtfrom

this moment. I may hold the opinion that, in a proper state of society, the father of a woman's child will be as

much a private matter of hers as the cut of her underlinen, on whom nobody will have any right to question

her. But partly, perhaps, because it is by his generosity that I am now free, I would rather not be other than a

little rigid. If there had been a ropeladder, and he had run after us with pistols, it would have seemed

different, and I may have acted otherwise. But don't press me and criticize me, Jude! Assume that I haven't

the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poor miserable creature. My nature is not so passionate as yours!"

He repeated simply! "I thoughtwhat I naturally thought. But if we are not lovers, we are not. Phillotson

thought so, I am sure. See, here is what he has written to me." He opened the letter she had brought, and read:

"I make only one conditionthat you are tender and kind to her. I know you love her. But even love may be

cruel at times. You are made for each other: it is obvious, palpable, to any unbiased older person. You were

all along 'the shadowy third' in my short life with her. I repeat, take care of Sue."

"He's a good fellow, isn't he!" she said with latent tears. On reconsideration she added, "He was very resigned

to letting me go too resigned almost! I never was so near being in love with him as when he made such

thoughtful arrangements for my being comfortable on my journey, and offering to provide money. Yet I was

"Nor me neither, I halffear!" he said pettishly. "Nor anybody perhaps! Sue, sometimes, when I am vexed

"That's not good and loyal of you!" she said, and drawing away from him as far as she could, looked severely

out into the darkness. She added in hurt tones, without turning round: "My liking for you is not as some

women's perhaps. But it is a delight in being with you, of a supremely delicate kind, and I don't want to go

further and risk it byan attempt to intensify it! I quite realized that, as woman with man, it was a risk to

come. But, as me with you, I resolved to trust you to set my wishes above your gratification. Don't discuss it

"Of course, if it would make you reproach yourself ... but you do like me very much, Sue? Say you do! Say

He leant back, and did not look at her for a long time. That episode in her past history of which she had told

him of the poor Christminster graduate whom she had handled thus, returned to Jude's mind; and he saw

"This is a queer elopement!" he murmured. "Perhaps you are making a cat's paw of me with Phillotson all this

"Now you mustn't be angryI won't let you!" she coaxed, turning and moving nearer to him. "You did kiss

me just now, you know; and I didn't dislike you to, I own it, Jude. Only I don't want to let you do it again, just

He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). And they sat side by side with joined hands,

"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing that message!"

"Very well; there'll be some other one open, no doubt. I have sometimes thought, since your marrying

Phillotson because of a stupid scandal, that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to

"Not mentally. But I haven't the courage of my views, as I said before. I didn't marry him altogether because

of the scandal. But sometimes a woman's LOVE OF BEING LOVED gets the better of her conscience, and

though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she

doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to

"You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to make

"Wellif you will put it brutally!it was a little like that that and the scandal togetherand your

He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms, and soothed her, saying: "There, dear; don't

mind! Crucify me, if you will! You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!"

"I am very bad and unprincipledI know you think that!" she said, trying to blink away her tears.

"I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length nor breadth, nor things present nor things

Though so sophisticated in many things she was such a child in others that this satisfied her, and they reached

the end of their journey on the best of terms. It was about ten o'clock when they arrived at Aldbrickham, the

county town of North Wessex. As she would not go to the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his

telegram, Jude inquired for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeled their luggage to the

George farther on, which proved to be the inn at which Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of

Owing, however, to their now entering it by another door, and to his preoccupation, he did not at first

recognize the place. When they had engaged their respective rooms they went down to a late supper. During

"I think, ma'am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever he is, coming here once beforelate, just

like this, with his wife a lady, at any rate, that wasn't you by no manner of means jest as med be with

"Oh do you?" said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. "Though I think you must be mistaken! How long

When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping and miserable. "Jude," she said to him

plaintively, at their parting that night upon the landing, "it is not so nice and pleasant as it used to be with us!

I don't like it hereI can't bear the place! And I don't like you so well as I did!"

"Dear me, why" said Jude looking round him. "Yesit is the same! I really didn't know it, Sue. Wellit

"The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back to Marygreen together. I told you I had met

"Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn't tell me all. Your story was that you had met as estranged

people, who were not husband and wife at all in Heaven's sightnot that you had made it up with her."

"You've been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall never forget it, never!"

"But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, not lovers! It is so very inconsistent of you

"I don't see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concede everything to you. After all, you were on

"No, I wasn't, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken me in, even if you didn't intend to." She

was so mortified that he was obliged to take her into her room and close the door lest the people should hear.

"Was it this room? Yes it wasI see by your look it was! I won't have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of

"I never knew such an unreasonablesuch a doginthemanger feeling," said Jude. "I am not to approach

"Oh don't you UNDERSTAND my feeling! Why don't you! Why are you so gross! I jumped out of the

It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. But he did a little; and began to love her none

"II thought you cared for nobodydesired nobody in the world but me at that timeand ever since!"

"NoI need notyou don't understand me eitherwomen never do! Why should you get into such a

Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: "If it hadn't been for that, perhaps I would have gone on to

the Temperance Hotel, after all, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong to you!"

"I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife since she left you of her own accord years and

years ago! My sense of it was, that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, ended the

"I can't say more without speaking against her, and I don't want to do that," said he. "Yet I must tell you one

thing, which would settle the matter in any case. She has married another man really married him! I knew

"Married another? ... It is a crimeas the world treats it, but does not believe."

"Therenow you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crimeas you don't hold, but would fearfully concede. But

I shall never inform against her! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has led her to urge me to

get a divorce, that she may remarry this man legally. So you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again."

"And you didn't really know anything of this when you saw her?" said Sue more gently, as she rose.

"I did not. Considering all things, I don't think you ought to be angry, darling!"

He laughed. "Never mind!" he said. "So that I am near you, I am comparatively happy. It is more than this

earthly wretch called Me deservesyou spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet, tantalizing

phantomhardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to pass through

you as through air! Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that our calling cousins when really

strangers was a snare. The enmity of our parents gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even

"Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley's 'Epipsychidion' as if they meant me!" she solicited, slanting up

A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman....

"Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me just once there not very long." She put the tip of her finger

gingerly to her cheek; and he did as commanded. "You do care for me very much, don't you, in spite of my

IN returning to his native town of Shaston as schoolmaster Phillotson had won the interest and awakened the

memories of the inhabitants, who, though they did not honour him for his miscellaneous aquirements as he

would have been honoured elsewhere, retained for him a sincere regard. When, shortly after his arrival, he

brought home a pretty wife awkwardly pretty for him, if he did not take care, they said they were glad

For some time after her flight from that home Sue's absence did not excite comment. Her place as monitor in

the school was taken by another young woman within a few days of her vacating it, which substitution also

passed without remark, Sue's services having been of a provisional nature only. When, however, a month had

passed, and Phillotson casually admitted to an acquaintance that he did not know where his wife was staying,

curiosity began to be aroused; till, jumping to conclusions, people ventured to affirm that Sue had played him

false and run away from him. The schoolmaster's growing languor and listlessness over his work gave

Though Phillotson had held his tongue as long as he could, except to his friend Gillingham, his honesty and

directness would not allow him to do so when misapprehensions as to Sue's conduct spread abroad. On a

Monday morning the chairman of the school committee called, and after attending to the business of the

"You'll excuse my asking, Phillotson, since everybody is talking of it: is this true as to your domestic

affairsthat your wife's going away was on no visit, but a secret elopement with a lover? If so, I condole

"She has gone away under circumstances that usually call for condolence with the husband. But I gave my

"What I say is quite true," Phillotson continued testily. "She asked leave to go away with her lover, and I let

her. Why shouldn't I? A woman of full age, it was a question of her own conscience not for me. I was not

The children observed that much seriousness marked the faces of the two men, and went home and told their

parents that something new had happened about Mrs. Phillotson. Then Phillotson's little maidservant, who

was a schoolgirl just out of her standards, said that Mr. Phillotson had helped in his wife's packing, had

offered her what money she required, and had written a friendly letter to her young man, telling him to take

care of her. The chairman of committee thought the matter over, and talked to the other managers of the

school, till a request came to Phillotson to meet them privately. The meeting lasted a long time, and at the end

the schoolmaster came home, looking as usual pale and worn. Gillingham was sitting in his house awaiting

"Well; it is as you said," observed Phillotson, flinging himself down wearily in a chair. "They have requested

me to send in my resignation on account of my scandalous conduct in giving my tortured wife her

"I won't. It is no business of theirs. It doesn't affect me in my public capacity at all. They may expel me if

"If you make a fuss it will get into the papers, and you'll never get appointed to another school. You see, they

have to consider what you did as done by a teacher of youthand its effects as such upon the morals of the

town; and, to ordinary opinion, your position is indefensible. You must let me say that."

"I don't care," he said. "I don't go unless I am turned out. And for this reason; that by resigning I acknowledge

I have acted wrongly by her; when I am more and more convinced every day that in the sight of Heaven and

Gillingham saw that his rather headstrong friend would not be able to maintain such a position as this; but he

said nothing further, and in due timeindeed, in a quarter of an hour the formal letter of dismissal arrived,

the managers having remained behind to write it after Phillotson's withdrawal. The latter replied that he

should not accept dismissal; and called a public meeting, which he attended, although he looked so weak and

ill that his friend implored him to stay at home. When he stood up to give his reasons for contesting the

decision of the managers he advanced them firmly, as he had done to his friend, and contended, moreover,

that the matter was a domestic theory which did not concern them. This they overruled, insisting that the

private eccentricities of a teacher came quite within their sphere of control, as it touched the morals of those

he taught. Phillotson replied that he did not see how an act of natural charity could injure morals.

All the respectable inhabitants and welltodo fellownatives of the town were against Phillotson to a man.

But, somewhat to his surprise, some dozen or more champions rose up in his defence as from the ground.

It has been stated that Shaston was the anchorage of a curious and interesting group of itinerants, who

frequented the numerous fairs and markets held up and down Wessex during the summer and autumn months.

Although Phillotson had never spoken to one of these gentlemen they now nobly led the forlorn hope in his

defence. The body included two cheap Jacks, a shootinggallery proprietor and the ladies who loaded the

guns, a pair of boxingmasters, a steamroundabout manager, two travelling broommakers, who called

themselves widows, a gingerbreadstall keeper, a swingboat owner, and a "testyourstrength" man.

This generous phalanx of supporters, and a few others of independent judgment, whose own domestic

experiences had been not without vicissitude, came up and warmly shook hands with Phillotson; after which

they expressed their thoughts so strongly to the meeting that issue was joined, the result being a general

scuffle, wherein a black board was split, three panes of the school windows were broken, an inkbottle was

spilled over a towncouncillor's shirt front, a churchwarden was dealt such a topper with the map of Palestine

that his head went right through Samaria, and many black eyes and bleeding noses were given, one of which,

to everybody's horror, was the venerable incumbent's, owing to the zeal of an emancipated chimneysweep,

who took the side of Phillotson's party. When Phillotson saw the blood running down the rector's face he

deplored almost in groans the untoward and degrading circumstances, regretted that he had not resigned when

The farcical yet melancholy event was the beginning of a serious illness for him; and he lay in his lonely bed

in the pathetic state of mind of a middleaged man who perceives at length that his life, intellectual and

domestic, is tending to failure and gloom. Gillingham came to see him in the evenings, and on one occasion

When Gillingham reached home he sat and reflected, and at last wrote an anonymous line to Sue, on the bare

chance of its reaching her, the letter being enclosed in an envelope addressed to Jude at the diocesan capital.

Arriving at that place it was forwarded to Marygreen in North Wessex, and thence to Aldbrickham by the

Three days later, in the evening, when the sun was going down in splendour over the lowlands of Blackmoor,

and making the Shaston windows like tongues of fire to the eyes of the rustics in that vale, the sick man

fancied that he heard somebody come to the house, and a few minutes after there was a tap at the bedroom

door. Phillotson did not speak; the door was hesitatingly opened, and there enteredSue.

She was in light spring clothing, and her advent seemed ghostly like the flitting in of a moth. He turned his

"I have no business here," she said, bending her frightened face to him. "But I heard you were illvery ill;

andand as I know that you recognize other feelings between man and woman than physical love, I have

"I didn't know that; and I am afraid that only a severe illness would have justified my coming!"

"Yes ... yes. And I almost wish you had not come! It is a little too soonthat's all I mean. Still, let us make

"Only that I am going away from here to another place. The managers and I don't agree, and we are going to

Sue did not for a moment, either now or later, suspect what troubles had resulted to him from letting her go; it

never once seemed to cross her mind, and she had received no news whatever from Shaston. They talked on

slight and ephemeral subjects, and when his tea was brought up he told the amazed little servant that a cup

was to be set for Sue. That young person was much more interested in their history than they supposed, and

as she descended the stairs she lifted her eyes and hands in grotesque amazement. While they sipped Sue

went to the window and thoughtfully said, "It is such a beautiful sunset, Richard."

"They are mostly beautiful from here, owing to the rays crossing the mist of the vale. But I lose them all, as

She went to where a swingglass stood, and taking it in her hands carried it to a spot by the window where it

could catch the sunshine, moving the glass till the beams were reflected into Phillotson's face.

"Thereyou can see the great red sun now!" she said. "And I am sure it will cheer youI do so hope it

will!" She spoke with a childlike, repentant kindness, as if she could not do too much for him.

Phillotson smiled sadly. "You are an odd creature!" he murmured as the sun glowed in his eyes. "The idea of

"Don't let us go back upon that!" she said quickly. "I have to catch the omnibus for the train, as Jude doesn't

know I have come; he was out when I started; so I must return home almost directly. Richard, I am so very

glad you are better. You don't hate me, do you? You have been such a kind friend to me!"

"I am glad to know you think so," said Phillotson huskily. "No. I don't hate you!"

It grew dusk quickly in the gloomy room during their intermittent chat, and when candles were brought and it

was time to leave she put her hand in his or rather allowed it to flit through his; for she was significantly light

in touch. She had nearly closed the door when he said, "Sue!" He had noticed that, in turning away from him,

It was bad policy to recall herhe knew it while he pursued it. But he could not help it. She came back.

"Sue," he murmured, "do you wish to make it up, and stay? I'll forgive you and condone everything!"

"Like mine. He is not doing it so much on his own account as on hers. She wrote and told him it would be a

kindness to her, since then she could marry and live respectably. And Jude has agreed."

"A wife.... A kindness to her. Ah, yes; a kindness to her to release her altogether.... But I don't like the sound

"No, no! You can't have me back now I have been so wicked as to do what I have done!"

There had arisen in Sue's face that incipient fright which showed itself whenever he changed from friend to

husband, and which made her adopt any line of defence against marital feeling in him. "I MUST go now. I'll

"I thank you, Richard; but I must. As you are not so ill as I thought, I CANNOT stay!"

"She's hishis from lips to heel!" said Phillotson; but so faintly that in closing the door she did not hear it.

The dread of a reactionary change in the schoolmaster's sentiments, coupled, perhaps, with a faint

shamefacedness at letting even him know what a slipshod lack of thoroughness, from a man's point of view,

characterized her transferred allegiance, prevented her telling him of her, thus far, incomplete relations with

Jude; and Phillotson lay writhing like a man in hell as he pictured the prettily dressed, maddening compound

of sympathy and averseness who bore his name, returning impatiently to the home of her lover.

Gillingham was so interested in Phillotson's affairs, and so seriously concerned about him, that he walked up

the hillside to Shaston two or three times a week, although, there and back, it was a journey of nine miles,

which had to be performed between tea and supper, after a hard day's work in school. When he called on the

next occasion after Sue's visit his friend was downstairs, and Gillingham noticed that his restless mood had

"No.... She just came, patted my pillow with her little white hand, played the thoughtful nurse for half an

"I mean, what a tantalizing, capricious little woman! If she were not your wife"

"She is not; she's another man's except in name and law. And I have been thinkingit was suggested to me

by a conversation I had with herthat, in kindness to her, I ought to dissolve the legal tie altogether; which,

singularly enough, I think I can do, now she has been back, and refused my request to stay after I said I had

forgiven her. I believe that fact would afford me opportunity of doing it, though I did not see it at the

moment. What's the use of keeping her chained on to me if she doesn't belong to me? I knowI feel

absolutely certainthat she would welcome my taking such a step as the greatest charity to her. For though

as a fellowcreature she sympathizes with, and pities me, and even weeps for me, as a husband she cannot

endure me she loathes methere's no use in mincing wordsshe loathes me, and my only manly, and

dignified, and merciful course is to complete what I have begun.... And for worldly reasons, too, it will be

better for her to be independent. I have hopelessly ruined my prospects because of my decision as to what

was best for us, though she does not know it; I see only dire poverty ahead from my feet to the grave; for I

can be accepted as teacher no more. I shall probably have enough to do to make both ends meet during the

remainder of my life, now my occupation's gone; and I shall be better able to bear it alone. I may as well tell

you that what has suggested my letting her go is some news she brought methe news that Fawley is doing

"WellI don't want your opinion on that. What I was going to say is that my liberating her can do her no

possible harm, and will open up a chance of happiness for her which she has never dreamt of hitherto. For

Gillingham did not hurry to reply. "I may disagree with your motive," he said gently, for he respected views

he could not share. "But I think you are right in your determinationif you can carry it out. I doubt,

How Gillingham's doubts were disposed of will most quickly appear by passing over the series of dreary

months and incidents that followed the events of the last chapter, and coming on to a Sunday in the February

Sue and Jude were living in Aldbrickham, in precisely the same relations that they had established between

themselves when she left Shaston to join him the year before. The proceedings in the lawcourts had reached

their consciousness, but as a distant sound and an occasional missive which they hardly understood.

They had met, as usual, to breakfast together in the little house with Jude's name on it, that he had taken at

fifteen pounds a year, with threepoundsten extra for rates and taxes, and furnished with his aunt's ancient

and lumbering goods, which had cost him about their full value to bring all the way from Marygreen. Sue

"That the decree NISI in the case of Phillotson VERSUS Phillotson and Fawley, pronounced six months ago,

The same concluding incident in Jude's suit against Arabella had occurred about a month or two earlier. Both

cases had been too insignificant to be reported in the papers, further than by name in a long list of other

"Now then, Sue, at any rate, you can do what you like!" He looked at his sweetheart curiously.

"Just as freeexcept, I believe, that a clergyman may object personally to remarry you, and hand the job on

"But I wonderdo you think it is really so with us? I know it is generally. But I have an uncomfortable

"Wellif the truth about us had been known, the decree wouldn't have been pronounced. It is only, is it,

because we have made no defence, and have led them into a false supposition? Therefore is my freedom

"Wellwhy did you let it be under false pretences? You have only yourself to blame," he said

"Judedon't! You ought not to be touchy about that still. You must take me as I am."

"Very well, darling: so I will. Perhaps you were right. As to your question, we were not obliged to prove

"One thing is certain, that however the decree may be brought about, a marriage is dissolved when it is

dissolved. There is this advantage in being poor obscure people like us that these things are done for us in

a rough and ready fashion. It was the same with me and Arabella. I was afraid her criminal second marriage

would have been discovered, and she punished; but nobody took any interest in hernobody inquired,

nobody suspected it. If we'd been patented nobilities we should have had infinite trouble, and days and weeks

By degrees Sue acquired her lover's cheerfulness at the sense of freedom, and proposed that they should take

a walk in the fields, even if they had to put up with a cold dinner on account of it. Jude agreed, and Sue went

upstairs and prepared to start, putting on a joyful coloured gown in observance of her liberty; seeing which

"Now we'll strut arm and arm," he said, "like any other engaged couple. We've a legal right to."

They rambled out of the town, and along a path over the lowlying lands that bordered it, though these were

frosty now, and the extensive seedfields were bare of colour and produce. The pair, however, were so

absorbed in their own situation that their surroundings were little in their consciousness.

"Well, my dearest, the result of all this is that we can marry after a decent interval."

"I don't like to say no, dear Jude; but I feel just the same about it now as I have done all along. I have just the

same dread lest an iron contract should extinguish your tenderness for me, and mine for you, as it did

"I know it abundantly. But I think I would much rather go on living always as lovers, as we are living now,

and only meeting by day. It is so much sweeterfor the woman at least, and when she is sure of the man.

And henceforward we needn't be so particular as we have been about appearances."

"Our experiences of matrimony with others have not been encouraging, I own," said he with some gloom;

"either owing to our own dissatisfied, unpractical natures, or by our misfortune. But we two"

"Should be two dissatisfied ones linked together, which would be twice as bad as before.... I think I should

begin to be afraid of you, Jude, the moment you had contracted to cherish me under a Government stamp, and

I was licensed to be loved on the premises by youUgh, how horrible and sordid! Although, as you are,

"No, nodon't say I should change!" he expostulated; yet there was misgiving in his own voice also.

"Apart from ourselves, and our unhappy peculiarities, it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person

when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his

doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract

between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being

given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples

than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having

seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling

"Yes; but admitting this, or something like it, to be true, you are not the only one in the world to see it, dear

little Sue. People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know

perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort. No doubt my father

and mother, and your father and mother, saw it, if they at all resembled us in habits of observation. But then

they went and married just the same, because they had ordinary passions. But you, Sue, are such a

phantasmal, bodiless creature, one who if you'll allow me to say ithas so little animal passion in you,

that you can act upon reason in the matter, when we poor unfortunate wretches of grosser substance can't."

"Well," she sighed, "you've owned that it would probably end in misery for us. And I am not so exceptional a

woman as you think. Fewer women like marriage than you suppose, only they enter into it for the dignity it is

assumed to confer, and the social advantages it gains them sometimesa dignity and an advantage that I am

Jude fell back upon his old complaintthat, intimate as they were, he had never once had from her an

honest, candid declaration that she loved or could love him. "I really fear sometimes that you cannot," he

said, with a dubiousness approaching anger. "And you are so reticent. I know that women are taught by other

women that they must never admit the full truth to a man. But the highest form of affection is based on full

sincerity on both sides. Not being men, these women don't know that in looking back on those he has had

tender relations with, a man's heart returns closest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The better

class of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging and parrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis

attends the woman who plays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt for her that, sooner or

later, her old admirers feel; under which they allow her to go unlamented to her grave."

Sue, who was regarding the distance, had acquired a guilty look; and she suddenly replied in a tragic voice: "I

"Oh, wellyou are not nicetoo sermony. Though I suppose I am so bad and worthless that I deserve the

"No, you are not bad. You are a dear. But as slippery as an eel when I want to get a confession from you."

"Oh yes I am bad, and obstinate, and all sorts! It is no use your pretending I am not! People who are good

don't want scolding as I do.... But now that I have nobody but you, and nobody to defend me, it is very hard

that I mustn't have my own way in deciding how I'll live with you, and whether I'll be married or no!"

"Sue, my own comrade and sweetheart, I don't want to force you either to marry or to do the other thingof

course I don't! It is too wicked of you to be so pettish! Now we won't say any more about it, and go on just

the same as we have done; and during the rest of our walk we'll talk of the meadows only, and the floods, and

After this the subject of marriage was not mentioned by them for several days, though living as they were

with only a landing between them it was constantly in their minds. Sue was assisting Jude very materially

now: he had latterly occupied himself on his own account in working and lettering headstones, which he kept

in a little yard at the back of his little house, where in the intervals of domestic duties she marked out the

letters full size for him, and blacked them in after he had cut them. It was a lower class of handicraft than

were his former performances as a cathedral mason, and his only patrons were the poor people who lived in

his own neighbourhood, and knew what a cheap man this "Jude Fawley: Monumental Mason" (as he called

himself on his front door) was to employ for the simple memorials they required for their dead. But he

seemed more independent than before, and it was the only arrangement under which Sue, who particularly

IT was an evening at the end of the month, and Jude had just returned home from hearing a lecture on ancient

history in the public hall not far off. When he entered, Sue, who had been keeping indoors during his absence,

laid out supper for him. Contrary to custom she did not speak. Jude had taken up some illustrated paper,

"Yes. A woman." Sue's voice quavered as she spoke, and she suddenly sat down from her preparations, laid

her hands in her lap, and looked into the fire. "I don't know whether I did right or not!" she continued. "I said

you were not at home, and when she said she would wait, I said I thought you might not be able to see her."

"Why did you say that, dear? I suppose she wanted a headstone. Was she in mourning?"

"No. She wasn't in mourning, and she didn't want a headstone; and I thought you couldn't see her." Sue

"No. She wouldn't give her name. But I know who she wasI think I do! It was Arabella!"

"Heaven save us! What should Arabella come for? What made you think it was she?"

"Oh, I can hardly tell. But I know it was! I feel perfectly certain it wasby the light in her eyes as she looked

"WellI should not have called Arabella coarse exactly, except in speech, though she may be getting so by

this time under the duties of the public house. She was rather handsome when I knew her."

"I think I heard a quiver in your little mouth. Well, waiving that, as she is nothing to me, and virtuously

"Nonot definite news. But that was why she asked me to release her. She and the man both wanted to lead

"Oh Judeit was, it WAS Arabella!" cried Sue, covering her eyes with her hand. "And I am so miserable! It

seems such an ill omen, whatever she may have come for. You could not possibly see her, could you?"

"I don't really think I could. It would be so very painful to talk to her nowfor her as much as for me.

Sue, whom the least thing upset, could not eat any supper, and when Jude had finished his he prepared to go

to bed. He had no sooner raked out the fire, fastened the doors, and got to the top of the stairs than there came

They listened, and the knocking came again. No servant was kept in the house, and if the summons were to

be responded to one of them would have to do it in person. "I'll open a window," said Jude. "Whoever it is

He accordingly went into his bedroom and lifted the sash. The lonely street of early retiring workpeople was

empty from end to end save of one figurethat of a woman walking up and down by the lamp a few yards

"Is that Mr. Fawley?" came up from the woman, in a voice which was unmistakably Arabella's.

"I beg your pardon, Jude, for disturbing you," said Arabella humbly. "But I called earlierI wanted

particularly to see you tonight, if I could. I am in trouble, and have nobody to help me!"

There was a silence. An inconvenient sympathy seemed to be rising in Jude's breast at the appeal. "But aren't

Arabella hesitated. "No, Jude, I am not," she returned. "He wouldn't, after all. And I am in great difficulty. I

hope to get another situation as barmaid soon. But it takes time, and I really am in great distress because of a

sudden responsibility that's been sprung upon me from Australia; or I wouldn't trouble you believe me I

Sue remained at gaze, in painful tension, hearing every word, but speaking none.

"You are not really in want of money, Arabella?" he asked, in a distinctly softened tone.

"I have enough to pay for the night's lodging I have obtained, but barely enough to take me back again."

"In London still." She was about to give the address, but she said, "I am afraid somebody may hear, so I don't

like to call out particulars of myself so loud. If you could come down and walk a little way with me towards

the Prince Inn, where I am staying tonight, I would explain all. You may as well, for old time's sake!"

"Poor thing! I must do her the kindness of hearing what's the matter, I suppose," said Jude in much

"But you can go and see her tomorrow, Jude! Don't go now, Jude!" came in plaintive accents from the

doorway. "Oh, it is only to entrap you, I know it is, as she did before! Don't go, dear! She is such a

"But I shall go," said Jude. "Don't attempt to detain me, Sue. God knows I love her little enough now, but I

"Oh, but are you going to her? Don't! Stay at home! Please, please stay at home, Jude, and not go to her, now

"Well, she is, rather more than you, come to that," he said, taking his hat determinedly. "I've wanted you to

be, and I've waited with the patience of Job, and I don't see that I've got anything by my selfdenial. I shall

certainly give her something, and hear what it is she is so anxious to tell me; no man could do less!"

There was that in his manner which she knew it would be futile to oppose. She said no more, but, turning to

her room as meekly as a martyr, heard him go downstairs, unbolt the door, and close it behind him. With a

woman's disregard of her dignity when in the presence of nobody but herself, she also trotted down, sobbing

articulately as she went. She listened. She knew exactly how far it was to the inn that Arabella had named as

her lodging. It would occupy about seven minutes to get there at an ordinary walking pace; seven to come

back again. If he did not return in fourteen minutes he would have lingered. She looked at the clock. It was

twentyfive minutes to eleven. He MIGHT enter the inn with Arabella, as they would reach it before closing

time; she might get him to drink with her; and Heaven only knew what disasters would befall him then.

In a still suspense she waited on. It seemed as if the whole time had nearly elapsed when the door was opened

Sue gave a little ecstatic cry. "Oh, I knew I could trust you! how good you are!"she began.

"I can't find her anywhere in this street, and I went out in my slippers only. She has walked on, thinking I've

been so hardhearted as to refuse her requests entirely, poor woman. I've come back for my boots, as it is

"Oh, but why should you take such trouble for a woman who has served you so badly!" said Sue in a jealous

"But, Sue, she's a woman, and I once cared for her; and one can't be a brute in such circumstances."

"She isn't your wife any longer!" exclaimed Sue, passionately excited. "You MUSTN'T go out to find her! It

isn't right! You CAN'T join her, now she's a stranger to you. How can you forget such a thing, my dear, dear

"She seems much the same as everan erring, careless, unreflecting fellowcreature," he said, continuing to

pull on his boots. "What those legal fellows have been playing at in London makes no difference in my real

relations to her. If she was my wife while she was away in Australia with another husband she's my wife

"But she wasn't! That's just what I hold! There's the absurdity! Wellyou'll come straight back, after a

few minutes, won't you, dear? She is too low, too coarse for you to talk to long, Jude, and was always!"

"Perhaps I am coarse too, worse luck! I have the germs of every human infirmity in me, I verily

believethat was why I saw it was so preposterous of me to think of being a curate. I have cured myself of

drunkenness I think; but I never know in what new form a suppressed vice will break out in me! I do love

you, Sue, though I have danced attendance on you so long for such poor returns! All that's best and noblest in

me loves you, and your freedom from everything that's gross has elevated me, and enabled me to do what I

should never have dreamt myself capable of, or any man, a year or two ago. It is all very well to preach about

selfcontrol, and the wickedness of coercing a woman. But I should just like a few virtuous people who have

condemned me in the past, about Arabella and other things, to have been in my tantalizing position with you

through these late weeks! they'd believe, I think, that I have exercised some little restraint in always giving

"WellArabella has appealed to me for help. I must go out and speak to her, Sue, at least!"

"I can't say any more!Oh, if you must, you must!" she said, bursting out into sobs that seemed to tear her

heart. "I have nobody but you, Jude, and you are deserting me! I didn't know you were like thisI can't bear

"Very well thenif I must I must. Since you will have it so, I agree! I will be. Only I didn't mean to! And I

didn't want to marry again, either! ... But, yesI agree, I agree! I do love you. I ought to have known that

She ran across and flung her arms round his neck. "I am not a coldnatured, sexless creature, am I, for

keeping you at such a distance? I am sure you don't think so! Wait and see! I do belong to you, don't I? I give

"Then I'll let her go," said he, embracing Sue softly. "I do feel that it would be unfair to you to see her, and

perhaps unfair to her. She is not like you, my darling, and never was: it is only bare justice to say that. Don't

cry any more. There; and there; and there!" He kissed her on one side, and on the other, and in the middle,

"Now, dear," said Jude gaily at breakfast; "as this is Saturday I mean to call about the banns at once, so as to

get the first publishing done tomorrow, or we shall lose a week. Banns will do? We shall save a pound or

Sue absently agreed to banns. But her mind for the moment was running on something else. A glow had

"I feel I was wickedly selfish last night!" she murmured. "It was sheer unkindness in meor worseto treat

Arabella as I did. I didn't care about her being in trouble, and what she wished to tell you! Perhaps it was

really something she was justified in telling you. That's some more of my badness, I suppose! Love has its

own dark morality when rivalry enters inat least, mine has, if other people's hasn't.... I wonder how she got

"I hope she wasn't shut out, and that she hadn't to walk the streets in the rain. Do you mind my putting on my

waterproof and going to see if she got in? I've been thinking of her all the morning."

"Wellis it necessary? You haven't the least idea how Arabella is able to shift for herself. Still, darling, if

There was no limit to the strange and unnecessary penances which Sue would meekly undertake when in a

contrite mood; and this going to see all sorts of extraordinary persons whose relation to her was precisely of a

kind that would have made other people shun them was her instinct ever, so that the request did not surprise

"And when you come back," he added, "I'll be ready to go about the banns. You'll come with me?"

Sue agreed, and went off under cloak and umbrella letting Jude kiss her freely, and returning his kisses in a

way she had never done before. Times had decidedly changed. "The little bird is caught at last!" she said, a

She walked along the muddy street till she reached the public house mentioned by Arabella, which was not so

very far off. She was informed that Arabella had not yet left, and in doubt how to announce herself so that her

predecessor in Jude's affections would recognize her, she sent up word that a friend from Spring Street had

called, naming the place of Jude's residence. She was asked to step upstairs, and on being shown into a room

found that it was Arabella's bedroom, and that the latter had not yet risen. She halted on the turn of her toe till

Arabella cried from the bed, "Come in and shut the door," which Sue accordingly did.

Arabella lay facing the window, and did not at once turn her head: and Sue was wicked enough, despite her

penitence, to wish for a moment that Jude could behold her forerunner now, with the daylight full upon her.

She may have seemed handsome enough in profile under the lamps, but a frowsiness was apparent this

morning; and the sight of her own fresh charms in the lookingglass made Sue's manner bright, till she

reflected what a meanly sexual emotion this was in her, and hated herself for it.

"I've just looked in to see if you got back comfortably last night, that's all," she said gently. "I was afraid

"Ohhow stupid this is! I thought my visitor wasyour friend your husbandMrs. Fawley, as I

suppose you call yourself?" said Arabella, flinging her head back upon the pillows with a disappointed toss,

"Oh, I thought you might have, even if he's not really yours. Decency is decency, any hour of the

"I don't know what you mean," said Sue stiffly. "He is mine, if you come to that!"

"From your manner when you talked to me at the door. Well, my dear, you've been quick about it, and I

expect my visit last night helped it on haha! But I don't want to get him away from you."

Sue looked out at the rain, and at the dirty toiletcover, and at the detached tail of Arabella's hair hanging on

the lookingglass, just as it had done in Jude's time; and wished she had not come. In the pause there was a

knock at the door, and the chambermaid brought in a telegram for "Mrs. Cartlett."

"I am much obliged to you for your anxiety about me," she said blandly when the maid had gone; "but it is

not necessary you should feel it. My man finds he can't do without me after all, and agrees to stand by the

promise to marry again over here that he has made me all along. See here! This is in answer to one from me."

She held out the telegram for Sue to read, but Sue did not take it. "He asks me to come back. His little corner

public in Lambeth would go to pieces without me, he says. But he isn't going to knock me about when he has

had a drop, any more after we are spliced by English law than before! ... As for you, I should coax Jude to

take me before the parson straight off, and have done with it, if I were in your place. I say it as a friend, my

"Then let him, in Heaven's name. Life with a man is more businesslike after it, and money matters work

better. And then, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, you can get the law to protect you,

which you can't otherwise, unless he halfruns you through with a knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker.

And if he bolts away from youI say it friendly, as woman to woman, for there's never any knowing what a

man med doyou'll have the sticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. I shall marry my man

over again, now he's willing, as there was a little flaw in the first ceremony. In my telegram last night which

this is an answer to, I told him I had almost made it up with Jude; and that frightened him, I expect! Perhaps I

should quite have done it if it hadn't been for you," she said laughing; "and then how different our histories

might have been from today! Never such a tender fool as Jude is if a woman seems in trouble, and coaxes

him a bit! Just as he used to be about birds and things. However, as it happens, it is just as well as if I had

made it up, and I forgive you. And, as I say, I'd advise you to get the business legally done as soon as

"I have told you he is asking me to marry himto make our natural marriage a legal one," said Sue, with yet

"Ah, yesyou are a oneyer too, like myself," said Arabella, eyeing her visitor with humorous criticism.

"And I, too, must up and off!" replied the other, springing out of bed so suddenly that the soft parts of her

person shook. Sue jumped aside in trepidation. "Lord, I am only a woman not a sixfoot sojer! ... Just a

moment, dear," she continued, putting her hand on Sue's arm. "I really did want to consult Jude on a little

matter of business, as I told him. I came about that more than anything else. Would he run up to speak to me

at the station as I am going? You think not. Well, I'll write to him about it. I didn't want to write it, but never

WHEN Sue reached home Jude was awaiting her at the door to take the initial step towards their marriage.

She clasped his arm, and they went along silently together, as true comrades ofttimes do. He saw that she

"Oh JudeI've been talking to her," she said at last. "I wish I hadn't! And yet it is best to be reminded of

"Yes. II can't help liking herjust a little bit! She's not an ungenerous nature; and I am so glad her

difficulties have all suddenly ended." She explained how Arabella had been summoned back, and would be

enabled to retrieve her position. "I was referring to our old question. What Arabella has been saying to me

has made me feel more than ever how hopelessly vulgar an institution legal marriage isa sort of trap to

catch a man I can't bear to think of it. I wish I hadn't promised to let you put up the banns this morning!"

"Oh, don't mind me. Any time will do for me. I thought you might like to get it over quickly, now."

"Indeed, I don't feel any more anxious now than I did before. Perhaps with any other man I might be a little

anxious; but among the very few virtues possessed by your family and mine, dear, I think I may set

staunchness. So I am not a bit frightened about losing you, now I really am yours and you really are mine. In

fact, I am easier in my mind than I was, for my conscience is clear about Richard, who now has a right to his

"Sue, you seem when you are like this to be one of the women of some grand old civilization, whom I used to

read about in my bygone, wasted, classical days, rather than a denizen of a mere Christian country. I almost

expect you to say at these times that you have just been talking to some friend whom you met in the Via

Sacra, about the latest news of Octavia or Livia; or have been listening to Aspasia's eloquence, or have been

watching Praxiteles chiselling away at his latest Venus, while Phryne made complaint that she was tired of

They had now reached the house of the parish clerk. Sue stood back, while her lover went up to the door. His

"Just let us think," she said timidly. "I had such a horrid dream one night! ... And Arabella"

"Oh, she said that when people were tied up you could get the law of a man better if he beat youand how

when couples quarrelled.... Jude, do you think that when you must have me with you by law, we shall be so

happy as we are now? The men and women of our family are very generous when everything depends upon

their goodwill, but they always kick against compulsion. Don't you dread the attitude that insensibly arises

out of legal obligation? Don't you think it is destructive to a passion whose essence is its gratuitousness?"

"Upon my word, love, you are beginning to frighten me, too, with all this foreboding! Well, let's go back and

Her face brightened. "Yesso we will!" said she. And they turned from the clerk's door, Sue taking his arm

Can you keep the bee from ranging, Or the ringdove s neck from changing? No! Nor fetter'd love ...

They thought it over, or postponed thinking. Certainly they postponed action, and seemed to live on in a

dreamy paradise. At the end of a fortnight or three weeks matters remained unadvanced, and no banns were

Whilst they were postponing and postponing thus a letter and a newspaper arrived before breakfast one

morning from Arabella. Seeing the handwriting Jude went up to Sue's room and told her, and as soon as she

was dressed she hastened down. Sue opened the newspaper; Jude the letter. After glancing at the paper she

held across the first page to him with her finger on a paragraph; but he was so absorbed in his letter that he

He looked and read. The paper was one that circulated in South London only, and the marked advertisement

was simply the announcement of a marriage at St. John's Church, Waterloo Road, under the names,

"Well, it is satisfactory," said Sue complacently. "Though, after this, it seems rather low to do likewise, and I

am glad. However, she is provided for now in a way, I suppose, whatever her faults, poor thing. It is nicer

that we are able to think that, than to be uneasy about her. I ought, too, to write to Richard and ask him how

But Jude's attention was still absorbed. Having merely glanced at the announcement he said in a disturbed

DEAR JUDE (I won't be so distant as to call you Mr. Fawley), I send today a newspaper, from which

useful document you will learn that I was married over again to Cartlett last Tuesday. So that business is

settled right and tight at last. But what I write about more particular is that private affair I wanted to speak to

you on when I came down to Aldbrickham. I couldn't very well tell it to your lady friend, and should much

have liked to let you know it by word of mouth, as I could have explained better than by letter. The fact is,

Jude, that, though I have never informed you before, there was a boy born of our marriage, eight months after

I left you, when I was at Sydney, living with my father and mother. All that is easily provable. As I had

separated from you before I thought such a thing was going to happen, and I was over there, and our quarrel

had been sharp, I did not think it convenient to write about the birth. I was then looking out for a good

situation, so my parents took the child, and he has been with them ever since. That was why I did not mention

it when I met you in Christminster, nor at the law proceedings. He is now of an intelligent age, of course, and

my mother and father have lately written to say that, as they have rather a hard struggle over there, and I am

settled comfortably here, they don't see why they should be encumbered with the child any longer, his parents

being alive. I would have him with me here in a moment, but he is not old enough to be of any use in the bar

nor will be for years and years, and naturally Cartlett might think him in the way. They have, however,

packed him off to me in charge of some friends who happened to be coming home, and I must ask you to take

him when he arrives, for I don't know what to do with him. He is lawfully yours, that I solemnly swear. If

anybody says he isn't, call them brimstone liars, for my sake. Whatever I may have done before or afterwards,

I was honest to you from the time we were married till I went away, and I remain, yours,

"It hits me hard!" said he in an undervoice. "It MAY be true! I can't make it out. Certainly, if his birth was

exactly when she says, he's mine. I cannot think why she didn't tell me when I met her at Christminster, and

came on here that evening with her! ... Ah I do remember now that she said something about having a

thing on her mind that she would like me to know, if ever we lived together again."

"The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!" Sue replied, and her eyes filled.

Jude had by this time come to himself. "What a view of life he must have, mine or not mine!" he said. "I must

say that, if I were better off, I should not stop for a moment to think whose he might be. I would take him and

bring him up. The beggarly question of parentage what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come

to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the

children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their

own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like classfeeling, patriotism, saveyourownsoulism,

Sue jumped up and kissed Jude with passionate devotion. "Yesso it is, dearest! And we'll have him here!

And if he isn't yours it makes it all the better. I do hope he isn't though perhaps I ought not to feel quite

that! If he isn't, I should like so much for us to have him as an adopted child!"

"Well, you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you, my curious little comrade!" he said. "I feel

that, anyhow, I don't like to leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect. Just think of his life in a Lambeth

pothouse, and all its evil influences, with a parent who doesn't want him, and has, indeed, hardly seen him,

and a stepfather who doesn't know him. 'Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was

said, There is a man child conceived!' That's what the boymy boy, perhaps, will find himself saying before

"Whether or no, we must have him. I see that. I'll do the best I can to be a mother to him, and we can afford

"Whenever you have it, I think I shall. It remains with you entirely, dear. Only say the word, and it's done."

Jude thereupon wrote in purely formal terms to request that the boy should be sent on to them as soon as he

arrived, making no remark whatever on the surprising nature of Arabella's information, nor vouchsafing a

single word of opinion on the boy's paternity, nor on whether, had he known all this, his conduct towards her

In the downtrain that was timed to reach Aldbrickham station about ten o'clock the next evening, a small,

pale child's face could be seen in the gloom of a thirdclass carriage. He had large, frightened eyes, and wore

a white woollen cravat, over which a key was suspended round his neck by a piece of common string: the key

attracting attention by its occasional shine in the lamplight. In the band of his hat his halfticket was stuck.

His eyes remained mostly fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even when a

station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a working

woman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover now and

then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these the

fellowpassengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the kitten with

his saucer eyes, seemed mutely to say: "All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightly looked at there is

Occasionally at a stoppage the guard would look into the compartment and say to the boy, "All right, my

man. Your box is safe in the van." The boy would say, "Yes," without animation, would try to smile, and fail.

He was Age masquerading as Juvenility, and doing it so badly that his real self showed through crevices. A

groundswell from ancient years of night seemed now and then to lift the child in this his morninglife, when

his face took a back view over some great Atlantic of Time, and appeared not to care about what it saw.

When the other travellers closed their eyes, which they did one by one even the kitten curling itself up in

the basket, weary of its too circumscribed playthe boy remained just as before. He then seemed to be

doubly awake, like an enslaved and dwarfed divinity, sitting passive and regarding his companions as if he

This was Arabella's boy. With her usual carelessness she had postponed writing to Jude about him till the eve

of his landing, when she could absolutely postpone no longer, though she had known for weeks of his

approaching arrival, and had, as she truly said, visited Aldbrickham mainly to reveal the boy's existence and

his near homecoming to Jude. This very day on which she had received her former husband's answer at

some time in the afternoon, the child reached the London Docks, and the family in whose charge he had

come, having put him into a cab for Lambeth and directed the cabman to his mother's house, bade him

On his arrival at the Three Horns, Arabella had looked him over with an expression that was as good as

saying, "You are very much what I expected you to be," had given him a good meal, a little money, and, late

as it was getting, dispatched him to Jude by the next train, wishing her husband Cartlett, who was out, not to

The train reached Aldbrickham, and the boy was deposited on the lonely platform beside his box. The

collector took his ticket and, with a meditative sense of the unfitness of things, asked him where he was going

"Why, that's a long way from here; a'most out in the country; and the folks will be gone to bed."

"Oh well: you'd better leave your box here and send for it. There's a 'bus goes halfway, but you'll have to

Saying nothing further the boy came out into the street, looking round to see that nobody followed or

observed him. When he had walked some little distance he asked for the street of his destination. He was told

The child fell into a steady mechanical creep which had in it an impersonal qualitythe movement of the

wave, or of the breeze, or of the cloud. He followed his directions literally, without an inquiring gaze at

anything. It could have been seen that the boy's ideas of life were different from those of the local boys.

Children begin with detail, and learn up to the general; they begin with the contiguous, and gradually

comprehend the universal. The boy seemed to have begun with the generals of life, and never to have

concerned himself with the particulars. To him the houses, the willows, the obscure fields beyond, were

apparently regarded not as brick residences, pollards, meadows; but as human dwellings in the abstract,

He found the way to the little lane, and knocked at the door of Jude's house. Jude had just retired to bed, and

Sue was about to enter her chamber adjoining when she heard the knock and came down.

Sue ran up to Jude's room and told him, and he hurried down as soon as he could, though to her impatience he

She scrutinized the child's features, and suddenly went away into the little sittingroom adjoining. Jude lifted

the boy to a level with himself, keenly regarded him with gloomy tenderness, and telling him he would have

been met if they had known of his coming so soon, set him provisionally in a chair whilst he went to look for

Sue, whose supersensitiveness was disturbed, as he knew. He found her in the dark, bending over an

armchair. He enclosed her with his arm, and putting his face by hers, whispered, "What's the matter?"

"But the other half of him isSHE! And that's what I can't bear! But I ought toI'll try to get used to it; yes,

"Jealous little Sue! I withdraw all remarks about your sexlessness. Never mind! Time may right things.... And

Sue, darling; I have an idea! We'll educate and train him with a view to the university. What I couldn't

accomplish in my own person perhaps I can carry out through him? They are making it easier for poor

"Oh you dreamer!" said she, and holding his hand returned to the child with him. The boy looked at her as

Then a yearning look came over the child and he began to cry. Sue thereupon could not refrain from instantly

doing likewise, being a harp which the least wind of emotion from another's heart could make to vibrate as

"You may call me Mother, if you wish to, my poor dear!" she said, bending her cheek against his to hide her

They bustled about and got him some supper, and made him up a temporary bed, where he soon fell asleep.

"He called you Mother two or three times before he dropped off," murmured Jude. "Wasn't it odd that he

"Wellit was significant," said Sue. "There's more for us to think about in that one little hungry heart than in

all the stars of the sky.... I suppose, dear, we must pluck up courage, and get that ceremony over? It is no use

struggling against the current, and I feel myself getting intertwined with my kind. Oh Jude, you'll love me

dearly, won't you, afterwards! I do want to be kind to this child, and to be a mother to him; and our adding the

THEIR next and second attempt thereat was more deliberately made, though it was begun on the morning

Him they found to be in the habit of sitting silent, his quaint and weird face set, and his eyes resting on things

"His face is like the tragic mask of Melpomene," said Sue. "What is your name, dear? Did you tell us?"

"Little Father Time is what they always called me. It is a nickname; because I look so aged, they say."

"And you talk so, too," said Sue tenderly. "It is strange, Jude, that these preternaturally old boys almost

"Because, if I died in damnation, 'twould save the expense of a Christian funeral."

"We'll have him christened," said Jude; and privately to Sue: "The day we are married." Yet the advent of the

Their position lent them shyness, and having an impression that a marriage at a superintendent registrar's

office was more private than an ecclesiastical one, they decided to avoid a church this time. Both Sue and

Jude together went to the office of the district to give notice: they had become such companions that they

Jude Fawley signed the form of notice, Sue looking over his shoulder and watching his hand as it traced the

words. As she read the foursquare undertaking, never before seen by her, into which her own and Jude's

names were inserted, and by which that very volatile essence, their love for each other, was supposed to be

made permanent, her face seemed to grow painfully apprehensive. "Names and Surnames of the

Parties"(they were to be parties now, not lovers, she thought). "Condition"(a horrid idea)"Rank or

Occupation""Age""Dwelling at""Length of Residence""Church or Building in which the Marriage

is to be solemnized" "District and County in which the Parties respectively dwell."

"It spoils the sentiment, doesn't it!" she said on their way home. "It seems making a more sordid business of it

even than signing the contract in a vestry. There is a little poetry in a church. But we'll try to get through with

"We will. 'For what man is he that hath betrothed a wife and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto

his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.' So said the Jewish lawgiver."

"How you know the Scriptures, Jude! You really ought to have been a parson. I can only quote profane

During the interval before the issuing of the certificate Sue, in her housekeeping errands, sometimes walked

past the office, and furtively glancing in saw affixed to the wall the notice of the purposed clinch to their

union. She could not bear its aspect. Coming after her previous experience of matrimony, all the romance of

their attachment seemed to be starved away by placing her present case in the same category. She was usually

leading little Father Time by the hand, and fancied that people thought him hers, and regarded the intended

Meanwhile Jude decided to link his present with his past in some slight degree by inviting to the wedding the

only person remaining on earth who was associated with his early life at Marygreen the aged widow Mrs.

Edlin, who had been his greataunt's friend and nurse in her last illness. He hardly expected that she would

come; but she did, bringing singular presents, in the form of apples, jam, brass snuffers, an ancient pewter

dish, a warmingpan, and an enormous bag of goose feathers towards a bed. She was allotted the spare room

in Jude's house, whither she retired early, and where they could hear her through the ceiling below, honestly

As, however, she could not sleep, and discovered that Sue and Jude were still sitting upit being in fact only

ten o'clock she dressed herself again and came down, and they all sat by the fire till a late hourFather

"Well, I bain't set against marrying as your greataunt was," said the widow. "And I hope 'twill be a jocund

wedding for ye in all respects this time. Nobody can hope it more, knowing what I do of your families, which

is more, I suppose, than anybody else now living. For they have been unlucky that way, God knows."

"They was always goodhearted people, toowouldn't kill a fly if they knowed it," continued the wedding

guest. "But things happened to thwart 'em, and if everything wasn't vitty they were upset. No doubt that's how

he that the tale is told of came to do what 'a did if he WERE one of your family."

"Wellthat tale, ye know; he that was gibbeted just on the brow of the hill by the Brown Housenot far

from the milestone between Marygreen and Alfredston, where the other road branches off. But Lord, 'twas in

"I know where the gibbet is said to have stood, very well," murmured Jude. "But I never heard of this.

"'Twer not that exactly. She ran away from him, with their child, to her friends; and while she was there the

child died. He wanted the body, to bury it where his people lay, but she wouldn't give it up. Her husband then

came in the night with a cart, and broke into the house to steal the coffin away; but he was catched, and being

obstinate, wouldn't tell what he broke in for. They brought it in burglary, and that's why he was hanged and

gibbeted on Brown House Hill. His wife went mad after he was dead. But it medn't be true that he belonged

A small slow voice rose from the shade of the fireside, as if out of the earth: "If I was you, Mother, I wouldn't

marry Father!" It came from little Time, and they started, for they had forgotten him.

After this exhilarating tradition from the widow on the eve of the solemnization they rose, and, wishing their

The next morning Sue, whose nervousness intensified with the hours, took Jude privately into the

sittingroom before starting. "Jude, I want you to kiss me, as a lover, incorporeally," she said, tremulously

nestling up to him, with damp lashes. "It won't be ever like this any more, will it! I wish we hadn't begun the

business. But I suppose we must go on. How horrid that story was last night! It spoilt my thoughts of today.

It makes me feel as if a tragic doom overhung our family, as it did the house of Atreus."

"Yes. And it seems awful temerity in us two to go marrying! I am going to vow to you in the same words I

vowed in to my other husband, and you to me in the same as you used to your other wife; regardless of the

"If you are uneasy I am made unhappy," said he. "I had hoped you would feel quite joyful. But if you don't,

you don't. It is no use pretending. It is a dismal business to you, and that makes it so to me!"

"It is unpleasantly like that other morningthat's all," she murmured. "Let us go on now."

They started arm in arm for the office aforesaid, no witness accompanying them except the Widow Edlin.

The day was chilly and dull, and a clammy fog blew through the town from "Royaltower'd Thame." On the

steps of the office there were the muddy footmarks of people who had entered, and in the entry were damp

umbrellas Within the office several persons were gathered, and our couple perceived that a marriage between

a soldier and a young woman was just in progress. Sue, Jude, and the widow stood in the background while

this was going on, Sue reading the notices of marriage on the wall. The room was a dreary place to two of

their temperament, though to its usual frequenters it doubtless seemed ordinary enough. Lawbooks in musty

calf covered one wall, and elsewhere were postoffice directories, and other books of reference. Papers in

packets tied with red tape were pigeonholed around, and some iron safes filled a recess, while the bare wood

The soldier was sullen and reluctant: the bride sad and timid; she was soon, obviously, to become a mother,

and she had a black eye. Their little business was soon done, and the twain and their friends straggled out,

one of the witnesses saying casually to Jude and Sue in passing, as if he had known them before: "See the

couple just come in? Ha, ha! That fellow is just out of gaol this morning. She met him at the gaol gates, and

Sue turned her head and saw an illfavoured man, closely cropped, with a broadfaced, pockmarked

woman on his arm, ruddy with liquor and the satisfaction of being on the brink of a gratified desire. They

jocosely saluted the outgoing couple, and went forward in front of Jude and Sue, whose diffidence was

increasing. The latter drew back and turned to her lover, her mouth shaping itself like that of a child about to

"JudeI don't like it here! I wish we hadn't come! The place gives me the horrors: it seems so unnatural as

the climax of our love! I wish it had been at church, if it had to be at all. It is not so vulgar there!"

He spoke to the clerk, and came back. "Nowe need not marry here or anywhere, unless we like, even

now," he said. "We can be married in a church, if not with the same certificate with another he'll give us, I

think. Anyhow, let us go out till you are calmer, dear, and I too, and talk it over."

They went out stealthily and guiltily, as if they had committed a misdemeanour, closing the door without

noise, and telling the widow, who had remained in the entry, to go home and await them; that they would call

in any casual passers as witnesses, if necessary. When in the street they turned into an unfrequented side alley

where they walked up and down as they had done long ago in the markethouse at Melchester.

"Now, darling, what shall we do? We are making a mess of it, it strikes me. Still, ANYTHING that pleases

"Well, to tell the truth, when I got inside I felt as if I didn't care much about it. The place depressed me

almost as much as it did you it was ugly. And then I thought of what you had said this morning as to

They walked on vaguely, till she paused, and her little voice began anew: "It seems so weak, too, to vacillate

like this! And yet how much better than to act rashly a second time.... How terrible that scene was to me! The

expression in that flabby woman's face, leading her on to give herself to that gaolbird, not for a few hours,

as she would, but for a lifetime, as she must. And the other poor soulto escape a nominal shame which was

owing to the weakness of her character, degrading herself to the real shame of bondage to a tyrant who

scorned hera man whom to avoid for ever was her only chance of salvation.... This is our parish church,

isn't it? This is where it would have to be, if we did it in the usual way? A service or something seems to be

Jude went up and looked in at the door. "Whyit is a wedding here too," he said. "Everybody seems to be on

Sue said she supposed it was because Lent was just over, when there was always a crowd of marriages. "Let

They stepped in, and entered a back seat, and watched the proceedings at the altar. The contracting couple

appeared to belong to the welltodo middle class, and the wedding altogether was of ordinary prettiness and

interest. They could see the flowers tremble in the bride's hand, even at that distance, and could hear her

mechanical murmur of words whose meaning her brain seemed to gather not at all under the pressure of her

selfconsciousness. Sue and Jude listened, and severally saw themselves in time past going through the same

"It is not the same to her, poor thing, as it would be to me doing it over again with my present knowledge,"

Sue whispered. "You see, they are fresh to it, and take the proceedings as a matter of course. But having been

awakened to its awful solemnity as we have, or at least as I have, by experience, and to my own too

squeamish feelings perhaps sometimes, it really does seem immoral in me to go and undertake the same thing

again with open eyes. Coming in here and seeing this has frightened me from a church wedding as much as

the other did from a registry one.... We are a weak, tremulous pair, Jude, and what others may feel confident

in I feel doubts ofmy being proof against the sordid conditions of a business contract again!"

Then they tried to laugh, and went on debating in whispers the objectlesson before them. And Jude said he

also thought they were both too thinskinnedthat they ought never to have been born much less have

come together for the most preposterous of all joint ventures for THEMmatrimony.

His betrothed shuddered; and asked him earnestly if he indeed felt that they ought not to go in cold blood and

sign that lifeundertaking again?" It is awful if you think we have found ourselves not strong enough for it,

"I fancy I do think itsince you ask me," said Jude. "Remember I'll do it if you wish, own darling." While

she hesitated he went on to confess that, though he thought they ought to be able to do it, he felt checked by

the dread of incompetency just as she did from their peculiarities, perhaps, because they were unlike other

people. "We are horribly sensitive; that's really what's the matter with us, Sue!" he declared.

"Well, I don't know. The intention of the contract is good, and right for many, no doubt; but in our case it

may defeat its own ends because we are the queer sort of people we are folk in whom domestic ties of a

Sue still held that there was not much queer or exceptional in them: that all were so. "Everybody is getting to

feel as we do. We are a little beforehand, that's all. In fifty, a hundred, years the descendants of these two will

act and feel worse than we. They will see weltering humanity still more vividly than we do now, as

"What a terrible line of poetry! ... though I have felt it myself about my fellowcreatures, at morbid times."

"Wellthe general question is not our business, and why should we plague ourselves about it? However

different our reasons are we come to the same conclusion; that for us particular two, an irrevocable oath is

risky. Then, Jude, let us go home without killing our dream! Yes? How good you are, my friend: you give

He gave her a little kiss behind a pillar while the attention of everybody present was taken up in observing the

bridal procession entering the vestry; and then they came outside the building. By the door they waited till

two or three carriages, which had gone away for a while, returned, and the new husband and wife came into

"The flowers in the bride's hand are sadly like the garland which decked the heifers of sacrifice in old times!"

"Still, Sue, it is no worse for the woman than for the man. That's what some women fail to see, and instead of

protesting against the conditions they protest against the man, the other victim; just as a woman in a crowd

will abuse the man who crushes against her, when he is only the helpless transmitter of the pressure put upon

"Yessome are like that, instead of uniting with the man against the common enemy, coercion." The bride

and bridegroom had by this time driven off, and the two moved away with the rest of the idlers. "Nodon't

They reached home, and passing the window arm in arm saw the widow looking out at them. "Well," cried

their guest when they entered, "I said to myself when I zeed ye coming so loving up to the door, 'They made

"Whatand ha'n't ye really done it? Chok' it all, that I should have lived to see a good old saying like 'marry

in haste and repent at leisure' spoiled like this by you two! 'Tis time I got back again to Marygreen sakes if

tiddenif this is what the new notions be leading us to! Nobody thought o' being afeard o' matrimony in my

time, nor of much else but a cannonball or empty cupboard! Why when I and my poor man were married

"Don't tell the child when he comes in," whispered Sue nervously. "He'll think it has all gone on right, and it

will be better that he should not be surprised and puzzled. Of course it is only put off for reconsideration. If

THE purpose of a chronicler of moods and deeds does not require him to express his personal views upon the

grave controversy above given. That the twain were happybetween their times of sadnesswas

indubitable. And when the unexpected apparition of Jude's child in the house had shown itself to be no such

disturbing event as it had looked, but one that brought into their lives a new and tender interest of an

To be sure, with such pleasing anxious beings as they were, the boy's coming also brought with it much

thought for the future, particularly as he seemed at present to be singularly deficient in all the usual hopes of

childhood. But the pair tried to dismiss, for a while at least, a too strenuously forward view.

There is in Upper Wessex an old town of nine or ten thousand souls; the town may be called StokeBarehills.

It stands with its gaunt, unattractive, ancient church, and its new red brick suburb, amid the open,

chalksoiled cornlands, near the middle of an imaginary triangle which has for its three corners the towns of

Aldbrickham and Wintoncester, and the important military station of Quartershot. The great western highway

from London passes through it, near a point where the road branches into two, merely to unite again some

twenty miles further westward. Out of this bifurcation and reunion there used to arise among wheeled

travellers, before railway days, endless questions of choice between the respective ways. But the question is

now as dead as the scotandlot freeholder, the road waggoner, and the mail coachman who disputed it; and

probably not a single inhabitant of StokeBarehills is now even aware that the two roads which part in his

town ever meet again; for nobody now drives up and down the great western highway dally.

The most familiar object in StokeBarehills nowadays is its cemetery, standing among some picturesque

mediaeval ruins beside the railway; the modern chapels, modern tombs, and modern shrubs having a look of

On a certain day, however, in the particular year which has now been reached by this narrativethe month

being early June the features of the town excite little interest, though many visitors arrive by the trains;

some downtrains, in especial, nearly emptying themselves here. It is the week of the Great Wessex

Agricultural Show, whose vast encampment spreads over the open outskirts of the town like the tents of an

investing army. Rows of marquees, huts, booths, pavilions, arcades, porticoes every kind of structure short

of a permanent onecover the green field for the space of a square halfmile, and the crowds of arrivals

walk through the town in a mass, and make straight for the exhibition ground. The way thereto is lined with

shows, stalls, and hawkers on foot, who make a marketplace of the whole roadway to the show proper, and

lead some of the improvident to lighten their pockets appreciably before they reach the gates of the exhibition

It is the popular day, the shilling day, and of the fast arriving excursion trains two from different directions

enter the two contiguous railway stations at almost the same minute. One, like several which have preceded

it, comes from London: the other by a crossline from Aldbrickham; and from the London train alights a

couple; a short, rather bloated man, with a globular stomach and small legs, resembling a top on two pegs,

accompanied by a woman of rather fine figure and rather red face, dressed in black material, and covered

They cast their eyes around. The man was about to hire a fly as some others had done, when the woman said,

"Don't be in such a hurry, Cartlett. It isn't so very far to the showyard. Let us walk down the street into the

place. Perhaps I can pick up a cheap bit of furniture or old china. It is years since I was here never since I

lived as a girl at Aldbrickham, and used to come across for a trip sometimes with my young man."

"You can't carry home furniture by excursion train," said, in a thick voice, her husband, the landlord of The

Three Horns, Lambeth; for they had both come down from the tavern in that "excellent, densely populated,

gindrinking neighbourhood," which they had occupied ever since the advertisement in those words had

attracted them thither. The configuration of the landlord showed that he, too, like his customers, was

They sauntered on, but had barely entered the town when her attention was attracted by a young couple

leading a child, who had come out from the second platform, into which the train from Aldbrickham had

"Oh, well. I suppose he was inclined for a little sightseeing like the rest of us." Cartlett's interest in Jude

whatever it might have been when Arabella was new to him, had plainly flagged since her charms and her

idiosyncrasies, her supernumerary haircoils, and her optional dimples, were becoming as a tale that is told.

Arabella so regulated her pace and her husband's as to keep just in the rear of the other three, which it was

easy to do without notice in such a stream of pedestrians. Her answers to Cartlett's remarks were vague and

slight, for the group in front interested her more than all the rest of the spectacle.

"They are rather fond of one another and of their child, seemingly," continued the publican.

"THEIR child! 'Tisn't their child," said Arabella with a curious, sudden covetousness. "They haven't been

But although the smouldering maternal instinct was strong enough in her to lead her to quash her husband's

conjecture, she was not disposed on second thoughts to be more candid than necessary. Mr. Cartlett had no

other idea than that his wife's child by her first husband was with his grandparents at the Antipodes.

"They are only lovers, or lately married, and have the child in charge, as anybody can see."

All continued to move ahead. The unwitting Sue and Jude, the couple in question, had determined to make

this agricultural exhibition within twenty miles of their own town the occasion of a day's excursion which

should combine exercise and amusement with instruction, at small expense. Not regardful of themselves

alone, they had taken care to bring Father Time, to try every means of making him kindle and laugh like other

boys, though he was to some extent a hindrance to the delightfully unreserved intercourse in their pilgrimages

which they so much enjoyed. But they soon ceased to consider him an observer, and went along with that

tender attention to each other which the shyest can scarcely disguise, and which these, among entire strangers

as they imagined, took less trouble to disguise than they might have done at home. Sue, in her new summer

clothes, flexible and light as a bird, her little thumb stuck up by the stem of her white cotton sunshade, went

along as if she hardly touched ground, and as if a moderately strong puff of wind would float her over the

hedge into the next field. Jude, in his light grey holidaysuit, was really proud of her companionship, not

more for her external attractiveness than for her sympathetic words and ways. That complete mutual

understanding, in which every glance and movement was as effectual as speech for conveying intelligence

The pair with their charge passed through the turnstiles, Arabella and her husband not far behind them. When

inside the enclosure the publican's wife could see that the two ahead began to take trouble with the youngster,

pointing out and explaining the many objects of interest, alive and dead; and a passing sadness would touch

"How she sticks to him!" said Arabella. "Oh noI fancy they are not married, or they wouldn't be so much

"I heard he was going tothat's all, going to make another attempt, after putting it off once or twice.... As far

as they themselves are concerned they are the only two in the show. I should be ashamed of making myself so

"I don't see as how there's anything remarkable in their behaviour. I should never have noticed their being in

"You never see anything," she rejoined. Nevertheless Cartlett's view of the lovers' or married pair's conduct

was undoubtedly that of the general crowd, whose attention seemed to be in no way attracted by what

"He's charmed by her as if she were some fairy!" continued Arabella. "See how he looks round at her, and

lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don't care for him quite so much as he does for her.

She's not a particular warmhearted creature to my thinking, though she cares for him pretty middling

muchas much as she's able to; and he could make her heart ache a bit if he liked to try which he's too

simple to do. Therenow they are going across to the carthorse sheds. Come along."

"I don't want to see the carthorses. It is no business of ours to follow these two. If we have come to see the

"Wellsuppose we agree to meet somewhere in an hour's time say at that refreshment tent over there, and

Cartlett was not loath to agree to this, and they parted he proceeding to the shed where malting processes

were being exhibited, and Arabella in the direction taken by Jude and Sue. Before, however, she had regained

their wake a laughing face met her own, and she was confronted by Anny, the friend of her girlhood.

Anny had burst out in hearty laughter at the mere fact of the chance encounter. "I am still living down there,"

she said, as soon as she was composed. "I am soon going to be married, but my intended couldn't come up

here today. But there's lots of us come by excursion, though I've lost the rest of 'em for the present."

"Have you met Jude and his young woman, or wife, or whatever she is? I saw 'em by now."

"Yesnothing to complain of; or jump at. Not much to depend on, though; a slim, fidgety little thing like

"Well, and what woman don't I should like to know? As for that body with himshe don't know what love

"I'm sure I don't wish to! ... Ahthey are making for the art department. I should like to see some pictures

myself. Suppose we go that way?Why, if all Wessex isn't here, I verily believe! There's Dr. Vilbert.

Haven't seen him for years, and he's not looking a day older than when I used to know him. How do you do,

Physician? I was just saying that you don't look a day older than when you knew me as a girl."

"Simply the result of taking my own pills regular, ma'am. Only two and threepence a boxwarranted

efficacious by the Government stamp. Now let me advise you to purchase the same immunity from the

The physician had produced a box from his waistcoat pocket, and Arabella was induced to make the

"At the same time," continued he, when the pills were paid for, "you have the advantage of me, Mrs.Surely

"Ahyou lost him, then? Promising young fellow! A pupil of mine, you know. I taught him the dead

"I lost him; but not as you think," said Arabella dryly "The lawyers untied us. There he is, look, alive and

"Yes. So her husband thought, no doubt, when he divorced her.... Shall we look at the pictures, too?"

The trio followed across the green and entered. Jude and Sue, with the child, unaware of the interest they

were exciting, had gone up to a model at one end of the building, which they regarded with considerable

attention for a long while before they went on. Arabella and her friends came to it in due course, and the

inscription it bore was: "Model of Cardinal College, Christminster; by J. Fawley and S. F. M. Bridehead."

"Admiring their own work," said Arabella. "How like Jude always thinking of colleges and Christminster,

They glanced cursorily at the pictures, and proceeded to the bandstand. When they had stood a little while

listening to the music of the military performers, Jude, Sue, and the child came up on the other side. Arabella

did not care if they should recognize her; but they were too deeply absorbed in their own lives, as translated

into emotion by the military band, to perceive her under her beaded veil. She walked round the outside of the

listening throng, passing behind the lovers, whose movements had an unexpected fascination for her today.

Scrutinizing them narrowly from the rear she noticed that Jude's hand sought Sue's as they stood, the two

standing close together so as to conceal, as they supposed, this tacit expression of their mutual

"Silly foolslike two children!" Arabella whispered to herself morosely, as she rejoined her companions,

Anny meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Vilbert on Arabella's hankering interest in her first husband.

"Now," said the physician to Arabella, apart; "do you want anything such as this, Mrs. Cartlett? It is not

compounded out of my regular pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes asked for such a thing." He produced a

small phial of clear liquid. "A lovephiltre, such as was used by the ancients with great effect. I found it out

"Wella distillation of the juices of doves' heartsotherwise pigeons' is one of the ingredients. It took

"To tell a secret, I get a piece of rocksalt, of which pigeons are inordinately fond, and place it in a dovecot

on my roof. In a few hours the birds come to it from all points of the compass east, west, north, and

southand thus I secure as many as I require. You use the liquid by contriving that the desired man shall

take about ten drops of it in his drink. But remember, all this is told you because I gather from your questions

"Very wellI don't mind a bottleto give some friend or other to try it on her young man." She produced

five shillings, the price asked, and slipped the phial in her capacious bosom. Saying presently that she was

due at an appointment with her husband she sauntered away towards the refreshment bar, Jude, his

companion, and the child having gone on to the horticultural tent, where Arabella caught a glimpse of them

She waited a few minutes observing them, and then proceeded to join her spouse with no very amiable

sentiments. She found him seated on a stool by the bar, talking to one of the gaily dressed maids who had

"I should think you had enough of this business at home!" Arabella remarked gloomily. "Surely you didn't

come fifty miles from your own bar to stick in another? Come, take me round the show, as other men do their

wives! Dammy, one would think you were a young bachelor, with nobody to look after but yourself!"

"Well, now we have met, come along," she returned, ready to quarrel with the sun for shining on her. And

they left the tent together, this potbellied man and florid woman, in the antipathetic, recriminatory mood of

In the meantime the more exceptional couple and the boy still lingered in the pavilion of flowersan

enchanted palace to their appreciative tasteSue's usually pale cheeks reflecting the pink of the tinted roses

at which she gazed; for the gay sights, the air, the music, and the excitement of a day's outing with Jude had

quickened her blood and made her eyes sparkle with vivacity. She adored roses, and what Arabella had

witnessed was Sue detaining Jude almost against his will while she learnt the names of this variety and that,

"I should like to push my face quite into themthe dears!" she had said. "But I suppose it is against the rules

"Yes, you baby," said he: and then playfully gave her a little push, so that her nose went among the petals.

"Why? Because you have come to the great Wessex Agricultural Show or because we have come?"

"You are always trying to make me confess to all sorts of absurdities. Because I am improving my mind, of

course, by seeing all these steamploughs, and threshingmachines, and chaffcutters, and cows, and pigs,

Jude was quite content with a baffle from his ever evasive companion. But when he had forgotten that he had

put the question, and because he no longer wished for an answer, she went on: "I feel that we have returned to

Greek joyousness, and have blinded ourselves to sickness and sorrow, and have forgotten what twentyfive

centuries have taught the race since their time, as one of your Christminster luminaries says.... There is one

immediate shadow, howeveronly one." And she looked at the aged child, whom, though they had taken

him to everything likely to attract a young intelligence, they had utterly failed to interest.

He knew what they were saying and thinking. "I am very, very sorry, Father and Mother," he said. "But

please don't mind!I can't help it. I should like the flowers very very much, if I didn't keep on thinking

THE unnoticed lives that the pair had hitherto led began, from the day of the suspended wedding onwards, to

be observed and discussed by other persons than Arabella. The society of Spring Street and the

neighbourhood generally did not understand, and probably could not have been made to understand, Sue and

Jude's private minds, emotions, positions, and fears. The curious facts of a child coming to them

unexpectedly, who called Jude "Father," and Sue "Mother," and a hitch in a marriage ceremony intended for

quietness to be performed at a registrar's office, together with rumours of the undefended cases in the

Little Timefor though he was formally turned into "Jude," the apt nickname stuck to himwould come

home from school in the evening, and repeat inquiries and remarks that had been made to him by the other

boys; and cause Sue, and Jude when he heard them, a great deal of pain and sadness.

The result was that shortly after the attempt at the registrar's the pair went offto London it was

believedfor several days, hiring somebody to look to the boy. When they came back they let it be

understood indirectly, and with total indifference and weariness of mien, that they were legally married at

last. Sue, who had previously been called Mrs. Bridehead now openly adopted the name of Mrs. Fawley. Her

But the mistake (as it was called) of their going away so secretly to do the business, kept up much of the

mystery of their lives; and they found that they made not such advances with their neighbours as they had

expected to do thereby. A living mystery was not much less interesting than a dead scandal.

The baker's lad and the grocer's boy, who at first had used to lift their hats gallantly to Sue when they came to

execute their errands, in these days no longer took the trouble to render her that homage, and the

neighbouring artizans' wives looked straight along the pavement when they encountered her.

Nobody molested them, it is true; but an oppressive atmosphere began to encircle their souls, particularly

after their excursion to the show, as if that visit had brought some evil influence to bear on them. And their

temperaments were precisely of a kind to suffer from this atmosphere, and to be indisposed to lighten it by

vigorous and open statements. Their apparent attempt at reparation had come too late to be effective.

The headstone and epitaph orders fell off: and two or three months later, when autumn came, Jude perceived

that he would have to return to journeywork again, a course all the more unfortunate just now, in that he had

not as yet cleared off the debt he had unavoidably incurred in the payment of the lawcosts of the previous

One evening he sat down to share the common meal with Sue and the child as usual. "I am thinking," he said

to her, "that I'll hold on here no longer. The life suits us, certainly; but if we could get away to a place where

we are unknown, we should be lighter hearted, and have a better chance. And so I am afraid we must break it

Sue was always much affected at a picture of herself as an object of pity, and she saddened.

"WellI am not sorry," said she presently. "I am much depressed by the way they look at me here. And you

have been keeping on this house and furniture entirely for me and the boy! You don't want it yourself, and the

expense is unnecessary. But whatever we do, wherever we go, you won't take him away from me, Jude dear?

I could not let him go now! The cloud upon his young mind makes him so pathetic to me; I do hope to lift it

"Certainly I won't, dear little girl! We'll get nice lodgings, wherever we go. I shall be moving about

"I shall do something too, of course, tilltill Well, now I can't be useful in the lettering it behoves me to turn

"Don't hurry about getting employment," he said regretfully. "I don't want you to do that. I wish you

There was a knock at the door, and Jude answered it. Sue could hear the conversation:

"Is Mr. Fawley at home? ... Biles and Willis the building contractors sent me to know if you'll undertake the

relettering of the ten commandments in a little church they've been restoring lately in the country near here."

"It is not a very artistic job," continued the messenger. "The clergyman is a very oldfashioned chap, and he

has refused to let anything more be done to the church than cleaning and repairing."

"Excellent old man!" said Sue to herself, who was sentimentally opposed to the horrors of overrestoration.

"The Ten Commandments are fixed to the east end," the messenger went on, "and they want doing up with

the rest of the wall there, since he won't have them carted off as old materials belonging to the contractor in

A bargain as to terms was struck, and Jude came indoors. "There, you see," he said cheerfully. "One more job

yet, at any rate, and you can help in itat least you can try. We shall have all the church to ourselves, as the

Next day Jude went out to the church, which was only two miles off. He found that what the contractor's

clerk had said was true. The tables of the Jewish law towered sternly over the utensils of Christian grace, as

the chief ornament of the chancel end, in the fine dry style of the last century. And as their framework was

constructed of ornamental plaster they could not be taken down for repair. A portion, crumbled by damp,

required renewal; and when this had been done, and the whole cleansed, he began to renew the lettering. On

the second morning Sue came to see what assistance she could render, and also because they liked to be

The silence and emptiness of the building gave her confidence, and, standing on a safe low platform erected

by Jude, which she was nevertheless timid at mounting, she began painting in the letters of the first Table

while he set about mending a portion of the second. She was quite pleased at her powers; she had acquired

them in the days she painted illumined texts for the churchfitting shop at Christminster. Nobody seemed

likely to disturb them; and the pleasant twitter of birds, and rustle of October leafage, came in through an

They were not, however, to be left thus snug and peaceful for long. About halfpast twelve there came

footsteps on the gravel without. The old vicar and his churchwarden entered, and, coming up to see what was

being done, seemed surprised to discover that a young woman was assisting. They passed on into an aisle, at

which time the door again opened, and another figure entered a small one, that of little Time, who was

crying. Sue had told him where he might find her between schoolhours, if he wished. She came down from

"I couldn't stay to eat my dinner in school, because they said" He described how some boys had taunted

him about his nominal mother, and Sue, grieved, expressed her indignation to Jude aloft. The child went into

the churchyard, and Sue returned to her work. Meanwhile the door had opened again, and there shuffled in

with a businesslike air the whiteaproned woman who cleaned the church. Sue recognized her as one who

had friends in Spring Street, whom she visited. The churchcleaner looked at Sue, gaped, and lifted her

hands; she had evidently recognized Jude's companion as the latter had recognized her. Next came two ladies,

and after talking to the charwoman they also moved forward, and as Sue stood reaching upward, watched her

hand tracing the letters, and critically regarded her person in relief against the white wall, till she grew so

They went back to where the others were standing, talking in undertones: and one saidSue could not hear

"A strange pair to be painting the Two Tables! I wonder Biles and Willis could think of such a thing as hiring

The churchwarden supposed that Biles and Willis knew of nothing wrong, and then the other, who had been

talking to the old woman, explained what she meant by calling them strange people.

The probable drift of the subdued conversation which followed was made plain by the churchwarden

breaking into an anecdote, in a voice that everybody in the church could hear, though obviously suggested by

"Well, now, it is a curious thing, but my grandfather told me a strange tale of a most immoral case that

happened at the painting of the Commandments in a church out by Gaymeadwhich is quite within a walk

of this one. In them days Commandments were mostly done in gilt letters on a black ground, and that's how

they were out where I say, before the owld church was rebuilded. It must have been somewhere about a

hundred years ago that them Commandments wanted doing up just as ours do here, and they had to get men

from Aldbrickham to do 'em. Now they wished to get the job finished by a particular Sunday, so the men had

to work late Saturday night, against their will, for overtime was not paid then as 'tis now. There was no true

religion in the country at that date, neither among pa'sons, clerks, nor people, and to keep the men up to their

work the vicar had to let 'em have plenty of drink during the afternoon. As evening drawed on they sent for

some more themselves; rum, by all account. It got later and later, and they got more and more fuddled, till at

last they went aputting their rumbottle and rummers upon the communion table, and drawed up a trestle or

two, and sate round comfortable and poured out again right hearty bumpers. No sooner had they tossed off

their glasses than, so the story goes they fell down senseless, one and all. How long they bode so they didn't

know, but when they came to themselves there was a terrible thunderstorm araging, and they seemed to

see in the gloom a dark figure with very thin legs and a curious voot, astanding on the ladder, and finishing

their work. When it got daylight they could see that the work was really finished, and couldn't at all mind

finishing it themselves. They went home, and the next thing they heard was that a great scandal had been

caused in the church that Sunday morning, for when the people came and service began, all saw that the Ten

Commandments wez painted with the "nots" left out. Decent people wouldn't attend service there for a long

time, and the Bishop had to be sent for to reconsecrate the church. That's the tradition as I used to hear it as a

child. You must take it for what it is wo'th, but this case today has reminded me o't, as I say."

The visitors gave one more glance, as if to see whether Jude and Sue had left the "nots" out likewise, and then

severally left the church, even the old woman at last. Sue and Jude, who had not stopped working, sent back

the child to school, and remained without speaking; till, looking at her narrowly, he found she had been

"I can't BEAR that they, and everybody, should think people wicked because they may have chosen to live

their own way! It is really these opinions that make the best intentioned people reckless, and actually become

"Ah, but we suggested it! I am afraid I have done you mischief, Jude, instead of helping you by coming!"

To have suggested such a story was certainly not very exhilarating, in a serious view of their position.

However, in a few minutes Sue seemed to see that their position this morning had a ludicrous side, and

"It is droll, after all," she said, "that we two, of all people, with our queer history, should happen to be here

painting the Ten Commandments! You a reprobate, and Iin my condition.... O dear!" ... And with her hand

over her eyes she laughed again silently and intermittently, till she was quite weak.

"That's better," said Jude gaily. "Now we are right again, aren't we, little girl!"

"Oh but it is serious, all the same!" she sighed as she took up the brush and righted herself. "But do you see

"I don't care whether they think so or not," said Jude. "I shan't take any more trouble to make them."

They sat down to lunchwhich they had brought with them not to hinder time and having eaten it were

about to set to work anew when a man entered the church, and Jude recognized in him the contractor Willis.

"HereI've just had a complaint about this," he said, with rather breathless awkwardness. "I don't wish to go

into the matter as of course I didn't know what was going onbut I am afraid I must ask you and her to

leave off, and let somebody else finish this! It is best, to avoid all unpleasantness. I'll pay you for the week,

Jude was too independent to make any fuss; and the contractor paid him, and left. Jude picked up his tools,

"How could we be so simple as to suppose we might do this!" said she, dropping to her tragic note. "Of

"I had no idea that anybody was going to intrude into such a lonely place and see us!" Jude returned. "Well, it

can't be helped, dear; and of course I wouldn't wish to injure Willis's tradeconnection by staying." They sat

down passively for a few minutes, proceeded out of the church, and overtaking the boy pursued their

Fawley had still a pretty zeal in the cause of education, and, as was natural with his experiences, he was

active in furthering "equality of opportunity" by any humble means open to him. He had joined an Artizans'

Mutual Improvement Society established in the town about the time of his arrival there; its members being

young men of all creeds and denominations, including Churchmen, Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians,

Positivists, and others agnostics had scarcely been heard of at this timetheir one common wish to

enlarge their minds forming a sufficiently close bond of union. The subscription was small, and the room

homely; and Jude's activity, uncustomary acquirements, and above all, singular intuition on what to read and

how to set about it begotten of his years of struggle against malignant starshad led to his being placed

A few evenings after his dismissal from the church repairs, and before he had obtained any more work to do,

he went to attend a meeting of the aforesaid committee. It was late when he arrived: all the others had come,

and as he entered they looked dubiously at him, and hardly uttered a word of greeting. He guessed that

something bearing on himself had been either discussed or mooted. Some ordinary business was transacted,

and it was disclosed that the number of subscriptions had shown a sudden falling off for that quarter. One

membera really wellmeaning and upright manbegan speaking in enigmas about certain possible

causes: that it behoved them to look well into their constitution; for if the committee were not respected, and

had not at least, in their differences, a common standard of CONDUCT, they would bring the institution to

the ground. Nothing further was said in Jude's presence, but he knew what this meant; and turning to the table

Thus the supersensitive couple were more and more impelled to go away. And then bills were sent in, and the

question arose, what could Jude do with his greataunt's heavy old furniture, if he left the town to travel he

knew not whither? This, and the necessity of ready money, compelled him to decide on an auction, much as

The day of the sale came on; and Sue for the last time cooked her own, the child's, and Jude's breakfast in the

little house he had furnished. It chanced to be a wet day; moreover Sue was unwell, and not wishing to desert

her poor Jude in such gloomy circumstances, for he was compelled to stay awhile, she acted on the

suggestion of the auctioneer's man, and ensconced herself in an upper room, which could be emptied of its

effects, and so kept closed to the bidders. Here Jude discovered her; and with the child, and their few trunks,

baskets, and bundles, and two chairs and a table that were not in the sale, the two sat in meditative talk.

Footsteps began stamping up and down the bare stairs, the comers inspecting the goods, some of which were

of so quaint and ancient a make as to acquire an adventitious value as art. Their door was tried once or twice,

and to guard themselves against intrusion Jude wrote "Private" on a scrap of paper, and stuck it upon the

They soon found that, instead of the furniture, their own personal histories and past conduct began to be

discussed to an unexpected and intolerable extent by the intending bidders. It was not till now that they really

discovered what a fools' paradise of supposed unrecognition they had been living in of late. Sue silently took

her companion's hand, and with eyes on each other they heard these passing remarksthe quaint and

mysterious personality of Father Time being a subject which formed a large ingredient in the hints and

innuendoes. At length the auction began in the room below, whence they could hear each familiar article

knocked down, the highly prized ones cheaply, the unconsidered at an unexpected price.

"People don't understand us," he sighed heavily. "I am glad we have decided to go."

"But in the country I shall always be uneasy lest there should be some more of our late experience. And I

don't care to lessen it by explaining, for one thing, all about the boy's history. To cut him off from his past I

have determined to keep silence. I am sickened of ecclesiastical work now; and I shouldn't like to accept it, if

"You ought to have learnt classic. Gothic is barbaric art, after all. Pugin was wrong, and Wren was right.

Remember the interior of Christminster Cathedralalmost the first place in which we looked in each other's

faces. Under the picturesqueness of those Norman details one can see the grotesque childishness of uncouth

people trying to imitate the vanished Roman forms, remembered by dim tradition only."

"Yesyou have halfconverted me to that view by what you have said before. But one can work, and

"I wish we could both follow an occupation in which personal circumstances don't count," she said, smiling

up wistfully. "I am as disqualified for teaching as you are for ecclesiastical art. You must fall back upon

railway stations, bridges, theatres, musichalls, hotelseverything that has no connection with conduct."

"I am not skilled in those.... I ought to take to breadbaking. I grew up in the baking business with aunt, you

"Unless he keeps a cake and gingerbread stall at markets and fairs, where people are gloriously indifferent to

Their thoughts were diverted by the voice of the auctioneer: "Now this antique oak settlea unique example

"That was my greatgrandfather's," said Jude. "I wish we could have kept the poor old thing!"

One by one the articles went, and the afternoon passed away. Jude and the other two were getting tired and

hungry, but after the conversation they had heard they were shy of going out while the purchasers were in

their line of retreat. However, the later lots drew on, and it became necessary to emerge into the rain soon, to

"Now the next lot: two pairs of pigeons, all alive and plump a nice pie for somebody for next Sunday's

The impending sale of these birds had been the most trying suspense of the whole afternoon. They were Sue's

pets, and when it was found that they could not possibly be kept, more sadness was caused than by parting

from all the furniture. Sue tried to think away her tears as she heard the trifling sum that her dears were

deemed to be worth advanced by small stages to the price at which they were finally knocked down. The

purchaser was a neighbouring poulterer, and they were unquestionably doomed to die before the next market

Noting her dissembled distress Jude kissed her, and said it was time to go and see if the lodgings were ready.

When she was left alone she waited patiently, but Jude did not come back. At last she started, the coast being

clear, and on passing the poulterer's shop, not far off, she saw her pigeons in a hamper by the door. An

emotion at sight of them, assisted by the growing dusk of evening, caused her to act on impulse, and first

looking around her quickly, she pulled out the peg which fastened down the cover, and went on. The cover

was lifted from within, and the pigeons flew away with a clatter that brought the chagrined poulterer cursing

Sue reached the lodging trembling, and found Jude and the boy making it comfortable for her. "Do the buyers

"Because, then, I've done such a wicked thing!" And she explained, in bitter contrition.

"I shall have to pay the poulterer for them, if he doesn't catch them," said Jude. "But never mind. Don't fret

"Well, they must take their chance, now, poor things," said Jude. "As soon as the saleaccount is wound up,

"We must sail under sealed orders, that nobody may trace us.... We mustn't go to Alfredston, or to

Melchester, or to Shaston, or to Christminster. Apart from those we may go anywhere."

"Because of a cloud that has gathered over us; though 'we have wronged no man, corrupted no man,

defrauded no man!' Though perhaps we have 'done that which was right in our own eyes.'"

Whither they had gone nobody knew, chiefly because nobody cared to know. Any one sufficiently curious to

trace the steps of such an obscure pair might have discovered without great trouble that they had taken

advantage of his adaptive craftsmanship to enter on a shifting, almost nomadic, life, which was not without

Wherever Jude heard of freestone work to be done, thither he went, choosing by preference places remote

from his old haunts and Sue's. He laboured at a job, long or briefly, till it was finished; and then moved on.

Two whole years and a half passed thus. Sometimes he might have been found shaping the mullions of a

country mansion, sometimes setting the parapet of a townhall, sometimes ashlaring an hotel at Sandbourne,

sometimes a museum at Casterbridge, sometimes as far down as Exonbury, sometimes at StokeBarehills.

Later still he was at Kennetbridge, a thriving town not more than a dozen miles south of Marygreen, this

being his nearest approach to the village where he was known; for he had a sensitive dread of being

questioned as to his life and fortunes by those who had been acquainted with him during his ardent young

manhood of study and promise, and his brief and unhappy married life at that time.

At some of these places he would be detained for months, at others only a few weeks. His curious and sudden

antipathy to ecclesiastical work, both episcopal and noncomformist, which had risen in him when suffering

under a smarting sense of misconception, remained with him in cold blood, less from any fear of renewed

censure than from an ultraconscientiousness which would not allow him to seek a living out of those who

would disapprove of his ways; also, too, from a sense of inconsistency between his former dogmas and his

present practice, hardly a shred of the beliefs with which he had first gone up to Christminster now remaining

with him. He was mentally approaching the position which Sue had occupied when he first met her.

On a Saturday evening in May, nearly three years after Arabella's recognition of Sue and himself at the

It was the spring fair at Kennetbridge, and, though this ancient trademeeting had much dwindled from its

dimensions of former times, the long straight street of the borough presented a lively scene about midday. At

this hour a light trap, among other vehicles, was driven into the town by the north road, and up to the door of

a temperance inn. There alighted two women, one the driver, an ordinary country person, the other a finely

built figure in the deep mourning of a widow. Her sombre suit, of pronounced cut, caused her to appear a

"I will just find out where it is, Anny," said the widowlady to her companion, when the horse and cart had

been taken by a man who came forward: "and then I'll come back, and meet you here; and we'll go in and

"With all my heart," said the other. "Though I would sooner have put up at the Chequers or The Jack. You

"Now, don't you give way to gluttonous desires, my child," said the woman in weeds reprovingly. "This is the

proper place. Very well: we'll meet in half an hour, unless you come with me to find out where the site of the

The companions then went their several ways, the one in crape walking firmly along with a mien of

disconnection from her miscellaneous surroundings. Making inquiries she came to a hoarding, within which

were excavations denoting the foundations of a building; and on the boards without one or two large posters

announcing that the foundationstone of the chapel about to be erected would be laid that afternoon at three

Having ascertained thus much the immensely weeded widow retraced her steps, and gave herself leisure to

observe the movements of the fair. By and by her attention was arrested by a little stall of cakes and

gingerbreads, standing between the more pretentious erections of trestles and canvas. It was covered with an

immaculate cloth, and tended by a young woman apparently unused to the business, she being accompanied

"Upon mysenses!" murmured the widow to herself. "His wife Sue if she is so!" She drew nearer to the

"How are you, Mrs. Cartlett?" she said stiffly. And then perceiving Arabella's garb her voice grew

"My poor husband. Yes. He died suddenly, six weeks ago, leaving me none too well off, though he was a

kind husband to me. But whatever profit there is in publichouse keeping goes to them that brew the liquors,

and not to them that retail 'em.... And you, my little old man! You don't know me, I expect?"

"Yes, I do. You be the woman I thought wer my mother for a bit, till I found you wasn't," replied Father

"Juey," said Sue suddenly, "go down to the station platform with this traythere's another train coming in, I

When he was gone Arabella continued: "He'll never be a beauty, will he, poor chap! Does he know I am his

"No. He thinks there is some mystery about his parentagethat's all. Jude is going to tell him when he is a

"It is only a temporary occupationa fancy of ours while we are in a difficulty."

Sue writhed under the hard and direct questioning, and her tender little mouth began to quiver.

"LordI mean goodness graciouswhat is there to cry about? Some folks would be proud enough!"

"It is not that I am ashamednot as you think! But it seems such a terribly tragic thing to bring beings into

"Take it easy, my dear.... But you don't tell me why you do such a thing as this? Jude used to be a proud sort

"Perhaps my husband has altered a little since then. I am sure he is not proud now!" And Sue's lips quivered

again. "I am doing this because he caught a chill early in the year while putting up some stonework of a

musichall, at Quartershot, which he had to do in the rain, the work having to be executed by a fixed day. He

is better than he was; but it has been a long, weary time! We have had an old widow friend with us to help us

"Well, I am respectable too, thank God, and of a serious way of thinking since my loss. Why did you choose

"That's a pure accident. He was brought up to the baking business, and it occurred to him to try his hand at

these, which he can make without coming out of doors. We call them Christminster cakes. They are a great

"I never saw any like 'em. Why, they are windows and towers, and pinnacles! And upon my word they are

very nice." She had helped herself, and was unceremoniously munching one of the cakes.

"Yes. They are reminiscences of the Christminster Colleges. Traceried windows, and cloisters, you see. It

"Still harping on Christminstereven in his cakes!" laughed Arabella. "Just like Jude. A ruling passion.

"Of course Christminster is a sort of fixed vision with him, which I suppose he'll never be cured of believing

in. He still thinks it a great centre of high and fearless thought, instead of what it is, a nest of commonplace

Arabella was quizzing Sue with more regard of how she was speaking than of what she was saying. "How

odd to hear a woman selling cakes talk like that!" she said. "Why don't you go back to schoolkeeping?"

"That and other things. And there is no reason to wish it. We gave up all ambition, and were never so happy

"Very wellthough I halffeel as if I should like to have him with me! ... But Lord, I don't want to take him

from 'eeever I should sin to speak so profanethough I should think you must have enough of your own!

He's in very good hands, that I know; and I am not the woman to find fault with what the Lord has ordained.

"You should try," replied the widow, from the serene heights of a soul conscious not only of spiritual but of

social superiority. "I make no boast of my awakening, but I'm not what I was. After Cartlett's death I was

passing the chapel in the street next ours, and went into it for shelter from a shower of rain. I felt a need of

some sort of support under my loss, and, as 'twas righter than gin, I took to going there regular, and found it a

great comfort. But I've left London now, you know, and at present I am living at Alfredston, with my friend

Anny, to be near my own old country. I'm not come here to the fair today. There's to be the

foundationstone of a new chapel laid this afternoon by a popular London preacher, and I drove over with

IN the afternoon Sue and the other people bustling about Kennetbridge fair could hear singing inside the

placarded hoarding farther down the street. Those who peeped through the opening saw a crowd of persons in

broadcloth, with hymnbooks in their hands, standing round the excavations for the new chapelwalls.

Arabella Cartlett and her weeds stood among them. She had a clear, powerful voice, which could be distinctly

heard with the rest, rising and falling to the tune, her inflated bosom being also seen doing likewise.

It was two hours later on the same day that Anny and Mrs. Cartlett, having had tea at the Temperance Hotel,

started on their return journey across the high and open country which stretches between Kennetbridge and

Alfredston. Arabella was in a thoughtful mood; but her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Anny at first

"Noit is something else," at last said Arabella sullenly. "I came here today never thinking of anybody but

poor Cartlett, or of anything but spreading the Gospel by means of this new tabernacle they've begun this

afternoon. But something has happened to turn my mind another way quite. Anny, I've heard of un again, and

"I've heard of Jude, and I've seen his wife. And ever since, do what I will, and though I sung the hymns wi' all

my strength, I have not been able to help thinking about 'n; which I've no right to do as a chapel member."

"Can't ye fix your mind upon what was said by the London preacher today, and try to get rid of your

"WellI know what it is to have a wanton mind o' my own, too! If you on'y knew what I do dream

sometimes o' nights quite against my wishes, you'd say I had my struggles!" (Anny, too, had grown rather

"You could take a lock of your latelost husband's hair, and have it made into a mourning brooch, and look at

"I haven't a morsel!and if I had 'twould be no good.... After all that's said about the comforts of this

"You must fight valiant against the feeling, since he's another's. And I've heard that another good thing for it,

when it afflicts volupshious widows, is to go to your husband's grave in the dusk of evening, and stand a long

They drove in silence along the straight road till they were within the horizon of Marygreen, which lay not far

to the left of their route. They came to the junction of the highway and the crosslane leading to that village,

whose churchtower could be seen athwart the hollow. When they got yet farther on, and were passing the

lonely house in which Arabella and Jude had lived during the first months of their marriage, and where the

"He's more mine than hers!" she burst out. "What right has she to him, I should like to know! I'd take him

"Be damned if I do! Feelings are feelings! I won't be a creeping hypocrite any longerso there!"

Arabella had hastily drawn from her pocket a bundle of tracts which she had brought with her to distribute at

the fair, and of which she had given away several. As she spoke she flung the whole remainder of the packet

into the hedge "I've tried that sort o' physic and have failed wi' it. I must be as I was born!"

"Hush! You be excited, dear! Now you come along home quiet, and have a cup of tea, and don't let us talk

about un no more. We won't come out this road again, as it leads to where he is, because it inflames 'ee so.

Arabella did calm herself down by degrees; and they crossed the Ridgeway. When they began to descend

the long, straight hill, they saw plodding along in front of them an elderly man of spare stature and thoughtful

gait. In his hand he carried a basket; and there was a touch of slovenliness in his attire, together with that

indefinable something in his whole appearance which suggested one who was his own housekeeper,

purveyor, confidant, and friend, through possessing nobody else at all in the world to act in those capacities

for him. The remainder of the journey was downhill, and guessing him to be going to Alfredston they

Arabella looked at him, and looked again, till at length she spoke. "If I don't mistake I am talking to Mr.

The wayfarer faced round and regarded her in turn. "Yes; my name is Phillotson," he said. "But I don't

"I remember you well enough when you used to be schoolmaster out at Marygreen, and I one of your

scholars. I used to walk up there from Cresscombe every day, because we had only a mistress down at our

place, and you taught better. But you wouldn't remember me as I should you? Arabella Donn."

He shook his head. "No," he said politely, "I don't recall the name. And I should hardly recognize in your

"Well, I always had plenty of flesh on my bones. However, I am staying down here with some friends at

"Jude Fawleyalso a scholar of yoursat least a night scholar for some little time I think? And known to

"Dear me, dear me," said Phillotson, starting out of his stiffness. "You Fawley's wife? To be surehe had a

"Wellhe med have been right in doing itright for both; for I soon married again, and all went pretty

"No," said Phillotson, with sudden testiness. "I would rather not talk of this, butI am convinced I did only

what was right, and just, and moral. I have suffered for my act and opinions, but I hold to them; though her

"I don't care to talk of it. I have recently come back here to Marygreen. I mean."

The pressure of a sadness that would out unsealed him. "I am there," he replied. "Just as formerly, no. Merely

on sufferance. It was a last resourcea small thing to return to after my move upwards, and my long

indulged hopes a returning to zero, with all its humiliations. But it is a refuge. I like the seclusion of the

place, and the vicar having known me before my socalled eccentric conduct towards my wife had ruined my

reputation as a schoolmaster, he accepted my services when all other schools were closed against me.

However, although I take fifty pounds a year here after taking above two hundred elsewhere, I prefer it to

running the risk of having my old domestic experiences raked up against me, as I should do if I tried to make

"I met her by accident at Kennetbridge this very day, and she is anything but thriving. Her husband is ill, and

she anxious. You made a fool of a mistake about her, I tell 'ee again, and the harm you did yourself by dirting

"That was because they didn't care to. She was quite innocent of what obtained you your freedom, at the time

you obtained it. I saw her just afterwards, and proved it to myself completely by talking to her."

Phillotson grasped the edge of the springcart, and appeared to be much stressed and worried by the

"Yes. But you shouldn't have let her. That's the only way with these fanciful women that chaw

highinnocent or guilty. She'd have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it! It's all the same in the

end! However, I think she's fond of her man stillwhatever he med be of her. You were too quick about her.

I shouldn't have let her go! I should have kept her chained on her spirit for kicking would have been broke

soon enough! There's nothing like bondage and a stonedeaf taskmaster for taming us women. Besides,

you've got the laws on your side. Moses knew. Don't you call to mind what he says?"

"Call yourself a schoolmaster! I used to think o't when they read it in church, and I was carrying on a bit.

'Then shall the man be guiltless; but the woman shall bear her iniquity.' Damn rough on us women; but we

"Yes," said Phillotson, with biting sadness. "Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't

They had now reached the low levels bordering Alfredston, and passing through the outskirts approached a

mill, to which Phillotson said his errand led him; whereupon they drew up, and he alighted, bidding them

In the meantime Sue, though remarkably successful in her cakeselling experiment at Kennetbridge fair, had

lost the temporary brightness which had begun to sit upon her sadness on account of that success. When all

her "Christminster" cakes had been disposed of she took upon her arm the empty basket, and the cloth which

had covered the standing she had hired, and giving the other things to the boy left the street with him. They

followed a lane to a distance of half a mile, till they met an old woman carrying a child in short clothes, and

"Still better!" returned Mrs. Edlin cheerfully. "Before you are upstairs again your husband will be well

They turned, and came to some old, duntiled cottages with gardens and fruittrees. Into one of these they

entered by lifting the latch without knocking, and were at once in the general livingroom. Here they greeted

Jude, who was sitting in an armchair, the increased delicacy of his normally delicate features, and the

childishly expectant look in his eyes, being alone sufficient to show that he had been passing through a severe

"Whatyou have sold them all?" he said, a gleam of interest lighting up his face.

"Yes. Arcades, gables, east windows and all." She told him the pecuniary results, and then hesitated. At last,

when they were left alone, she informed him of the unexpected meeting with Arabella, and the latter's

Jude's countenance remained clouded. "I thought I had better tell you?" she continued, kissing him anxiously.

"Yes.... Dear me! Arabella not in the depths of London, but down here! It is only a little over a dozen miles

She told him all she knew. "She has taken to chapelgoing," Sue added; "and talks accordingly."

"Well," said Jude, "perhaps it is for the best that we have almost decided to move on. I feel much better

today, and shall be well enough to leave in a week or two. Then Mrs. Edlin can go home again dear

Then Jude confessed what was in his mind. He said it would surprise her, perhaps, after his having resolutely

avoided all the old places for so long. But one thing and another had made him think a great deal of

Christminster lately, and, if she didn't mind, he would like to go back there. Why should they care if they

were known? It was oversensitive of them to mind so much. They could go on selling cakes there, for that

matter, if he couldn't work. He had no sense of shame at mere poverty; and perhaps he would be as strong as

"Why should you care so much for Christminster?" she said pensively. "Christminster cares nothing for you,

"Well, I do, I can't help it. I love the placealthough I know how it hates all men like methe socalled

selftaught,how it scorns our laboured acquisitions, when it should be the first to respect them; how it

sneers at our false quantities and mispronunciations, when it should say, I see you want help, my poor friend!

... Nevertheless, it is the centre of the universe to me, because of my early dream: and nothing can alter it.

Perhaps it will soon wake up, and be generous. I pray so! ... I should like to go back to live there perhaps

to die there! In two or three weeks I might, I think. It will then be June, and I should like to be there by a

His hope that he was recovering proved so far well grounded that in three weeks they had arrived in the city

of many memories; were actually treading its pavements, receiving the reflection of the sunshine from its

ON their arrival the station was lively with strawhatted young men, welcoming young girls who bore a

remarkable family likeness to their welcomers, and who were dressed up in the brightest and lightest of

"The place seems gay," said Sue. "Whyit is Remembrance Day! Judehow sly of youyou came

"Yes," said Jude quietly, as he took charge of the small child, and told Arabella's boy to keep close to them,

Sue attending to their own eldest. "I thought we might as well come today as on any other."

"But I am afraid it will depress you!" she said, looking anxiously at him up and down.

"Oh, I mustn't let it interfere with our business; and we have a good deal to do before we shall be settled here.

Having left their luggage and his tools at the station they proceeded on foot up the familiar street, the holiday

people all drifting in the same direction. Reaching the Fourways they were about to turn off to where

accommodation was likely to be found when, looking at the clock and the hurrying crowd, Jude said: "Let us

go and see the procession, and never mind the lodgings just now? We can get them afterwards."

But his soul seemed full of the anniversary, and together they went down Chief Street, their smallest child in

Jude's arms, Sue leading her little girl, and Arabella's boy walking thoughtfully and silently beside them.

Crowds of pretty sisters in airy costumes, and meekly ignorant parents who had known no college in their

youth, were under convoy in the same direction by brothers and sons bearing the opinion written large on

them that no properly qualified human beings had lived on earth till they came to grace it here and now.

"My failure is reflected on me by every one of those young fellows," said Jude. "A lesson on presumption is

awaiting me today! Humiliation Day for me! ... If you, my dear darling, hadn't come to my rescue, I

She saw from his face that he was getting into one of his tempestuous, selfharrowing moods. "It would have

been better if we had gone at once about our own affairs, dear," she answered. "I am sure this sight will

They turned in on the left by the church with the Italian porch, whose helical columns were heavily draped

with creepers, and pursued the lane till there arose on Jude's sight the circular theatre with that wellknown

lantern above it, which stood in his mind as the sad symbol of his abandoned hopes, for it was from that

outlook that he had finally surveyed the City of Colleges on the afternoon of his great meditation, which

convinced him at last of the futility of his attempt to be a son of the university.

Today, in the open space stretching between this building and the nearest college, stood a crowd of

expectant people. A passage was kept clear through their midst by two barriers of timber, extending from the

door of the college to the door of the large building between it and the theatre.

"Here is the placethey are just going to pass!" cried Jude in sudden excitement. And pushing his way to the

front he took up a position close to the barrier, still hugging the youngest child in his arms, while Sue and the

others kept immediately behind him. The crowd filled in at their back, and fell to talking, joking, and

laughing as carriage after carriage drew up at the lower door of the college, and solemn stately figures in

bloodred robes began to alight. The sky had grown overcast and livid, and thunder rumbled now and then.

While they waited big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious. Sue again

But the procession did not come forth, and somebody in the crowd, to pass the time, looked at the facade of

the nearest college, and said he wondered what was meant by the Latin inscription in its midst. Jude, who

stood near the inquirer, explained it, and finding that the people all round him were listening with interest,

went on to describe the carving of the frieze (which he had studied years before), and to criticize some details

The idle crowd, including the two policemen at the doors, stared like the Lycaonians at Paul, for Jude was apt

to get too enthusiastic over any subject in hand, and they seemed to wonder how the stranger should know

more about the buildings of their town than they themselves did; till one of them said: "Why, I know that

man; he used to work here years agoJude Fawley, that's his name! Don't you mind he used to be

nicknamed Tutor of St. Slums, d'ye mind? because he aimed at that line o' business? He's married, I

suppose, then, and that's his child he's carrying. Taylor would know him, as he knows everybody."

The speaker was a man named Jack Stagg, with whom Jude had formerly worked in repairing the college

masonries; Tinker Taylor was seen to be standing near. Having his attention called the latter cried across the

"Except found more mouths to fill!" This came in a new voice, and Jude recognized its owner to be Uncle

Jude replied goodhumouredly that he could not dispute it; and from remark to remark something like a

general conversation arose between him and the crowd of idlers, during which Tinker Taylor asked Jude if he

remembered the Apostles' Creed in Latin still, and the night of the challenge in the public house.

"But Fortune didn't lie that way?" threw in Joe. "Yer powers wasn't enough to carry 'ee through?"

"I don't think I like Christminster!" murmured little Time mournfully, as he stood submerged and invisible in

But finding himself the centre of curiosity, quizzing, and comment, Jude was not inclined to shrink from open

declarations of what he had no great reason to be ashamed of; and in a little while was stimulated to say in a

"It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man that question I had to grapple with, and which

thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising timeswhether to follow uncritically the

track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may

be, and reshape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure

proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though that's how we

appraise such attempts nowadaysI mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental

outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in

here by now, everybody would have said: 'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his

nature!' But having ended no better than I began they say: 'See what a fool that fellow was in following a

"However it was my poverty and not my will that consented to be beaten. It takes two or three generations to

do what I tried to do in one; and my impulsesaffectionsvices perhaps they should be called were too

strong not to hamper a man without advantages; who should be as coldblooded as a fish and as selfish as a

pig to have a really good chance of being one of his country's worthies. You may ridicule meI am quite

willing that you should I am a fit subject, no doubt. But I think if you knew what I have gone through these

last few years you would rather pity me. And if they knew"he nodded towards the college at which the

Sue's face grew more emotional; but though she stood close to Jude she was screened.

"I may do some good before I am deadbe a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so

illustrate a moral story," continued Jude, beginning to grow bitter, though he had opened serenely enough. "I

was, perhaps, after all, a paltry victim to the spirit of mental and social restlessness that makes so many

"Don't tell them that!" whispered Sue with tears, at perceiving Jude's state of mind. "You weren't that. You

struggled nobly to acquire knowledge, and only the meanest souls in the world would blame you!"

Jude shifted the child into a more easy position on his arm, and concluded: "And what I appear, a sick and

poor man, is not the worst of me. I am in a chaos of principlesgroping in the dark acting by instinct and

not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but

they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my

present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give

pleasure to those I love best. There, gentlemen, since you wanted to know how I was getting on, I have told

you. Much good may it do you! I cannot explain further here. I perceive there is something wrong somewhere

in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greater insight than

mineif, indeed, they ever discover itat least in our time. 'For who knoweth what is good for man in this

"Well preached!" said Tinker Taylor. And privately to his neighbours: "Why, one of them jobbing pa'sons

swarming about here, that takes the services when our head reverends want a holiday, wouldn't ha' discoursed

such doctrine for less than a guinea down? Hey? I'll take my oath not one o' 'em would! And then he must

As a sort of objective commentary on Jude's remarks there drove up at this moment with a belated doctor,

robed and panting, a cab whose horse failed to stop at the exact point required for setting down the hirer, who

jumped out and entered the door. The driver, alighting, began to kick the animal in the belly.

"If that can be done," said Jude, "at college gates in the most religious and educational city in the world, what

"Order!" said one of the policemen, who had been engaged with a comrade in opening the large doors

opposite the college. "Keep yer tongue quiet, my man, while the procession passes." The rain came on more

heavily, and all who had umbrellas opened them. Jude was not one of these, and Sue only possessed a small

"Let us go on, dear," she whispered, endeavouring to shelter him. "We haven't any lodgings yet, remember,

and all our things are at the station; and you are by no means well yet. I am afraid this wet will hurt you!"

A peal of six bells struck out, human faces began to crowd the windows around, and the procession of heads

of houses and new doctors emerged, their red and black gowned forms passing across the field of Jude's

As they went their names were called by knowing informants, and when they reached the old round theatre of

"Let's go that way!" cried Jude, and though it now rained steadily he seemed not to know it, and took them

round to the theatre. Here they stood upon the straw that was laid to drown the discordant noise of wheels,

where the quaint and frosteaten stone busts encircling the building looked with pallid grimness on the

proceedings, and in particular at the bedraggled Jude, Sue, and their children, as at ludicrous persons who had

"I wish I could get in!" he said to her fervidly. "ListenI may catch a few words of the Latin speech by

However, beyond the peals of the organ, and the shouts and hurrahs between each piece of oratory, Jude's

standing in the wet did not bring much Latin to his intelligence more than, now and then, a sonorous word in

"WellI'm an outsider to the end of my days!" he sighed after a while. "Now I'll go, my patient Sue. How

good of you to wait in the rain all this timeto gratify my infatuation! I'll never care any more about the

infernal cursed place, upon my soul I won't! But what made you tremble so when we were at the barrier? And

"He is evidently come up to Jerusalem to see the festival like the rest of us: and on that account is probably

living not so very far away. He had the same hankering for the university that you had, in a milder form. I

don't think he saw me, though he must have heard you speaking to the crowd. But he seemed not to notice."

"Yes, I suppose so. But I am weak. Although I know it is all right with our plans, I felt a curious dread of

him; an awe, or terror, of conventions I don't believe in. It comes over me at times like a sort of creeping

They started in quest of the lodging, and at last found something that seemed to promise well, in Mildew

Lanea spot which to Jude was irresistiblethough to Sue it was not so fascinatinga narrow lane close

to the back of a college, but having no communication with it. The little houses were darkened to gloom by

the high collegiate buildings, within which life was so far removed from that of the people in the lane as if it

had been on opposite sides of the globe; yet only a thickness of wall divided them. Two or three of the houses

had notices of rooms to let, and the newcomers knocked at the door of one, which a woman opened.

The householder scrutinized Sue's figure a moment. "We haven't any to let," said she, shutting the door.

Jude looked discomfited, and the boy distressed. "Now, Jude," said Sue, "let me try. You don't know the

They found a second place hard by; but here the occupier, observing not only Sue, but the boy and the small

children, said civilly, "I am sorry to say we don't let where there are children"; and also closed the door.

The small child squared its mouth and cried silently, with an instinct that trouble loomed. The boy sighed. "I

"Now we'll try again," said Sue. "I'll pull my cloak more round me.... Leaving Kennetbridge for this place is

There was one other house, and they tried a third time. The woman here was more amiable; but she had little

room to spare, and could only agree to take in Sue and the children if her husband could go elsewhere. This

arrangement they perforce adopted, in the stress from delaying their search till so late. They came to terms

with her, though her price was rather high for their pockets. But they could not afford to be critical till Jude

had time to get a more permanent abode; and in this house Sue took possession of a back room on the second

floor with an inner closetroom for the children. Jude stayed and had a cup of tea; and was pleased to find

that the window commanded the back of another of the colleges. Kissing all four he went to get a few

When he was gone the landlady came up to talk a little with Sue, and gather something of the circumstances

of the family she had taken in. Sue had not the art of prevarication, and, after admitting several facts as to

their late difficulties and wanderings, she was startled by the landlady saying suddenly:

Sue hesitated; and then impulsively told the woman that her husband and herself had each been unhappy in

their first marriages, after which, terrified at the thought of a second irrevocable union, and lest the conditions

of the contract should kill their love, yet wishing to be together, they had literally not found the courage to

repeat it, though they had attempted it two or three times. Therefore, though in her own sense of the words

The housewife looked embarrassed, and went downstairs. Sue sat by the window in a reverie, watching the

rain. Her quiet was broken by the noise of someone entering the house, and then the voices of a man and

woman in conversation in the passage below. The landlady's husband had arrived, and she was explaining to

His voice rose in sudden anger. "Now who wants such a woman here? and perhaps a confinement! ...

Besides, didn't I say I wouldn't have children? The hall and stairs fresh painted, to be kicked about by them!

You must have known all was not straight with 'emcoming like that. Taking in a family when I said a

The wife expostulated, but, as it seemed, the husband insisted on his point; for presently a tap came to Sue's

"I am sorry to tell you, ma'am," she said, "that I can't let you have the room for the week after all. My

husband objects; and therefore I must ask you to go. I don't mind your staying over tonight, as it is getting

late in the afternoon; but I shall be glad if you can leave early in the morning.

Though she knew that she was entitled to the lodging for a week, Sue did not wish to create a disturbance

between the wife and husband, and she said she would leave as requested. When the landlady had gone Sue

looked out of the window again. Finding that the rain had ceased she proposed to the boy that, after putting

the little ones to bed, they should go out and search about for another place, and bespeak it for the morrow, so

Therefore, instead of unpacking her boxes, which had just been sent on from the station by Jude, they sallied

out into the damp though not unpleasant streets, Sue resolving not to disturb her husband with the news of her

notice to quit while he was perhaps worried in obtaining a lodging for himself. In the company of the boy she

wandered into this street and into that; but though she tried a dozen different houses she fared far worse alone

than she had fared in Jude's company, and could get nobody to promise her a room for the following day.

Every householder looked askance at such a woman and child inquiring for accommodation in the gloom.

Thoroughly tired at last Sue returned to the place where she was not welcome, but where at least she had

temporary shelter. In her absence Jude had left his address; but knowing how weak he still was she adhered to

SUE sat looking at the bare floor of the room, the house being little more than an old intramural cottage, and

then she regarded the scene outside the uncurtained window. At some distance opposite, the outer walls of

Sarcophagus Collegesilent, black, and windowless threw their four centuries of gloom, bigotry, and

decay into the little room she occupied, shutting out the moonlight by night and the sun by day. The outlines

of Rubric College also were discernible beyond the other, and the tower of a third farther off still. She

thought of the strange operation of a simpleminded man's ruling passion, that it should have led Jude, who

loved her and the children so tenderly, to place them here in this depressing purlieu, because he was still

haunted by his dream. Even now he did not distinctly hear the freezing negative that those scholared walls

The failure to find another lodging, and the lack of room in this house for his father, had made a deep

impression on the boy a brooding undemonstrative horror seemed to have seized him. The silence was

"I don't know!" said Sue despondently. "I am afraid this will trouble your father."

"I wish Father was quite well, and there had been room for him! Then it wouldn't matter so much! Poor

"'Tis because of us children, too, isn't it, that you can't get a good lodging?"

"And what makes it worse with me is that you are not my real mother, and you needn't have had me unless

you liked. I oughtn't to have come to 'eethat's the real truth! I troubled 'em in Australia, and I trouble folk

"I think that whenever children be born that are not wanted they should be killed directly, before their souls

Sue did not reply. She was doubtfully pondering how to treat this too reflective child.

She at last concluded that, so far as circumstances permitted, she would be honest and candid with one who

"What!" The boy jumped up wildly. "Oh God, Mother, you've never asent for another; and such trouble with

"Yes, I have, I am sorry to say!" murmured Sue, her eyes glistening with suspended tears.

The boy burst out weeping. "Oh you don't care, you don't care!" he cried in bitter reproach. "How EVER

could you, Mother, be so wicked and cruel as this, when you needn't have done it till we was better off, and

Father well! To bring us all into MORE trouble! No room for us, and Father aforced to go away, and we

turned out tomorrow; and yet you be going to have another of us soon! ... 'Tis done o' purpose!'tis'tis!"

"Yyou must forgive me, little Jude!" she pleaded, her bosom heaving now as much as the boy's. "I can't

explainI will when you are older. It does seemas if I had done it on purpose, now we are in these

difficulties! I can't explain, dear! But it is not quite on purposeI can't help it!"

"Yes it isit must be! For nobody would interfere with us, like that, unless you agreed! I won't forgive you,

ever, ever! I'll never believe you care for me, or Father, or any of us any more!"

He got up, and went away into the closet adjoining her room, in which a bed had been spread on the floor.

There she heard him say: "If we children was gone there'd be no trouble at all!"

The following morning she awoke at a little past six, and decided to get up and run across before breakfast to

the inn which Jude had informed her to be his quarters, to tell him what had happened before he went out.

She arose softly, to avoid disturbing the children, who, as she knew, must be fatigued by their exertions of

She found Jude at breakfast in the obscure tavern he had chosen as a counterpoise to the expense of her

lodging: and she explained to him her homelessness. He had been so anxious about her all night, he said.

Somehow, now it was morning, the request to leave the lodgings did not seem such a depressing incident as it

had seemed the night before, nor did even her failure to find another place affect her so deeply as at first. Jude

agreed with her that it would not be worth while to insist upon her right to stay a week, but to take immediate

"You must all come to this inn for a day or two," he said. "It is a rough place, and it will not be so nice for the

children, but we shall have more time to look round. There are plenty of lodgings in the suburbsin my old

quarter of Beersheba. Have breakfast with me now you are here, my bird. You are sure you are well? There

will be plenty of time to get back and prepare the children's meal before they wake. In fact, I'll go with you."

She joined Jude in a hasty meal, and in a quarter of an hour they started together, resolving to clear out from

Sue's too respectable lodging immediately. On reaching the place and going upstairs she found that all was

quiet in the children's room, and called to the landlady in timorous tones to please bring up the teakettle and

something for their breakfast. This was perfunctorily done, and producing a couple of eggs which she had

brought with her she put them into the boiling kettle, and summoned Jude to watch them for the youngsters,

Jude stood bending over the kettle, with his watch in his hand, timing the eggs, so that his back was turned to

the little inner chamber where the children lay. A shriek from Sue suddenly caused him to start round. He saw

that the door of the room, or rather closet which had seemed to go heavily upon its hinges as she pushed it

back was open, and that Sue had sunk to the floor just within it. Hastening forward to pick her up he

turned his eyes to the little bed spread on the boards; no children were there. He looked in bewilderment

round the room. At the back of the door were fixed two hooks for hanging garments, and from these the

forms of the two youngest children were suspended, by a piece of boxcord round each of their necks, while

from a nail a few yards off the body of little Jude was hanging in a similar manner. An overturned chair was

near the elder boy, and his glazed eyes were slanted into the room; but those of the girl and the baby boy were

Halfparalyzed by the strange and consummate horror of the scene he let Sue lie, cut the cords with his

pocketknife and threw the three children on the bed; but the feel of their bodies in the momentary handling

seemed to say that they were dead. He caught up Sue, who was in fainting fits, and put her on the bed in the

other room, after which he breathlessly summoned the landlady and ran out for a doctor.

When he got back Sue had come to herself, and the two helpless women, bending over the children in wild

efforts to restore them, and the triplet of little corpses, formed a sight which overthrew his selfcommand.

The nearest surgeon came in, but, as Jude had inferred, his presence was superfluous. The children were past

saving, for though their bodies were still barely cold it was conjectured that they had been hanging more than

an hour. The probability held by the parents later on, when they were able to reason on the case, was that the

elder boy, on waking, looked into the outer room for Sue, and, finding her absent, was thrown into a fit of

aggravated despondency that the events and information of the evening before had induced in his morbid

temperament. Moreover a piece of paper was found upon the floor, on which was written, in the boy's hand,

At sight of this Sue's nerves utterly gave way, an awful conviction that her discourse with the boy had been

the main cause of the tragedy, throwing her into a convulsive agony which knew no abatement. They carried

her away against her wish to a room on the lower floor; and there she lay, her slight figure shaken with her

gasps, and her eyes staring at the ceiling, the woman of the house vainly trying to soothe her.

They could hear from this chamber the people moving about above, and she implored to be allowed to go

back, and was only kept from doing so by the assurance that, if there were any hope, her presence might do

harm, and the reminder that it was necessary to take care of herself lest she should endanger a coming life.

Her inquiries were incessant, and at last Jude came down and told her there was no hope. As soon as she

could speak she informed him what she had said to the boy, and how she thought herself the cause of this.

"No," said Jude. "It was in his nature to do it. The doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst

usboys of a sort unknown in the last generationthe outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all

its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the

coming universal wish not to live. He's an advanced man, the doctor: but he can give no consolation to"

Jude had kept back his own grief on account of her; but he now broke down; and this stimulated Sue to

efforts of sympathy which in some degree distracted her from her poignant selfreproach. When everybody

The boy's face expressed the whole tale of their situation. On that little shape had converged all the

inauspiciousness and shadow which had darkened the first union of Jude, and all the accidents, mistakes,

fears, errors of the last. He was their nodal point, their focus, their expression in a single term. For the

rashness of those parents he had groaned, for their ill assortment he had quaked, and for the misfortunes of

When the house was silent, and they could do nothing but await the coroner's inquest, a subdued, large, low

"The organ of the college chapel. The organist practising I suppose. It's the anthem from the seventythird

She sobbed again. "Oh, Oh my babies! They had done no harm! Why should they have been taken away, and

There was another stillnessbroken at last by two persons in conversation somewhere without.

"They are talking about us, no doubt!" moaned Sue. "'We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels,

Jude listened"Nothey are not talking of us," he said. "They are two clergymen of different views,

arguing about the eastward position. Good Godthe eastward position, and all creation groaning!"

Then another silence, till she was seized with another uncontrollable fit of grief. "There is something external

to us which says, 'You shan't!' First it said, 'You shan't learn!' Then it said, 'You shan't labour!' Now it says,

Thus they waited, and she went back again to her room. The baby's frock, shoes, and socks, which had been

lying on a chair at the time of his death, she would not now have removed, though Jude would fain have got

them out of her sight. But whenever he touched them she implored him to let them lie, and burst out almost

Jude dreaded her dull apathetic silences almost more than her paroxysms. "Why don't you speak to me,

Jude?" she cried out, after one of these. "Don't turn away from me! I can't BEAR the loneliness of being out

"Yes.... Oh, my comrade, our perfect unionour twoinonenessis now stained with blood!"

"Ah; but it was I who incited him really, though I didn't know I was doing it! I talked to the child as one

should only talk to people of mature age. I said the world was against us, that it was better to be out of life

than in it at this price; and he took it literally. And I told him I was going to have another child. It upset him.

"I can't tell. It was that I wanted to be truthful. I couldn't bear deceiving him as to the facts of life. And yet I

wasn't truthful, for with a false delicacy I told him too obscurely. Why was I halfwiser than my

fellowwomen? And not entirely wiser! Why didn't I tell him pleasant untruths, instead of halfrealities? It

was my want of selfcontrol, so that I could neither conceal things nor reveal them!"

"Your plan might have been a good one for the majority of cases; only in our peculiar case it chanced to work

"And I was just making my baby darling a new frock; and now I shall never see him in it, and never talk to

him any more! ... My eyes are so swollen that I can scarcely see; and yet little more than a year ago I called

myself happy! We went about loving each other too much indulging ourselves to utter selfishness with

each other! We saiddo you remember?that we would make a virtue of joy. I said it was Nature's

intention, Nature's law and RAISON D'ETRE that we should be joyful in what instincts she afforded us

instincts which civilization had taken upon itself to thwart. What dreadful things I said! And now Fate has

given us this stab in the back for being such fools as to take Nature at her word!"

She sank into a quiet contemplation, till she said, "It is best, perhaps, that they should be gone.YesI see

it is! Better that they should be plucked fresh than stay to wither away miserably!"

"Yes," replied Jude. "Some say that the elders should rejoice when their children die in infancy."

"But they don't know! ... Oh my babies, my babies, could you be alive now! You may say the boy wished to

be out of life, or he wouldn't have done it. It was not unreasonable for him to die: it was part of his incurably

Again Sue looked at the hanging little frock and at the socks and shoes; and her figure quivered like a string.

"I am a pitiable creature," she said, "good neither for earth nor heaven any more! I am driven out of my mind

by things! What ought to be done?" She stared at Jude, and tightly held his hand.

"Nothing can be done," he replied. "Things are as they are, and will be brought to their destined issue."

"It comes in the chorus of the AGAMEMNON. It has been in my mind continually since this happened."

"My poor Judehow you've missed everything!you more than I, for I did get you! To think you should

The jury duly came and viewed the bodies, the inquest was held; and next arrived the melancholy morning of

the funeral. Accounts in the newspapers had brought to the spot curious idlers, who stood apparently counting

the windowpanes and the stones of the walls. Doubt of the real relations of the couple added zest to their

curiosity. Sue had declared that she would follow the two little ones to the grave, but at the last moment she

gave way, and the coffins were quietly carried out of the house while she was lying down. Jude got into the

vehicle, and it drove away, much to the relief of the landlord, who now had only Sue and her luggage

remaining on his hands, which he hoped to be also clear of later on in the day, and so to have freed his house

from the exasperating notoriety it had acquired during the week through his wife's unlucky admission of these

strangers. In the afternoon he privately consulted with the owner of the house, and they agreed that if any

objection to it arose from the tragedy which had occurred there they would try to get its number changed.

When Jude had seen the two little boxesone containing little Jude, and the other the two

smallestdeposited in the earth he hastened back to Sue, who was still in her room, and he therefore did not

disturb her just then. Feeling anxious, however, he went again about four o'clock. The woman thought she

was still lying down, but returned to him to say that she was not in her bedroom after all. Her hat and jacket,

too, were missing: she had gone out. Jude hurried off to the public house where he was sleeping. She had not

been there. Then bethinking himself of possibilities he went along the road to the cemetery, which he entered,

and crossed to where the interments had recently taken place. The idlers who had followed to the spot by

reason of the tragedy were all gone now. A man with a shovel in his hands was attempting to earth in the

common grave of the three children, but his arm was held back by an expostulating woman who stood in the

halffilled hole. It was Sue, whose coloured clothing, which she had never thought of changing for the

mourning he had bought, suggested to the eye a deeper grief than the conventional garb of bereavement could

"He's filling them in, and he shan't till I've seen my little ones again!" she cried wildly when she saw Jude. "I

want to see them once more. Oh Judeplease JudeI want to see them! I didn't know you would let them

be taken away while I was asleep! You said perhaps I should see them once more before they were screwed

down; and then you didn't, but took them away! Oh Jude, you are cruel to me too!"

"She's been wanting me to dig out the grave again, and let her get to the coffins," said the man with the spade.

"She ought to be took home, by the look o' her. She is hardly responsible, poor thing, seemingly. Can't dig

'em up again now, ma'am. Do ye go home with your husband, and take it quiet, and thank God that there'll be

But Sue kept asking piteously: "Can't I see them once morejust once! Can't I? Only just one little minute,

Jude? It would not take long! And I should be so glad, Jude! I will be so good, and not disobey you ever any

more, Jude, if you will let me? I would go home quietly afterwards, and not want to see them any more! Can't

Thus she went on. Jude was thrown into such acute sorrow that he almost felt he would try to get the man to

accede. But it could do no good, and might make her still worse; and he saw that it was imperative to get her

home at once. So he coaxed her, and whispered tenderly, and put his arm round her to support her; till she

He wished to obtain a fly to take her back in, but economy being so imperative she deprecated his doing so,

and they walked along slowly, Jude in black crape, she in brown and red clothing. They were to have gone to

a new lodging that afternoon, but Jude saw that it was not practicable, and in course of time they entered the

Jude waited all the evening downstairs. At a very late hour the intelligence was brought to him that a child

SUE was convalescent, though she had hoped for death, and Jude had again obtained work at his old trade.

They were in other lodgings now, in the direction of Beersheba, and not far from the Church of

They would sit silent, more bodeful of the direct antagonism of things than of their insensate and stolid

obstructiveness. Vague and quaint imaginings had haunted Sue in the days when her intellect scintillated like

a star, that the world resembled a stanza or melody composed in a dream; it was wonderfully excellent to the

halfaroused intelligence, but hopelessly absurd at the full waking; that the first cause worked automatically

like a somnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage; that at the framing of the terrestrial conditions there

seemed never to have been contemplated such a development of emotional perceptiveness among the

creatures subject to those conditions as that reached by thinking and educated humanity. But affliction makes

opposing forces loom anthropomorphous; and those ideas were now exchanged for a sense of Jude and

"We must conform!" she said mournfully. "All the ancient wrath of the Power above us has been vented upon

us. His poor creatures, and we must submit. There is no choice. We must. It is no use fighting against God!"

"True!" she murmured. "What have I been thinking of! I am getting as superstitious as a savage! ... But

whoever or whatever our foe may be, I am cowed into submission. I have no more fighting strength left; no

more enterprise. I am beaten, beaten! ... 'We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men!'

"What shall we do? You are in work now; but remember, it may only be because our history and relations are

not absolutely known.... Possibly, if they knew our marriage had not been formalized they would turn you out

"I hardly know. Perhaps they would hardly do that. However, I think that we ought to make it legal nowas

And Jude fell into thought. "I have seemed to myself lately," he said, "to belong to that vast band of men

shunned by the virtuous the men called seducers. It amazes me when I think of it! I have not been

conscious of it, or of any wrongdoing towards you, whom I love more than myself. Yet I am one of those

men! I wonder if any other of them are the same purblind, simple creatures as I? ... Yes, Suethat's what I

am. I seduced you.... You were a distinct typea refined creature, intended by Nature to be left intact. But I

"No, no, Jude!" she said quickly. "Don't reproach yourself with being what you are not. If anybody is to

"I supported you in your resolve to leave Phillotson; and without me perhaps you wouldn't have urged him to

"I should have, just the same. As to ourselves, the fact of our not having entered into a legal contract is the

saving feature in our union. We have thereby avoided insulting, as it were, the solemnity of our first

"Solemnity?" Jude looked at her with some surprise, and grew conscious that she was not the Sue of their

"Yes," she said, with a little quiver in her words, "I have had dreadful fears, a dreadful sense of my own

"It is your weaknessa sick fancy, without reason or meaning! Don't let it trouble you."

As a setoff against such discussions as these there had come an improvement in their pecuniary position,

which earlier in their experience would have made them cheerful. Jude had quite unexpectedly found good

employment at his old trade almost directly he arrived, the summer weather suiting his fragile constitution;

and outwardly his days went on with that monotonous uniformity which is in itself so grateful after

vicissitude. People seemed to have forgotten that he had ever shown any awkward aberrancies: and he daily

mounted to the parapets and copings of colleges he could never enter, and renewed the crumbling freestones

of mullioned windows he would never look from, as if he had known no wish to do otherwise.

There was this change in him; that he did not often go to any service at the churches now. One thing troubled

him more than any other; that Sue and himself had mentally travelled in opposite directions since the tragedy:

events which had enlarged his own views of life, laws, customs, and dogmas, had not operated in the same

manner on Sue's. She was no longer the same as in the independent days, when her intellect played like

lambent lightning over conventions and formalities which he at that time respected, though he did not now.

On a particular Sunday evening he came in rather late. She was not at home, but she soon returned, when he

"Oh I can't tell clearly! I have thought that we have been selfish, careless, even impious, in our courses, you

and I. Our life has been a vain attempt at selfdelight. But selfabnegation is the higher road. We should

"We ought to be continually sacrificing ourselves on the altar of duty! But I have always striven to do what

has pleased me. I well deserved the scourging I have got! I wish something would take the evil right out of

"Suemy own too suffering dear!there's no evil woman in you. Your natural instincts are perfectly

healthy; not quite so impassioned, perhaps, as I could wish; but good, and dear, and pure. And as I have often

said, you are absolutely the most ethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew to exist without inhuman

sexlessness. Why do you talk in such a changed way? We have not been selfish, except when no one could

profit by our being otherwise. You used to say that human nature was noble and longsuffering, not vile and

corrupt, and at last I thought you spoke truly. And now you seem to take such a much lower view!"

"You have been fearless, both as a thinker and as a feeler, and you deserved more admiration than I gave. I

"Don't say that, Jude! I wish my every fearless word and thought could be rooted out of my history.

Selfrenunciationthat's everything! I cannot humiliate myself too much. I should like to prick myself all

"Hush!" he said, pressing her little face against his breast as if she were an infant. "It is bereavement that has

brought you to this! Such remorse is not for you, my sensitive plant, but for the wicked ones of the

"I ought not to stay like this," she murmured, when she had remained in the position a long while.

"Still on the same tack! But is there anything better on earth than that we should love one another?"

"I won't have it, Sue! Come, when do you wish our marriage to be signed in a vestry?"

Not knowing the whole of her meaning he took the objection serenely, and said nothing. Several minutes

elapsed, and he thought she had fallen asleep; but he spoke softly, and found that she was wide awake all the

"There is a strange, indescribable perfume or atmosphere about you tonight, Sue," he said. "I mean not only

mentally, but about your clothes, also. A sort of vegetable scent, which I seem to know, yet cannot

"You see, Jude, it is lonely here in the weekday mornings, when you are at work, and I think and think

ofof my" She stopped till she could control the lumpiness of her throat. "And I have taken to go in there,

"Oh wellof course, I say nothing against it. Only it is odd, for you. They little think what sort of chiel is

"How can you pain me so, dear Jude, in my trouble! Yet I know you didn't mean it. But you ought not to say

"WellI want to tell you something else, Jude. You won't be angry, will you? I have thought of it a good

deal since my babies died. I don't think I ought to be your wifeor as your wife any longer."

"Of course we were afraid of the ceremony, and a good many others would have been in our places, with

such strong reasons for fears. But experience has proved how we misjudged ourselves, and overrated our

infirmities; and if you are beginning to respect rites and ceremonies, as you seem to be, I wonder you don't

say it shall be carried out instantly? You certainly ARE my wife, Sue, in all but law. What do you mean by

"Not? But suppose we HAD gone through the ceremony? Would you feel that you were then?"

"No. I should not feel even then that I was. I should feel worse than I do now."

"It was only an impression with me then; I feel more and more convinced as time goes on thatI belong to

Some few days later, in the dusk of the summer evening, they were sitting in the same small room

downstairs, when a knock came to the front door of the carpenter's house where they were lodging, and in a

few moments there was a tap at the door of their room. Before they could open it the comer did so, and a

Jude and Sue started as he mechanically replied in the affirmative, for the voice was Arabella's.

He formally requested her to come in, and she sat down in the window bench, where they could distinctly see

her outline against the light; but no characteristic that enabled them to estimate her general aspect and air. Yet

something seemed to denote that she was not quite so comfortably circumstanced, nor so bouncingly attired,

The three attempted an awkward conversation about the tragedy, of which Jude had felt it to be his duty to

"I have just come from the cemetery," she said. "I inquired and found the child's grave. I couldn't come to the

funeralthank you for inviting me all the same. I read all about it in the papers, and I felt I wasn't wanted....

NoI couldn't come to the funeral," repeated Arabella, who, seeming utterly unable to reach the ideal of a

catastrophic manner, fumbled with iterations. "But I am glad I found the grave. As 'tis your trade, Jude, you'll

"I had often wished I had mine with me," continued Mrs. Cartlett. "Perhaps 'twouldn't have happened then!

Jude had known from the quality of Sue's tone that her new and transcendental views lurked in her words; but

all except their obvious meaning was, naturally, missed by Arabella. The latter, after evincing that she was

struck by Sue's avowal, recovered herself, and went on to talk with placid bluntness about "her" boy, for

whom, though in his lifetime she had shown no care at all, she now exhibited a ceremonial mournfulness that

was apparently sustaining to the conscience. She alluded to the past, and in making some remark appealed

"She said she was not your wife?" resumed Arabella in another voice. "Why should she do that?"

"AhI see! Well, my time is up. I am staying here tonight, and thought I could do no less than call, after

our mutual affliction. I am sleeping at the place where I used to be barmaid, and tomorrow I go back to

"Yes. Couldn't get on there. Had a rough time of it. Mother died of dyswhat do you call itin the hot

weather, and Father and two of the young ones have just got back. He has got a cottage near the old place,

Jude's former wife had maintained a stereotyped manner of strict good breeding even now that Sue was gone,

and limited her stay to a number of minutes that should accord with the highest respectability. When she had

departed Jude, much relieved, went to the stairs and called Suefeeling anxious as to what had become of

There was no answer, and the carpenter who kept the lodgings said she had not come in. Jude was puzzled,

and became quite alarmed at her absence, for the hour was growing late. The carpenter called his wife, who

conjectured that Sue might have gone to St. Silas' church, as she often went there.

Jude went vaguely in the direction of the church, which he had never once approached since he lived out that

way years before, when his young opinions were more mystical than they were now. The spot was deserted,

but the door was certainly unfastened; he lifted the latch without noise, and pushing to the door behind him,

stood absolutely still inside. The prevalent silence seemed to contain a faint sound, explicable as a breathing,

or a sobbing, which came from the other end of the building. The floorcloth deadened his footsteps as he

moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected nightlight

High overhead, above the chancel steps, Jude could discern a huge, solidly constructed Latin crossas large,

probably, as the original it was designed to commemorate. It seemed to be suspended in the air by invisible

wires; it was set with large jewels, which faintly glimmered in some weak ray caught from outside, as the

cross swayed to and fro in a silent and scarcely perceptible motion. Underneath, upon the floor, lay what

appeared to be a heap of black clothes, and from this was repeated the sobbing that he had heard before. It

"Whatdo you want with me here, Jude?" she said almost sharply. "You shouldn't come! I wanted to be

"How can you ask!" he retorted in quick reproach, for his full heart was wounded to its centre at this attitude

of hers towards him. "Why do I come? Who has a right to come, I should like to know, if I have not! I, who

love you better than my own selfbetterfar better than you have loved me! What made you leave me

"Don't criticize me, JudeI can't bear it!I have often told you so. You must take me as I am. I am a

wretchbroken by my distractions! I couldn't BEAR it when Arabella cameI felt so utterly miserable I

had to come away. She seems to be your wife still, and Richard to be my husband!"

"Yes, dear friend, they are. I see marriage differently now. My babies have been taken from me to show me

this! Arabella's child killing mine was a judgementthe right slaying the wrong. What, WHAT shall I do! I

"This is terrible!" said Jude, verging on tears. "It is monstrous and unnatural for you to be so remorseful when

He returned vehemently: "I do! Every atom and dreg of it! You make me hate Christianity, or mysticism, or

Sacerdotalism, or whatever it may be called, if it's that which has caused this deterioration in you. That a

womanpoet, a womanseer, a woman whose soul shone like a diamondwhom all the wise of the world

would have been proud of, if they could have known youshould degrade herself like this! I am glad I had

"Then come along home with me, dearest, and perhaps I shall. I am overburdenedand you, too, are

unhinged just now." He put his arm round her and lifted her; but though she came, she preferred to walk

"I don't dislike you, Jude," she said in a sweet and imploring voice. "I love you as much as ever! OnlyI

"But I have made up my mind that I am not your wife! I belong to himI sacramentally joined myself to

"But surely we are man and wife, if ever two people were in this world? Nature's own marriage it is,

"But not Heaven's. Another was made for me there, and ratified eternally in the church at Melchester."

"Sue, Sueaffliction has brought you to this unreasonable state! After converting me to your views on so

many things, to find you suddenly turn to the rightabout like thisfor no reason whatever, confounding all

you have formerly said through sentiment merely! You root out of me what little affection and reverence I

had left in me for the Church as an old acquaintance.... What I can't understand in you is your extraordinary

blindness now to your old logic. Is it peculiar to you, or is it common to woman? Is a woman a thinking unit

at all, or a fraction always wanting its integer? How you argued that marriage was only a clumsy contract

which it ishow you showed all the objections to it all the absurdities! If two and two made four when

we were happy together, surely they make four now? I can't understand it, I repeat!"

"Ah, dear Jude; that's because you are like a totally deaf man observing people listening to music. You say

"That is a hard saying from you; and not a true parallel! You threw off old husks of prejudices, and taught me

to do it; and now you go back upon yourself. I confess I am utterly stultified in my estimate of you."

"Dear friend, my only friend, don't be hard with me! I can't help being as I am, I am convinced I am

They walked along a few more steps till they were outside the building and she had returned the key. "Can

this be the girl," said Jude when she came back, feeling a slight renewal of elasticity now that he was in the

open street; "can this be the girl who brought the pagan deities into this most Christian city? who

mimicked Miss Fontover when she crushed them with her heel? quoted Gibbon, and Shelley, and Mill?

"Oh don't, don't be so cruel to me, Jude, and I so unhappy!" she sobbed. "I can't bear it! I was in errorI

cannot reason with you. I was wrongproud in my own conceit! Arabella's coming was the finish. Don't

He flung his arms round her and kissed her passionately there in the silent street, before she could hinder him.

They went on till they came to a little coffeehouse. "Jude," she said with suppressed tears, "would you mind

"I willif, if you really wish? But do you? Let me go to our door and understand you."

He went and conducted her in. She said she wanted no supper, and went in the dark upstairs and struck a

light. Turning she found that Jude had followed her, and was standing at the chamber door. She went to him,

"Yes. Very well! ... Perhaps it was wrong of me to argue distastefully as I have done! Perhaps as we couldn't

conscientiously marry at first in the oldfashioned way, we ought to have parted. Perhaps the world is not

illuminated enough for such experiments as ours! Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers!"

"I am so glad you see that much, at any rate. I never deliberately meant to do as I did. I slipped into my false

"Yes. But I wanted to let it stop there, and go on always as mere lovers; until"

"Women could: men can't, because theywon't. An average woman is in this superior to an average

manthat she never instigates, only responds. We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more."

"I was the unhappy cause of the change, as I have said before! ... Well, as you will! ... But human nature can't

"Noit was I. Your wickedness was only the natural man's desire to possess the woman. Mine was not the

reciprocal wish till envy stimulated me to oust Arabella. I had thought I ought in charity to let you approach

methat it was damnably selfish to torture you as I did my other friend. But I shouldn't have given way if

you hadn't broken me down by making me fear you would go back to her.... But don't let us say any more

"Yes.... But Suemy wife, as you are!" he burst out; "my old reproach to you was, after all, a true one. You

have never loved me as I love younevernever! Yours is not a passionate heart your heart does not

"At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not

exactly flirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals almost more than

unbridled passionthe craving to attract and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man was in

me; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And thenI don't know how it wasI couldn't

bear to let you go possibly to Arabella againand so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly

it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for

"O Sue!" said he with a sudden sense of his own danger. "Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons! You

have been my social salvation. Stay with me for humanity's sake! You know what a weak fellow I am. My

two archenemies you knowmy weakness for womankind and my impulse to strong liquor. Don't abandon

me to them, Sue, to save your own soul only! They have been kept entirely at a distance since you became

my guardianangel! Since I have had you I have been able to go into any temptations of the sort, without

risk. Isn't my safety worth a little sacrifice of dogmatic principle? I am in terror lest, if you leave me, it will

be with me another case of the pig that was washed turning back to his wallowing in the mire!"

Sue burst out weeping. "Oh, but you must not, Jude! You won't! I'll pray for you night and day!"

"Wellnever mind; don't grieve," said Jude generously. "I did suffer, God knows, about you at that time;

and now I suffer again. But perhaps not so much as you. The woman mostly gets the worst of it in the long

"Unless she is absolutely worthless and contemptible. And this one is not that, anyhow!"

"I mustn't stay?Not just once more? As it has been so many times O Sue, my wife, why not!"

"Nononot wife! ... I am in your hands, Judedon't tempt me back now I have advanced so far!"

"Very well. I do your bidding. I owe that to you, darling, in penance for how I overruled it at the first time.

My God, how selfish I was! Perhapsperhaps I spoilt one of the highest and purest loves that ever existed

between man and woman! ... Then let the veil of our temple be rent in two from this hour!"

He went to the bed, removed one of the pair of pillows thereon, and flung it to the floor.

Sue looked at him, and bending over the bedrail wept silently. "You don't see that it is a matter of

conscience with me, and not of dislike to you!" she brokenly murmured. "Dislike to you! But I can't say any

He clasped her, and kissed her weeping face as he had scarcely ever done before, and they remained in

silence till she said, "Goodbye, goodbye!" And then gently pressing him away she got free, trying to

mitigate the sadness by saying: "We'll be dear friends just the same, Jude, won't we? And we'll see each other

THE man whom Sue, in her mental VOLTEFACE, was now regarding as her inseparable husband, lived

On the day before the tragedy of the children, Phillotson had seen both her and Jude as they stood in the rain

at Christminster watching the procession to the theatre. But he had said nothing of it at the moment to his

companion Gillingham, who, being an old friend, was staying with him at the village aforesaid, and had,

"What are you thinking of?" said Gillingham, as they went home. "The university degree you never

"No, no," said Phillotson gruffly. "Of somebody I saw today." In a moment he added, "Susanna."

"I didn't wish to draw your attention to her. But, as you did see her, you should have said: 'How d'ye do, my

"Ah, well. I might have. But what do you think of this: I have good reason for supposing that she was

innocent when I divorced her that I was all wrong. Yes, indeed! Awkward, isn't it?"

At the end of the week, when Gillingham had gone back to his school near Shaston, Phillotson, as was his

custom, went to Alfredston market; ruminating again on Arabella's intelligence as he walked down the long

hill which he had known before Jude knew it, though his history had not beaten so intensely upon its incline.

Arrived in the town he bought his usual weekly local paper; and when he had sat down in an inn to refresh

himself for the five miles' walk back, he pulled the paper from his pocket and read awhile. The account of the

Unimpassioned as he was, it impressed him painfully, and puzzled him not a little, for he could not

understand the age of the elder child being what it was stated to be. However, there was no doubt that the

"Their cup of sorrow is now full!" he said: and thought and thought of Sue, and what she had gained by

Arabella having made her home at Alfredston, and the schoolmaster coming to market there every Saturday,

it was not wonderful that in a few weeks they met againthe precise time being just alter her return from

Christminster, where she had stayed much longer than she had at first intended, keeping an interested eye on

Jude, though Jude had seen no more of her. Phillotson was on his way homeward when he encountered

"I've just begun to again," she replied. "It is where I lived as maid and wife, and all the past things of my life

that are interesting to my feelings are mixed up with this road. And they have been stirred up in me too,

"In a very strange wayvery strange! She don't live with him any longer. I only heard of it as a certainty

just before I left; though I had thought things were drifting that way from their manner when I called on

"Not live with her husband? Why, I should have thought 'twould have united them more."

"He's not her husband, after all. She has never really married him although they have passed as man and wife

so long. And now, instead of this sad event making 'em hurry up, and get the thing done legally, she's took in

a queer religious way, just as I was in my affliction at losing Cartlett, only hers is of a more 'sterical sort than

mine. And she says, so I was told, that she's your wife in the eye of Heaven and the Churchyours only; and

"Yes, poor little fellowborn in lawful wedlock, thank God. And perhaps she feels, over and above other

things, that I ought to have been in her place. I can't say. However, as for me, I am soon off from here. I've

got Father to look after now, and we can't live in such a humdrum place as this. I hope soon to be in a bar

They parted. When Phillotson had ascended the hill a few steps he stopped, hastened back, and called her.

Arabella smiled grimly as she resumed her way, and practised dimplemaking all along the road from where

the pollard willows begin to the old almshouses in the first street of the town.

Meanwhile Phillotson ascended to Marygreen, and for the first time during a lengthened period he lived with

a forward eye. On crossing under the large trees of the green to the humble schoolhouse to which he had been

reduced he stood a moment, and pictured Sue coming out of the door to meet him. No man had ever suffered

more inconvenience from his own charity, Christian or heathen, than Phillotson had done in letting Sue go.

He had been knocked about from pillar to post at the hands of the virtuous almost beyond endurance; he had

been nearly starved, and was now dependent entirely upon the very small stipened from the school of this

village (where the parson had got illspoken of for befriending him ). He had often thought of Arabella's

remarks that he should have been more severe with Sue, that her recalcitrant spirit would soon have been

broken. Yet such was his obstinate and illogical disregard of opinion, and of the principles in which he had

been trained, that his convictions on the rightness of his course with his wife had not been disturbed.

Principles which could be subverted by feeling in one direction were liable to the same catastrophe in

another. The instincts which had allowed him to give Sue her liberty now enabled him to regard her as none

the worse for her life with Jude. He wished for her still, in his curious way, if he did not love her, and, apart

from policy, soon felt that he would be gratified to have her again as his, always provided that she came

But artifice was necessary, he had found, for stemming the cold and inhumane blast of the world's contempt.

And here were the materials ready made. By getting Sue back and remarrying her on the respectable plea of

having entertained erroneous views of her, and gained his divorce wrongfully, he might acquire some

comfort, resume his old courses, perhaps return to the Shaston school, if not even to the Church as a

He thought he would write to Gillingham to inquire his views, and what he thought of his, Phillotson's,

sending a letter to her. Gillingham replied, naturally, that now she was gone it were best to let her be, and

considered that if she were anybody's wife she was the wife of the man to whom she had borne three children

and owed such tragical adventures. Probably, as his attachment to her seemed unusually strong, the singular

pair would make their union legal in course of time, and all would be well, and decent, and in order.

"But they won'tSue won't!" exclaimed Phillotson to himself. "Gillingham is so matter of fact. She's

affected by Christminster sentiment and teaching. I can see her views on the indissolubility of marriage well

enough, and I know where she got them. They are not mine; but I shall make use of them to further mine."

He wrote a brief reply to Gillingham. "I know I am entirely wrong, but I don't agree with you. As to her

having lived with and had three children by him, my feeling is (though I can advance no logical or moral

defence of it, on the old lines) that it has done little more than finish her education. I shall write to her, and

As he had made up his mind to do this before he had written to his friend, there had not been much reason for

He accordingly addressed a carefully considered epistle to Sue, and, knowing her emotional temperament,

threw a Rhadamanthine strictness into the lines here and there, carefully hiding his heterodox feelings, not to

frighten her. He stated that, it having come to his knowledge that her views had considerably changed, he felt

compelled to say that his own, too, were largely modified by events subsequent to their parting. He would not

conceal from her that passionate love had little to do with his communication. It arose from a wish to make

their lives, if not a success, at least no such disastrous failure as they threatened to become, through his acting

on what he had considered at the time a principle of justice, charity, and reason.

To indulge one's instinctive and uncontrolled sense of justice and right, was not, he had found, permitted with

impunity in an old civilization like ours. It was necessary to act under an acquired and cultivated sense of the

same, if you wished to enjoy an average share of comfort and honour; and to let crude loving kindness take

On second thoughts he took out the last paragraph but one; and having rewritten the letter he dispatched it

A few days after a figure moved through the white fog which enveloped the Beersheba suburb of

Christminster, towards the quarter in which Jude Fawley had taken up his lodging since his division from

It was eveningso he was at home; and by a species of divination he jumped up and rushed to the door

"Will you come out with me? I would rather not come in. I want to to talk with youand to go with you

It had been in the trembling accents of Sue that these words came. Jude put on his hat. "It is dreary for you to

Jude was too much affected to go on talking at first; she, too, was now such a mere cluster of nerves that all

initiatory power seemed to have left her, and they proceeded through the fog like Acherontic shades for a

"I want to tell you," she presently said, her voice now quick, now slow, "so that you may not hear of it by

chance. I am going back to Richard. He hasso magnanimouslyagreed to forgive all."

"He is going to marry me again. That is for form's sake, and to satisfy the world, which does not see things as

"But you are my wife! Yes, you are. You know it. I have always regretted that feint of ours in going away

and pretending to come back legally married, to save appearances. I loved you, and you loved me; and we

closed with each other; and that made the marriage. We still loveyou as well as IKNOW it, Sue!

"Yes; I know how you see it," she answered with despairing selfsuppression. "But I am going to marry him

again, as it would be called by you. Strictly speaking you, toodon't mind my saying it, Jude!you should

"I should? Good Godwhat next! But how if you and I had married legally, as we were on the point of

"I should have felt just the samethat ours was not a marriage. And I would go back to Richard without

repeating the sacrament, if he asked me. But 'the world and its ways have a certain worth' (I suppose):

therefore I concede a repetition of the ceremony.... Don't crush all the life out of me by satire and argument, I

implore you! I was strongest once, I know, and perhaps I treated you cruelly. But Jude, return good for evil! I

am the weaker now. Don't retaliate upon me, but be kind. Oh be kind to mea poor wicked woman who is

He shook his head hopelessly, his eyes wet. The blow of her bereavement seemed to have destroyed her

reasoning faculty. The once keen vision was dimmed. "All wrong, all wrong!" he said huskily.

"Errorperversity! It drives me out of my senses. Do you care for him? Do you love him? You know you

don't! It will be a fanatic prostitutionGod forgive me, yesthat's what it will be!"

"I don't love himI must, must, own it, in deepest remorse! But I shall try to learn to love him by obeying

Jude argued, urged, implored; but her conviction was proof against all. It seemed to be the one thing on earth

on which she was firm, and that her firmness in this had left her tottering in every other impulse and wish she

"I have been considerate enough to let you know the whole truth, and to tell it you myself," she said in cut

tones; "that you might not consider yourself slighted by hearing of it at second hand. I have even owned the

extreme fact that I do not love him. I did not think you would be so rough with me for doing so! I was going

"Why, of course I will. Whatisn't he coming to fetch you to marry you from here? He won't condescend

"NoI won't let him. I go to him voluntarily, just as I went away from him. We are to be married at his little

She was so sadly sweet in what he called her wrongheadedness that Jude could not help being moved to

tears more than once for pity of her. "I never knew such a woman for doing impulsive penances, as you, Sue!

No sooner does one expect you to go straight on, as the one rational proceeding, than you double round the

"Ah, well; let that go! ... Jude, I must say goodbye! But I wanted you to go to the cemetery with me. Let our

farewell be there beside the graves of those who died to bring home to me the error of my views."

They turned in the direction of the place, and the gate was opened to them on application. Sue had been there

often, and she knew the way to the spot in the dark. They reached it, and stood still.

"Don't think me hard because I have acted on conviction. Your generous devotion to me is unparalleled,

Jude! Your worldly failure, if you have failed, is to your credit rather than to your blame. Remember that the

best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is

more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.... 'Charity seeketh not her own.'"

"In that chapter we are at one, ever beloved darling, and on it we'll part friends. Its verses will stand fast when

THE next afternoon the familiar Christminster fog still hung over all things. Sue's slim shape was only just

Jude had no heart to go to his work that day. Neither could he go anywhere in the direction by which she

would be likely to pass. He went in an opposite one, to a dreary, strange, flat scene, where boughs dripped,

She in the meantime had left by the train, and reached Alfredston Road, where she entered the steamtram

and was conveyed into the town. It had been her request to Phillotson that he should not meet her. She

wished, she said, to come to him voluntarily, to his very house and hearthstone.

It was Friday evening, which had been chosen because the schoolmaster was disengaged at four o'clock that

day till the Monday morning following. The little car she hired at the Bear to drive her to Marygreen set her

down at the end of the lane, half a mile from the village, by her desire, and preceded her to the schoolhouse

with such portion of her luggage as she had brought. On its return she encountered it, and asked the driver if

he had found the master's house open. The man informed her that he had, and that her things had been taken

She could now enter Marygreen without exciting much observation. She crossed by the well and under the

trees to the pretty new school on the other side, and lifted the latch of the dwelling without knocking.

"I've come, Richard," said she, looking pale and shaken, and sinking into a chair. "I cannot believeyou

She started at the endearment, though it had been spoken advisedly without fervour. Then she nerved herself

"My childrenare deadand it is right that they should be! I am gladalmost. They were sinbegotten.

They were sacrificed to teach me how to live! Their death was the first stage of my purification. That's why

He was so stirred by her pitiful words and tone that he did more than he had meant to do. He bent and kissed

Phillotson's heart sank, for desire was renascent in him. "You still have an aversion to me!"

"Oh no, dearI have been driving through the damp, and I was chilly!" she said, with a hurried smile of

"Tomorrow morning, early, I thoughtif you really wish. I am sending round to the vicar to let him know

you are come. I have told him all, and he highly approveshe says it will bring our lives to a triumphant and

satisfactory issue. Butare you sure of yourself? It is not too late to refuse now ifyou think you can't

"Yes, yes, I can! I want it done quick. Tell him, tell him at once! My strength is tried by the undertakingI

"Have something to eat and drink then, and go over to your room at Mrs. Edlin's. I'll tell the vicar halfpast

eight tomorrow, before anybody is aboutif that's not too soon for you? My friend Gillingham is here to

help us in the ceremony. He's been good enough to come all the way from Shaston at great inconvenience to

Unlike a woman in ordinary, whose eye is so keen for material things, Sue seemed to see nothing of the room

they were in, or any detail of her environment. But on moving across the parlour to put down her muff she

uttered a little "Oh!" and grew paler than before. Her look was that of the condemned criminal who catches

The flap of the bureau chanced to be open, and in placing her muff upon it her eye had caught a document

which lay there. "Ohonly a funny surprise!" she said, trying to laugh away her cry as she came back to

Gillingham now joined them from his room above, and Sue nervously made herself agreeable to him by

talking on whatever she thought likely to interest him, except herself, though that interested him most of all.

She obediently ate some supper, and prepared to leave for her lodging hard by. Phillotson crossed the green

The old woman accompanied Sue to her temporary quarters, and helped her to unpack. Among other things

"OhI didn't know THAT was put in!" said Sue quickly. "I didn't mean it to be. Here is a different one." She

"But this is the prettiest," said Mrs. Edlin. "That one is no better than very sackcloth o' Scripture!"

She took it, and began rending it with all her might, the tears resounding through the house like a

"It is adulterous! It signifies what I don't feelI bought it long ago to please Jude. It must be destroyed!"

Mrs. Edlin lifted her hands, and Sue excitedly continued to tear the linen into strips, laying the pieces in the

"You med ha' give it to me!" said the widow. "It do make my heart ache to see such pretty openwork as that

aburned by the flames not that ornamental nightrails can be much use to a' ould 'ooman like I. My days

"It is an accursed thingit reminds me of what I want to forget!" Sue repeated. "It is only fit for the fire."

"Lord, you be too strict! What do ye use such words for, and condemn to hell your dear little innocent

Sue flung her face upon the bed, sobbing. "Oh, don't, don't! That kills me!" She remained shaken with her

"I'll tell 'ee whatyou ought not to marry this man again!" said Mrs. Edlin indignantly. "You are in love wi'

"Pshoo! You be t' other man's. If you didn't like to commit yourselves to the binding vow again, just at first,

'twas all the more credit to your consciences, considering your reasons, and you med ha' lived on, and made it

"Richard says he'll have me back, and I'm bound to go! If he had refused, it might not have been so much my

duty to give up Jude. But" She remained with her face in the bedclothes, and Mrs. Edlin left the room.

Phillotson in the interval had gone back to his friend Gillingham, who still sat over the suppertable. They

soon rose, and walked out on the green to smoke awhile. A light was burning in Sue's room, a shadow

Gillingham had evidently been impressed with the indefinable charm of Sue, and after a silence he said,

"Well: you've all but got her again at last. She can't very well go a second time. The pear has dropped into

"Yes! ... I suppose I am right in taking her at her word. I confess there seems a touch of selfishness in it.

Apart from her being what she is, of course, a luxury for a fogy like me, it will set me right in the eyes of the

clergy and orthodox laity, who have never forgiven me for letting her go. So I may get back in some degree

"Wellif you've got any sound reason for marrying her again, do it now in God's name! I was always

against your opening the cagedoor and letting the bird go in such an obviously suicidal way. You might

have been a school inspector by this time, or a reverend, if you hadn't been so weak about her."

Phillotson was more evasive tonight. He did not care to admit clearly that his taking Sue to him again had at

bottom nothing to do with repentance of letting her go, but was, primarily, a human instinct flying in the face

of custom and profession. He said, "YesI shall do that. I know woman better now. Whatever justice there

was in releasing her, there was little logic, for one holding my views on other subjects."

Gillingham looked at him, and wondered whether it would ever happen that the reactionary spirit induced by

the world's sneers and his own physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her than he

"I perceive it won't do to give way to impulse," Phillotson resumed, feeling more and more every minute the

necessity of acting up to his position. "I flew in the face of the Church's teaching; but I did it without malice

prepense. Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness. However, I

"Yes; but you must tighten the reins by degrees only. Don't be too strenuous at first. She'll come to any terms

The caution was unnecessary, though Phillotson did not say so. "I remember what my vicar at Shaston said,

when I left after the row that was made about my agreeing to her elopement. 'The only thing you can do to

retrieve your position and hers is to admit your error in not restraining her with a wise and strong hand, and to

get her back again if she'll come, and be firm in the future.' But I was so headstrong at that time that I paid no

heed. And that after the divorce she should have thought of doing so I did not dream."

The gate of Mrs. Edlin's cottage clicked, and somebody began crossing in the direction of the school.

"Oh, is that Mr. Phillotson," said Mrs. Edlin. "I was going over to see 'ee. I've been upstairs with her, helping

her to unpack her things; and upon my word, sir, I don't think this ought to be!"

"Yes. She's forcing herself to it, poor dear little thing; and you've no notion what she's suffering. I was never

much for religion nor against it, but it can't be right to let her do this, and you ought to persuade her out of it.

Of course everybody will say it was very good and forgiving of 'ee to take her to 'ee again. But for my part I

"It's her wish, and I am willing," said Phillotson with grave reserve, opposition making him illogically

"I don't believe it. She's his wife if anybody's. She's had three children by him, and he loves her dearly; and

it's a wicked shame to egg her on to this, poor little quivering thing! She's got nobody on her side. The one

man who'd be her friend the obstinate creature won't allow to come near her. What first put her into this mood

"I can't tell. Not I certainly. It is all voluntary on her part. Now that's all I have to say." Phillotson spoke

"Well. I knowed you'd be affronted at what I had to say; but I don't mind that. The truth's the truth."

"I'm not affronted, Mrs. Edlin. You've been too kind a neighbour for that. But I must be allowed to know

what's best for myself and Susanna. I suppose you won't go to church with us, then?"

"No. Be hanged if I can.... I don't know what the times be coming to! Matrimony have growed to be that

serious in these days that one really do feel afeard to move in it at all. In my time we took it more careless;

and I don't know that we was any the worse for it! When I and my poor man were jined in it we kept up the

junketing all the week, and drunk the parish dry, and had to borrow half a crown to begin housekeeping!"

When Mrs. Edlin had gone back to her cottage Phillotson spoke moodily. "I don't know whether I ought to do

"If she is really compelling herself to this against her instincts merely from this new sense of duty or

"I can't very well put it off now; that's true. But I had a qualm when she gave that little cry at sight of the

"Now, never you have qualms, old boy. I mean to give her away tomorrow morning, and you mean to take

her. It has always been on my conscience that I didn't urge more objections to your letting her go, and now

we've got to this stage I shan't be content if I don't help you to set the matter right."

Phillotson nodded, and seeing how staunch his friend was, became more frank. "No doubt when it gets

known what I've done I shall be thought a soft fool by many. But they don't know Sue as I do. Though so

elusive, hers is such an honest nature at bottom that I don't think she has ever done anything against her

conscience. The fact of her having lived with Fawley goes for nothing. At the time she left me for him she

The next morning came, and the selfsacrifice of the woman on the altar of what she was pleased to call her

principles was acquiesced in by these two friends, each from his own point of view. Phillotson went across to

the Widow Edlin's to fetch Sue a few minutes after eight o'clock. The fog of the previous day or two on the

lowlands had travelled up here by now, and the trees on the green caught armfuls, and turned them into

showers of big drops. The bride was waiting, ready; bonnet and all on. She had never in her life looked so

much like the lily her name connoted as she did in that pallid morning light. Chastened, worldweary,

remorseful, the strain on her nerves had preyed upon her flesh and bones, and she appeared smaller in outline

than she had formerly done, though Sue had not been a large woman in her days of rudest health.

"Prompt," said the schoolmaster, magnanimously taking her hand. But he checked his impulse to kiss her,

Gillingham joined them, and they left the house, Widow Edlin continuing steadfast in her refusal to assist in

"Where is the church?" said Sue. She had not lived there for any length of time since the old church was

"Up here," said Phillotson; and presently the tower loomed large and solemn in the fog. The vicar had already

crossed to the building, and when they entered he said pleasantly: "We almost want candles."

Sue said no more; and for the second or third time he felt he was not quite following out the humane instinct

There they stood, five altogether: the parson, the clerk, the couple, and Gillingham; and the holy ordinance

was resolemnized forthwith. In the nave of the edifice were two or three villagers, and when the clergyman

came to the words, "What God hath joined," a woman's voice from among these was heard to utter audibly:

It was like a reenactment by the ghosts of their former selves of the similar scene which had taken place at

Melchester years before. When the books were signed the vicar congratulated the husband and wife on

having performed a noble, and righteous, and mutually forgiving act. "All's well that ends well," he said

smiling. "May you long be happy together, after thus having been 'saved as by fire.'"

They came down the nearly empty building, and crossed to the schoolhouse. Gillingham wanted to get home

that night, and left early. He, too, congratulated the couple. "Now," he said in parting from Phillotson, who

walked out a little way, "I shall be able to tell the people in your native place a good round tale; and they'll all

When the schoolmaster got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there.

But she seemed timid at his approach, and compunction wrought on him at sight of it.

"Of course, my dear, I shan't expect to intrude upon your personal privacy any more than I did before," he

said gravely. "It is for our good socially to do this, and that's its justification, if it was not my reason." Sue

THE place was the door of Jude's lodging in the outskirts of Christminster far from the precincts of St.

Silas' where he had formerly lived, which saddened him to sickness. The rain was coming down. A woman in

shabby black stood on the doorstep talking to Jude, who held the door in his hand.

"I am lonely, destitute, and houselessthat's what I am! Father has turned me out of doors after borrowing

every penny I'd got, to put it into his business, and then accusing me of laziness when I was only waiting for a

situation. I am at the mercy of the world! If you can't take me and help me, Jude, I must go to the workhouse,

or to something worse. Only just now two undergraduates winked at me as I came along. 'Tis hard for a

The woman in the rain who spoke thus was Arabella, the evening being that of the day after Sue's remarriage

"Oh, but can't you have the kindness to take me in? I cannot endure going to a public house to lodge; and I

"No, no," said Jude hastily. "I don't want to be reminded of those things; and if you talk about them I shall not

"Then I suppose I must go!" said Arabella. She bent her head against the doorpost and began sobbing.

"The house is full," said Jude. "And I have only a little extra room to my ownnot much more than a

Unable to be harsh with her, and not knowing what to do, Jude called the man who let the lodgings, and said

this was an acquaintance of his in great distress for want of temporary shelter.

"You may remember me as barmaid at the Lamb and Flag formerly?" spoke up Arabella. "My father has

The householder said he could not recall her features. "But still, if you are a friend of Mr. Fawley's we'll do

"Yes, yes," said Jude. "She has really taken me quite unawares; but I should wish to help her out of her

difficulty." And an arrangement was ultimately come to under which a bed was to be thrown down in Jude's

lumberroom, to make it comfortable for Arabella till she could get out of the strait she was innot by her

While they were waiting for this to be done Arabella said: "You know the news, I suppose?"

"I had a letter from Anny at Alfredston today. She had just heard that the wedding was to be yesterday: but

"If it's done, he'll have a chance of getting back to his old position, by everybody's account, so Anny says. All

Arabella was duly installed in the little attic, and at first she did not come near Jude at all. She went to and fro

about her own business, which, when they met for a moment on the stairs or in the passage, she informed him

was that of obtaining another place in the occupation she understood best. When Jude suggested London as

affording the most likely opening in the liquor trade, she shook her head. "Nothe temptations are too

On the Sunday morning following, when he breakfasted later than on other days, she meekly asked him if she

might come in to breakfast with him, as she had broken her teapot, and could not replace it immediately, the

While they sat without speaking she suddenly observed: "You seem all in a brood, old man. I'm sorry for

"It is about her, I know. It's no business of mine, but I could find out all about the weddingif it really did

"I wanted to go to Alfredston to get a few things I left there. And I could see Anny, who'll be sure to have

Jude could not bear to acquiesce in this proposal; but his suspense pitted itself against his discretion, and won

in the struggle. "You can ask about it if you like," he said. "I've not heard a sound from there. It must have

"I am afraid I haven't enough cash to take me there and back, or I should have gone before. I must wait till I

"OhI can pay the journey for you," he said impatiently. And thus his suspense as to Sue's welfare, and the

possible marriage, moved him to dispatch for intelligence the last emissary he would have thought of

Arabella went, Jude requesting her to be home not later than by the seven o'clock train. When she had gone

he said: "Why should I have charged her to be back by a particular time! She's nothing to menor the other

But having finished work he could not help going to the station to meet Arabella, dragged thither by feverish

haste to get the news she might bring, and know the worst. Arabella had made dimples most successfully all

the way home, and when she stepped out of the railway carriage she smiled. He merely said "Well?" with the

"Yesof course they are!" he returned. She observed, however, the hard strain upon his lip as he spoke.

"Anny says she has heard from Belinda, her relation out at Marygreen, that it was very sad, and curious!"

"Yesthat was it. She wanted to in one sense, but not in the other. Mrs. Edlin was much upset by it all, and

spoke out her mind at Phillotson. But Sue was that excited about it that she burnt her best embroidery that

she'd worn with you, to blot you out entirely. Wellif a woman feels like it, she ought to do it. I commend

her for it, though others don't." Arabella sighed. "She felt he was her only husband, and that she belonged to

nobody else in the sight of God A'mighty while he lived. Perhaps another woman feels the same about

He closed that issue by remarking abruptly: "Wellnow I know all I wanted to know. Many thanks for your

information. I am not going back to my lodgings just yet." And he left her straightway.

In his misery and depression Jude walked to wellnigh every spot in the city that he had visited with Sue;

thence he did not know whither, and then thought of going home to his usual evening meal. But having all the

vices of his virtues, and some to spare, he turned into a public house, for the first time during many months.

Arabella, meanwhile, had gone back. The evening passed, and Jude did not return. At halfpast nine Arabella

herself went out, first proceeding to an outlying district near the river where her father lived, and had opened

"Well," she said to him, "for all your rowing me that night, I've called in, for I have something to tell you. I

think I shall get married and settled again. Only you must help me: and you can do no less, after what I've

"Very well. I am now going to look for my young man. He's on the loose I'm afraid, and I must get him

home. All I want you to do tonight is not to fasten the door, in case I should want to sleep here, and should

She then sallied out again, and first hastening back to Jude's to make sure that he had not returned, began her

search for him. A shrewd guess as to his probable course took her straight to the tavern which Jude had

formerly frequented, and where she had been barmaid for a brief term. She had no sooner opened the door of

the "Private Bar" than her eyes fell upon himsitting in the shade at the back of the compartment, with his

eyes fixed on the floor in a blank stare. He was drinking nothing stronger than ale just then. He did not

Jude looked up, and said without surprise: "You've come to have something, Arabella? ... I'm trying to forget

her: that's all! But I can't; and I am going home." She saw that he was a little way on in liquor, but only a little

"I've come entirely to look for you, dear boy. You are not well. Now you must have something better than

that." Arabella held up her finger to the barmaid. "You shall have a liqueurthat's better fit for a man of

education than beer. You shall have maraschino, or curacao dry or sweet, or cherry brandy. I'll treat you, poor

"I don't care which! Say cherry brandy.... Sue has served me badly, very badly. I didn't expect it of Sue! I

stuck to her, and she ought to have stuck to me. I'd have sold my soul for her sake, but she wouldn't risk hers

a jot for me. To save her own soul she lets mine go damn! ... But it isn't her fault, poor little girl I am sure

How Arabella had obtained money did not appear, but she ordered a liqueur each, and paid for them. When

they had drunk these Arabella suggested another; and Jude had the pleasure of being, as it were, personally

conducted through the varieties of spirituous delectation by one who knew the landmarks well. Arabella kept

very considerably in the rear of Jude; but though she only sipped where he drank, she took as much as she

could safely take without losing her head which was not a little, as the crimson upon her countenance

Her tone towards him tonight was uniformly soothing and cajoling; and whenever he said "I don't care what

happens to me," a thing he did continually, she replied, "But I do very much!" The closing hour came, and

they were compelled to turn out; whereupon Arabella put her arm round his waist, and guided his unsteady

When they were in the streets she said: "I don't know what our landlord will say to my bringing you home in

this state. I expect we are fastened out, so that he'll have to come down and let us in."

"That's the worst of not having a home of your own. I tell you, Jude, what we had best do. Come round to my

father's I made it up with him a bit today. I can let you in, and nobody will see you at all; and by

They went along together, like any other fuddling couple, her arm still round his waist, and his, at last, round

hers; though with no amatory intent; but merely because he was weary, unstable, and in need of support.

"Thisis th' Martyrs'burningplace," he stammered as they dragged across a broad street. "I

rememberin old Fuller's HOLY STATE and I am reminded of itby our passing by hereold Fuller

in his HOLY STATE says, that at the burning of Ridley, Doctor Smith preached sermon, and took as his

"Yes. Exactly. Very thoughtful of you, deary, even though it hasn't much to do with our present business."

"Why, yes it has! I'm giving my body to be burned! Butah you don't understand!it wants Sue to

understand such things! And I was her seducerpoor little girl! And she's gone and I don't care about

myself! Do what you like with me! ... And yet she did it for conscience' sake, poor little Sue!"

"Hang her!I mean, I think she was right," hiccuped Arabella. "I've my feelings too, like her; and I feel I

belong to you in Heaven's eye, and to nobody else, till death us do part! It ishicnever too latehic to

They had reached her father's house, and she softly unfastened the door, groping about for a light within.

The circumstances were not altogether unlike those of their entry into the cottage at Cresscombe, such a long

time before. Nor were perhaps Arabella's motives. But Jude did not think of that, though she did.

"I can't find the matches, dear," she said when she had fastened up the door. "But never mindthis way. As

"Give me your hand, and I'll lead you. That's it. Just sit down here, and I'll pull off your boots. I don't want to

She pulled off his boots. "Now," she whispered, "take hold of me never mind your weight. Nowfirst

"But,are we out in our old house by Marygreen?" asked the stupefied Jude. "I haven't been inside it for

"We are at my house, dear, where there's nobody to spy out how ill you are. Nowthird stair, fourth

ARABELLA was preparing breakfast in the downstairs back room of this small, recently hired tenement of

her father's. She put her head into the little porkshop in front, and told Mr. Donn it was ready. Donn,

endeavouring to look like a master porkbutcher, in a greasy blue blouse, and with a strap round his waist

"You must mind the shop this morning," he said casually. "I've to go and get some inwards and half a pig

from Lumsdon, and to call elsewhere. If you live here you must put your shoulder to the wheel, at least till I

"Well, for today I can't say." She looked deedily into his face. "I've got a prize upstairs."

"But how does he come to be up there?" said Donn, humourstruck, and nodding to the ceiling.

"Don't ask inconvenient questions, Father. What we've to do is to keep him here till he and I areas we

"Ah.... Well it is the rummest thing I ever heard ofmarrying an old husband again, and so much new blood

in the world! He's no catch, to my thinking. I'd have had a new one while I was about it."

"It isn't rum for a woman to want her old husband back for respectability, though for a man to want his old

wife back well, perhaps it is funny, rather!" And Arabella was suddenly seized with a fit of loud laughter,

"Be civil to him, and I'll do the rest," she said when she had recovered seriousness. "He told me this morning

that his head ached fit to burst, and he hardly seemed to know where he was. And no wonder, considering

how he mixed his drink last night. We must keep him jolly and cheerful here for a day or two, and not let him

go back to his lodging. Whatever you advance I'll pay back to you again. But I must go up and see how he is

Arabella ascended the stairs, softly opened the door of the first bedroom, and peeped in. Finding that her

shorn Samson was asleep she entered to the bedside and stood regarding him. The fevered flush on his face

from the debauch of the previous evening lessened the fragility of his ordinary appearance, and his long

lashes, dark brows, and curly back hair and beard against the white pillow completed the physiognomy of one

whom Arabella, as a woman of rank passions, still felt it worth while to recapture, highly important to

recapture as a woman straitened both in means and in reputation. Her ardent gaze seemed to affect him; his

"Ah!whereoh yes, I remember! You gave me shelter.... I am strandedilldemoralizeddamn bad!

"Then do stay here. There's nobody in the house but father and me, and you can rest till you are thoroughly

"I'll go round and explain. Perhaps you had better let me pay up, or they'll think we've run away?"

Quite indifferent, and shutting his eyes because he could not bear the daylight in his throbbing eyeballs,

Jude seemed to doze again. Arabella took his purse, softly left the room, and putting on her outdoor things

Scarcely half an hour had elapsed ere she reappeared round the corner, walking beside a lad wheeling a truck

on which were piled all Jude's household possessions, and also the few of Arabella's things which she had

taken to the lodging for her short sojourn there. Jude was in such physical pain from his unfortunate

breakdown of the previous night, and in such mental pain from the loss of Sue and from having yielded in

his halfsomnolent state to Arabella, that when he saw his few chattels unpacked and standing before his

eyes in this strange bedroom, intermixed with woman's apparel, he scarcely considered how they had come

"Now," said Arabella to her father downstairs, "we must keep plenty of good liquor going in the house these

next few days. I know his nature, and if he once gets into that fearfully low state that he does get into

sometimes, he'll never do the honourable thing by me in this world, and I shall be left in the lurch. He must

be kept cheerful. He has a little money in the savings bank, and he has given me his purse to pay for anything

necessary. Well, that will be the licence; for I must have that ready at hand, to catch him the moment he's in

the humour. You must pay for the liquor. A few friends, and a quiet convivial party would be the thing, if we

"That can be got up easy enough by anybody who'll afford victuals and drink.... Well yesit would advertise

Three days later, when Jude had recovered somewhat from the fearful throbbing of his eyes and brain, but

was still considerably confused in his mind by what had been supplied to him by Arabella during the

intervalto keep him, jolly, as she expressed it the quiet convivial gathering, suggested by her, to wind

Donn had only just opened his miserable little pork and sausage shop, which had as yet scarce any customers;

nevertheless that party advertised it well, and the Donns acquired a real notoriety among a certain class in

Christminster who knew not the colleges, nor their works, nor their ways. Jude was asked if he could suggest

any guest in addition to those named by Arabella and her father, and in a saturnine humour of perfect

recklessness mentioned Uncle Joe, and Stagg, and the decayed auctioneer, and others whom he remembered

as having been frequenters of the wellknown tavern during his bout therein years before. He also suggested

Freckles and Bower o' Bliss. Arabella took him at his word so far as the men went, but drew the line at the

Another man they knew, Tinker Taylor, though he lived in the same street, was not invited; but as he went

homeward from a late job on the evening of the party, he had occasion to call at the shop for trotters. There

were none in, but he was promised some the next morning. While making his inquiry Taylor glanced into the

back room, and saw the guests sitting round, cardplaying, and drinking, and otherwise enjoying themselves

at Donn's expense. He went home to bed, and on his way out next morning wondered how the party went off.

He thought it hardly worth while to call at the shop for his provisions at that hour, Donn and his daughter

being probably not up, if they caroused late the night before. However, he found in passing that the door was

open, and he could hear voices within, though the shutters of the meatstall were not down. He went and

Hosts and guests were sitting cardplaying, smoking, and talking, precisely as he had left them eleven hours

earlier; the gas was burning and the curtains drawn, though it had been broad daylight for two hours out of

"Yes!" cried Arabella, laughing. "Here we are, just the same. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, oughtn't

we! But it is a sort of housewarming, you see; and our friends are in no hurry. Come in, Mr. Taylor, and sit

The tinker, or rather reduced ironmonger, was nothing loath, and entered and took a seat. "I shall lose a

quarter, but never mind," he said. "Well, really, I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in! It seemed

He now perceived that she was sitting beside Jude, her arm being round his waist. Jude, like the rest of the

"Well, we've been waiting for certain legal hours to arrive, to tell the truth," she continued bashfully, and

making her spirituous crimson look as much like a maiden blush as possible. "Jude and I have decided to

make up matters between us by tying the knot again, as we find we can't do without one another after all. So,

as a bright notion, we agreed to sit on till it was late enough, and go and do it offhand."

Jude seemed to pay no great heed to what she was announcing, or indeed to anything whatever. The entrance

of Taylor infused fresh spirit into the company, and they remained sitting, till Arabella whispered to her

"Yes, I told him last night that we might come between eight and nine, as there were reasons of decency for

doing it as early and quiet as possible; on account of it being our second marriage, which might make people

"When did I promise anything?" asked he, whom she had made so tipsy by her special knowledge of that line

of business as almost to have made him sober againor to seem so to those who did not know him.

"Why!" said Arabella, affecting dismay. "You've promised to marry me several times as we've sat here

"I don't remember it," said Jude doggedly. "There's only one woman but I won't mention her in this

Arabella looked towards her father. "Now, Mr. Fawley be honourable," said Donn. "You and my daughter

have been living here together these three or four days, quite on the understanding that you were going to

marry her. Of course I shouldn't have had such goings on in my house if I hadn't understood that. As a point

"Don't say anything against my honour!" enjoined Jude hotly, standing up. "I'd marry the W of Babylon

rather than do anything dishonourable! No reflection on you, my dear. It is a mere rhetorical figure what

"If I am bound in honour to marry heras I suppose I am though how I came to be here with her I know

no more than a dead man marry her I will, so help me God! I have never behaved dishonourably to a

woman or to any living thing. I am not a man who wants to save himself at the expense of the weaker among

"Therenever mind him, deary," said she, putting her cheek against Jude's. "Come up and wash your face,

They shook hands. Jude went upstairs with her, and soon came down looking tidy and calm. Arabella, too,

"Don't go," she said to the guests at parting. I've told the little maid to get the breakfast while we are gone;

and when we come back we'll all have some. A good strong cup of tea will set everybody right for going

When Arabella, Jude, and Donn had disappeared on their matrimonial errand the assembled guests yawned

themselves wider awake, and discussed the situation with great interest. Tinker Taylor, being the most sober,

"I don't wish to speak against friends," he said. "But it do seem a rare curiosity for a couple to marry over

again! If they couldn't get on the first time when their minds were limp, they won't the second, by my

"Well," said Tinker Taylor, relighting his pipe at the gasjet. "Take her all together, limb by limb, she's not

such a badlooking piece particular by candlelight. To be sure, halfpence that have been in circulation

can't be expected to look like new ones from the mint. But for a woman that's been knocking about the four

hemispheres for some time, she's passable enough. A little bit thick in the flitch perhaps: but I like a woman

Their eyes followed the movements of the little girl as she spread the breakfastcloth on the table they had

been using, without wiping up the slops of the liquor. The curtains were undrawn, and the expression of the

house made to look like morning. Some of the guests, however, fell asleep in their chairs. One or two went to

the door, and gazed along the street more than once. Tinker Taylor was the chief of these, and after a time he

"No," said Uncle Joe, following him in. "Take my word, he turned rusty at the last minute. They are walking

They waited in silence till the weddingparty could be heard entering the house. First into the room came

Arabella boisterously; and her face was enough to show that her strategy had succeeded.

"Certainly. Mrs. Fawley again," replied Arabella blandly, pulling off her glove and holding out her left hand.

"There's the padlock, see.... Well, he was a very nice, gentlemanly man indeed. I mean the clergyman. He

said to me as gentle as a babe when all was done: 'Mrs. Fawley, I congratulate you heartily,' he says. 'For

having heard your history, and that of your husband, I think you have both done the right and proper thing.

And for your past errors as a wife, and his as a husband, I think you ought now to be forgiven by the world,

as you have forgiven each other,' says he. Yes: he was a very nice, gentlemanly man. 'The Church don't

recognize divorce in her dogma, strictly speaking,' he says: 'and bear in mind the words of the service in your

goings out and your comings in: What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.' Yes: he was a very

nice, gentlemanly man.... But, Jude, my dear, you were enough to make a cat laugh! You walked that straight,

and held yourself that steady, that one would have thought you were going 'prentice to a judge; though I knew

"I said I'd do anything tosave a woman's honour," muttered Jude. "And I've done it!"

"Nonsense, dear. Not now! There's no more left. The tea will take the muddle out of our heads, and we shall

"All right. I'vemarried you. She said I ought to marry you again, and I have straightway. It is true religion!

MICHAELMAS came and passed, and Jude and his wife, who had lived but a short time in her father's house

after their remarriage, were in lodgings on the top floor of a dwelling nearer to the centre of the city.

He had done a few days' work during the two or three months since the event, but his health had been

indifferent, and it was now precarious. He was sitting in an armchair before the fire, and coughed a good

"I've got a bargain for my trouble in marrying thee over again!" Arabella was saying to him. "I shall have to

keep 'ee entirely that's what 'twill come to! I shall have to make blackpot and sausages, and hawk 'em

about the street, all to support an invalid husband I'd no business to be saddled with at all. Why didn't you

keep your health, deceiving one like this? You were well enough when the wedding was!"

"Ah, yes!" said he, laughing acridly. "I have been thinking of my foolish feeling about the pig you and I

killed during our first marriage. I feel now that the greatest mercy that could be vouchsafed to me would be

This was the sort of discourse that went on between them every day now. The landlord of the lodging, who

had heard that they were a queer couple, had doubted if they were married at all, especially as he had seen

Arabella kiss Jude one evening when she had taken a little cordial; and he was about to give them notice to

quit, till by chance overhearing her one night haranguing Jude in rattling terms, and ultimately flinging a shoe

at his head, he recognized the note of genuine wedlock; and concluding that they must be respectable, said no

Jude did not get any better, and one day he requested Arabella, with considerable hesitation, to execute a

"To ask how she is, and if she'll come to see me, because I'm ill, and should like to see heronce again."

"It is just in order not to insult you that I ask you to do it. You know I love Sue. I don't wish to mince the

matter there stands the fact: I love her. I could find a dozen ways of sending a letter to her without your

knowledge. But I wish to be quite aboveboard with you, and with her husband. A message through you

asking her to come is at least free from any odour of intrigue. If she retains any of her old nature at all, she'll

"What DOES it matter what my opinions area wretch like me! Can it matter to anybody in the world who

comes to see me for half an hour here with one foot in the grave! ... Come, please write, Arabella!" he

"Not just once?Oh do!" He felt that his physical weakness had taken away all his dignity.

"What do you want HER to know how you are for? She don't want to see 'ee. She's the rat that forsook the

Almost as soon as the words were spoken Jude sprang from the chair, and before Arabella knew where she

was he had her on her back upon a little couch which stood there, he kneeling above her.

"Say another word of that sort," he whispered, "and I'll kill you here and now! I've everything to gain by

itmy own death not being the least part. So don't think there's no meaning in what I say!"

"I take your word," he said scornfully as he loosened her. "But what it is worth I can't say."

He then began coughing very much, and she estimated his life with an appraiser's eye as he sank back ghastly

pale. "I'll send for her," Arabella murmured, "if you'll agree to my being in the room with you all the time

The softer side of his nature, the desire to see Sue, made him unable to resist the offer even now, provoked as

"Yes," she said; "I wrote a note telling her you were ill, and asking her to come tomorrow or the day after. I

The next day Jude wondered if she really did post it, but would not ask her; and foolish Hope, that lives on a

drop and a crumb, made him restless with expectation. He knew the times of the possible trains, and listened

She did not come; but Jude would not address Arabella again thereon. He hoped and expected all the next

day; but no Sue appeared; neither was there any note of reply. Then Jude decided in the privacy of his mind

that Arabella had never posted hers, although she had written it. There was something in her manner which

told it. His physical weakness was such that he shed tears at the disappointment when she was not there to

see. His suspicions were, in fact, well founded. Arabella, like some other nurses, thought that your duty

towards your invalid was to pacify him by any means short of really acting upon his fancies.

He never said another word to her about his wish or his conjecture. A silent, undiscerned resolve grew up in

him, which gave him, if not strength, stability and calm. One midday when, after an absence of two hours,

Down she flopped on the bed, and sitting, meditated. "Now where the devil is my man gone to!" she said.

A driving rain from the northeast had been falling with more or less intermission all the morning, and

looking from the window at the dripping spouts it seemed impossible to believe that any sick man would

have ventured out to almost certain death. Yet a conviction possessed Arabella that he had gone out, and it

became a certainty when she had searched the house. "If he's such a fool, let him be!" she said. "I can do no

Jude was at that moment in a railway train that was drawing near to Alfredston, oddly swathed, pale as a

monumental figure in alabaster, and much stared at by other passengers. An hour later his thin form, in the

long greatcoat and blanket he had come with, but without an umbrella, could have been seen walking along

the fivemile road to Marygreen. On his face showed the determined purpose that alone sustained him, but to

which has weakness afforded a sorry foundation. By the uphill walk he was quite blown, but he pressed on;

and at halfpast three o'clock stood by the familiar well at Marygreen. The rain was keeping everybody

indoors; Jude crossed the green to the church without observation, and found the building open. Here he

stood, looking forth at the school, whence he could hear the usual singsong tones of the little voices that had

He waited till a small boy came from the schoolone evidently allowed out before hours for some reason or

"Please call at the schoolhouse and ask Mrs. Phillotson if she will be kind enough to come to the church for a

The child departed, and Jude heard him knock at the door of the dwelling. He himself went further into the

church. Everything was new, except a few pieces of carving preserved from the wrecked old fabric, now

fixed against the new walls. He stood by these: they seemed akin to the perished people of that place who

A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the

"OhI didn't think it was you! I didn'tOh, Jude!" A hysterical catch in her breath ended in a succession of

"Don't godon't go!" he implored. "This is my last time! I thought it would be less intrusive than to enter

your house. And I shall never come again. Don't then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are acting by the letter;

"I'll stayI won't be unkind!" she said, her mouth quivering and her tears flowing as she allowed him to

come closer. "But why did you come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you have

"Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has never been other than yours, Judein a

proper sense. And therefore you did so wellOh so well!in recognizing it and taking her to you again."

"God aboveand is that all I've come to hear? If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than

another in my life, it is this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing the right thing!

"Don't make me rush away from youI can't bear much! But on this point I am decided."

"Never mind that. He is a kind husband to meAnd II've wrestled and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I

have nearly brought my body into complete subjection. And you mustn'twill youwake"

"Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have suffered the loss of your faculties! I

would argue with you if I didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all appeals to her

brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as so many women do about these things; and don't actually

believe what you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion raised by an affected belief?"

"You dear, sad, soft, most melancholy wreck of a promising human intellect that it has ever been my lot to

"I will. I would never come to see you again, even if I had the strength to come, which I shall not have any

Her bosom began to go up and down. "I can't endure you to say that!" she burst out, and her eye resting on

him a moment, she turned back impulsively. "Don't, don't scorn me! Kiss me, oh kiss me lots of times, and

say I am not a coward and a contemptible humbug I can't bear it!" She rushed up to him and, with her

mouth on his, continued: "I must tell youoh I mustmy darling Love! It has beenonly a church

"I mean it is a nominal marriage only. It hasn't been more than that at all since I came back to him!"

"Sue!" he said. Pressing her to him in his arms he bruised her lips with kisses: "If misery can know happiness,

I have a moment's happiness now! Now, in the name of all you hold holy, tell me the truth, and no lie. You

"I do! You know it too well! ... But I MUSTN'T do this! I mustn't kiss you back as I would!"

"And so do you! There's one more, in memory of our dead little children yours and mine!"

The words struck her like a blow, and she bent her head. "I MUSTN'TI CAN'T go on with this!" she

gasped presently. "But there, there, darling; I give you back your kisses; I do, I do! ... And now I'll HATE

"Nolet me make my last appeal. Listen to this! We've both remarried out of our senses. I was made drunk

to do it. You were the same. I was gindrunk; you were creeddrunk. Either form of intoxication takes away

the nobler vision.... Let us then shake off our mistakes, and run away together!"

"No; again no! ... Why do you tempt me so far, Jude! It is too merciless! ... But I've got over myself now.

She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested. He did not turn his head, but took up his

blanket, which she had not seen, and went straight out. As he passed the end of the church she heard his

coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued

by her fetters, she sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and stopped her ears with

He was by this time at the corner of the green, from which the path ran across the fields in which he had

scared rooks as a boy. He turned and looked back, once, at the building which still contained Sue; and then

There are cold spots up and down Wessex in autumn and winter weather; but the coldest of all when a north

or east wind is blowing is the crest of the down by the Brown House, where the road to Alfredston crosses the

old Ridgeway. Here the first winter sleets and snows fall and lie, and here the spring frost lingers last

unthawed. Here in the teeth of the northeast wind and rain Jude now pursued his way, wet through, the

necessary slowness of his walk from lack of his former strength being insufficent to maintain his heat. He

came to the milestone, and, raining as it was, spread his blanket and lay down there to rest. Before moving on

he went and felt at the back of the stone for his own carving. It was still there; but nearly obliterated by moss.

He passed the spot where the gibbet of his ancestor and Sue's had stood, and descended the hill.

It was dark when he reached Alfredston, where he had a cup of tea, the deadly chill that began to creep into

his bones being too much for him to endure fasting. To get home he had to travel by a steam tramcar, and

two branches of railway, with much waiting at a junction. He did not reach Christminster till ten o'clock.

The water ran out of him as he went, and he was compelled to lean against the wall to support himself while

"You've done for yourself by this, young man," said she. "I don't know whether you know it."

"Listen to me, Arabella. You think you are the stronger; and so you are, in a physical sense, now. You could

push me over like a ninepin. You did not send that letter the other day, and I could not resent your conduct.

But I am not so weak in another way as you think. I made up my mind that a man confined to his room by

inflammation of the lungs, a fellow who had only two wishes left in the world, to see a particular woman, and

then to die, could neatly accomplish those two wishes at one stroke by taking this journey in the rain. That

I've done. I have seen her for the last time, and I've finished myselfput an end to a feverish life which

"Stupid fancies. I see, in a way, those spirits of the dead again, on this my last walk, that I saw when I first

"I seem to see them, and almost hear them rustling. But I don't revere all of them as I did then. I don't believe

in half of them. The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the highhanded statesmen,

and others, no longer interest me. All that has been spoilt for me by the grind of stern reality!"

The expression of Jude's corpselike face in the watery lamplight was indeed as if he saw people where there

was nobody. At moments he stood still by an archway, like one watching a figure walk out; then he would

look at a window like one discerning a familiar face behind it. He seemed to hear voices, whose words he

"OhI was talking to myself! The phantoms all about here, in the college archways, and windows. They

used to look friendly in the old days, particularly Addison, and Gibbon, and Johnson, and Dr. Browne, and

"Come along do! Phantoms! There's neither living nor dead hereabouts except a damn policeman! I never

"Fancy! The Poet of Liberty used to walk here, and the great Dissector of Melancholy there!"

"Walter Raleigh is beckoning to me from that lane WycliffeHarveyHookerArnoldand a whole

"I DON'T WANT to know their names, I tell you! What do I care about folk dead and gone? Upon my soul

"I must rest a moment," he said; and as he paused, holding to the railings, he measured with his eye the height

of a college front. "This is old Rubric. And that Sarcophagus; and Up that lane Crozier and Tudor: and all

down there is Cardinal with its long front, and its windows with lifted eyebrows, representing the polite

"Very well. It will help me home, for I feel the chilly fog from the meadows of Cardinal as if deathclaws

were grabbing me through and through. As Antigone said, I am neither a dweller among men nor ghosts. But,

Arabella, when I am dead, you'll see my spirit flitting up and down here among these!"

It was night at Marygreen, and the rain of the afternoon showed no sign of abatement. About the time at

which Jude and Arabella were walking the streets of Christminster homeward, the Widow Edlin crossed the

green, and opened the back door of the schoolmaster's dwelling, which she often did now before bedtime, to

Sue was muddling helplessly in the kitchen, for she was not a good housewife, though she tried to be, and

"Lord love 'ee, what do ye do that yourself for, when I've come o' purpose! You knew I should come."

"OhI don't knowI forgot! No, I didn't forget. I did it to discipline myself. I have scrubbed the stairs since

eight o'clock. I MUST practise myself in my household duties. I've shamefully neglected them!"

"Why should ye? He'll get a better school, perhaps be a parson, in time, and you'll keep two servants. 'Tis a

"Don't talk of my pretty hands, Mrs. Edlin. This pretty body of mine has been the ruin of me already!"

"Pshooyou've got no body to speak of! You put me more in mind of a sperrit. But there seems something

"I cannot tell you. I have done wrong today. And I want to eradicate it.... WellI will tell you thisJude

has been here this afternoon, and I find I still love himoh, grossly! I cannot tell you more."

"But it shan't be! I have not told my husband of his visit; it is not necessary to trouble him about it, as I never

mean to see Jude any more. But I am going to make my conscience right on my duty to Richardby doing a

"I wouldn'tsince he agrees to it being otherwise, and it has gone on three months very well as it is."

"Yeshe agrees to my living as I choose; but I feel it is an indulgence I ought not to exact from him. It

ought not to have been accepted by me. To reverse it will be terriblebut I must be more just to him. O why

"I cannot tell you. It is something ... I cannot say. The mournful thing is, that nobody would admit it as a

"I've heard strange tales o' husbands in my time," observed the widow in a lowered voice. "They say that

when the saints were upon the earth devils used to take husbands' forms o' nights, and get poor women into

all sorts of trouble. But I don't know why that should come into my head, for it is only a tale.... What a wind

and rain it is tonight! Welldon't be in a hurry to alter things, my dear. Think it over."

"No, no! I've screwed my weak soul up to treating him more courteously and it must be nowat

"I don't think you ought to force your nature. No woman ought to be expected to."

Half an hour later when Mrs. Edlin put on her bonnet and shawl to leave, Sue seemed to be seized with vague

"Nonodon't go, Mrs. Edlin," she implored, her eyes enlarged, and with a quick nervous look over her

"Yes, butthere's the little spare roommy room that was. It is quite ready. Please stay, Mrs. Edlin!I

"Oh wellI don't mind, if you wish. Nothing will happen to my four old walls, whether I be there or no."

"Wait here, Mrs. Edlin," said Sue. "I'll go into my old room a moment by myself."

Leaving the widow on the landing Sue turned to the chamber which had been hers exclusively since her

arrival at Marygreen, and pushing to the door knelt down by the bed for a minute or two. She then arose, and

taking her nightgown from the pillow undressed and came out to Mrs. Edlin. A man could be heard snoring

in the room opposite. She wished Mrs. Edlin goodnight, and the widow entered the room that Sue had just

Sue unlatched the other chamber door, and, as if seized with faintness, sank down outside it. Getting up again

she half opened the door, and said "Richard." As the word came out of her mouth she visibly shuddered.

The snoring had quite ceased for some time, but he did not reply. Sue seemed relieved, and hurried back to

"No, dear," said the widow, opening the door. "I be old and slow, and it takes me a long while to unray. I

"Perhaps he's dead!" she gasped. "And thenI should be FREE, and I could go to Jude! ... AhnoI

"Let's go and hearken. Nohe's snoring again. But the rain and the wind is so loud that you can hardly hear

Sue had dragged herself back. "Mrs. Edlin, goodnight again! I am sorry I called you out." The widow

The strained, resigned look returned to Sue's face when she was alone. "I must do itI must! I must drink to

"What do you want? Anything the matter? Wait a moment." He pulled on some articles of clothing, and came

"When we were at Shaston I jumped out of the window rather than that you should come near me. I have

never reversed that treatment till now when I have come to beg your pardon for it, and ask you to let me

"Perhaps you only think you ought to do this? I don't wish you to come against your impulses, as I have said."

"But I beg to be admitted." She waited a moment, and repeated, "I beg to be admitted! I have been in

erroreven today. I have exceeded my rights. I did not mean to tell you, but perhaps I ought. I sinned

"A good many. I don't know. I am horrified to look back on it, and the least I can do after it is to come to you

"No." She had been intending to say: "I called him my darling love." But, as a contrite woman always keeps

back a little, that portion of the scene remained untold. She went on: "I am never going to see him any more.

He spoke of some things of the past: and it overcame me. He spoke ofthe children. But, as I have said, I

am gladalmost glad I meanthat they are dead, Richard. It blots out all that life of mine!"

"Wellabout not seeing him again any more. Comeyou really mean this?" There was something in

Phillotson's tone now which seemed to show that his three months of remarriage with Sue had somehow not

He went back to the room and brought out a little brown Testament. "Now then: So help you God!"

"Now I supplicate you, Richard, to whom I belong, and whom I wish to honour and obey, as I vowed, to let

"Think it over well. You know what it means. Having you back in the house was one thingthis another. So

"That's a complaisant spiritand perhaps you are right. With a lover hanging about, a halfmarriage should

"Yes you do! But ..." He gloomily considered her thin and fragile form a moment longer as she crouched

before him in her nightclothes. "Well, I thought it might end like this," he said presently. "I owe you

nothing, after these signs; but I'll take you in at your word, and forgive you."

"What's the matter?" he asked, speaking for the first time sternly. "You shrink from me again?just as

Placing the candlestick on the chest of drawers he led her through the doorway, and lifting her bodily, kissed

her. A quick look of aversion passed over her face, but clenching her teeth she uttered no cry.

Mrs. Edlin had by this time undressed, and was about to get into bed when she said to herself: "Ahperhaps

I'd better go and see if the little thing is all right. How it do blow and rain!"

The widow went out on the landing, and saw that Sue had disappeared. "Ah! Poor soul! Weddings be funerals

'a b'lieve nowadays. Fiftyfive years ago, come Fall, since my man and I married! Times have changed since

DESPITE himself Jude recovered somewhat, and worked at his trade for several weeks. After Christmas,

With the money he had earned he shifted his lodgings to a yet more central part of the town. But Arabella

saw that he was not likely to do much work for a long while, and was cross enough at the turn affairs had

taken since her remarriage to him. "I'm hanged if you haven't been clever in this last stroke!" she would say,

Jude was absolutely indifferent to what she said, and indeed, often regarded her abuse in a humorous light.

Sometimes his mood was more earnest, and as he lay he often rambled on upon the defeat of his early aims.

"Every man has some little power in some one direction," he would say. "I was never really stout enough for

the stone trade, particularly the fixing. Moving the blocks always used to strain me, and standing the trying

draughts in buildings before the windows are in always gave me colds, and I think that began the mischief

inside. But I felt I could do one thing if I had the opportunity. I could accumulate ideas, and impart them to

others. I wonder if the founders had such as I in their mindsa fellow good for nothing else but that

particular thing? ... I hear that soon there is going to be a better chance for such helpless students as I was.

There are schemes afoot for making the university less exclusive, and extending its influence. I don't know

much about it. And it is too late, too late for me! Ahand for how many worthier ones before me!"

"How you keep amumbling!" said Arabella. "I should have thought you'd have got over all that craze about

books by this time. And so you would, if you'd had any sense to begin with. You are as bad now as when we

"I wish you'd mind who you are talking to!" said Arabella indignantly. "Calling a respectable married woman

But in the course of time, when she saw how things were going, and how very little she had to fear from Sue's

rivalry, she had a fit of generosity. "I suppose you want to see yourSue?" she said. "Well, I don't mind her

"And don't tell her anything about methat I'm ill, or anything. She has chosen her course. Let her go!"

One day he received a surprise. Mrs. Edlin came to see him, quite on her own account. Jude's wife, whose

feelings as to where his affections were centred had reached absolute indifference by this time, went out,

leaving the old woman alone with Jude. He impulsively asked how Sue was, and then said bluntly,

remembering what Sue had told him: "I suppose they are still only husband and wife in name?"

Mrs. Edlin hesitated. "Well, noit's different now. She's begun it quite latelyall of her own free will."

"The night after you came. But as a punishment to her poor self. He didn't wish it, but she insisted."

"Sue, my Sueyou darling foolthis is almost more than I can endure! ... Mrs. Edlindon't be frightened

at my rambling I've got to talk to myself lying here so many hours alone she was once a woman whose

intellect was to mine like a star to a benzoline lamp: who saw all MY superstitions as cobwebs that she could

brush away with a word. Then bitter affliction came to us, and her intellect broke, and she veered round to

darkness. Strange difference of sex, that time and circumstance, which enlarge the views of most men,

narrow the views of women almost invariably. And now the ultimate horror has comeher giving herself

like this to what she loathes, in her enslavement to forms! She, so sensitive, so shrinking, that the very wind

seemed to blow on her with a touch of deference.... As for Sue and me when we were at our own best, long

agowhen our minds were clear, and our love of truth fearless the time was not ripe for us! Our ideas

were fifty years too soon to be any good to us. And so the resistance they met with brought reaction in her,

and recklessness and ruin on me! ... Therethis, Mrs. Edlin, is how I go on to myself continually, as I lie

As Jude reflected more and more on her news, and grew more restless, he began in his mental agony to use

terribly profane language about social conventions, which started a fit of coughing. Presently there came a

knock at the door downstairs. As nobody answered it Mrs. Edlin herself went down.

The visitor said blandly: "The doctor." The lanky form was that of Physician Vilbert, who had been called in

"Oh badvery bad! Poor chap, he got excited, and do blaspeam terribly, since I let out some gossip by

accidentthe more to my blame. But thereyou must excuse a man in suffering for what he says, and I

Vilbert went; but though Jude had hitherto taken the medicines of that skilful practitioner with the greatest

indifference whenever poured down his throat by Arabella, he was now so brought to bay by events that he

vented his opinion of Vilbert in the physician's face, and so forcibly, and with such striking epithets, that

Vilbert soon scurried downstairs again. At the door he met Arabella, Mrs. Edlin having left. Arabella inquired

how he thought her husband was now, and seeing that the doctor looked ruffled, asked him to take something.

"I'll bring it to you here in the passage," she said. "There's nobody but me about the house today."

Arabella began shaking with suppressed laughter. "What is this, my dear?" he asked, smacking his lips.

"Oha drop of wineand something in it." Laughing again she said: "I poured your own lovephiltre into

"I do, I do! Clever woman! But you must be prepared for the consequences." Putting his arm round her

She let him out of the house, and as she went back she said to herself: "Well! Weak women must provide for

a rainy day. And if my poor fellow upstairs do go offas I suppose he will soon it's well to keep chances

open. And I can't pick and choose now as I could when I was younger. And one must take the old if one can't

THE last pages to which the chronicler of these lives would ask the reader's attention are concerned with the

His face was now so thin that his old friends would hardly have known him. It was afternoon, and Arabella

was at the lookingglass curling her hair, which operation she performed by heating an umbrellastay in the

flame of a candle she had lighted, and using it upon the flowing lock. When she had finished this, practised a

dimple, and put on her things, she cast her eyes round upon Jude. He seemed to be sleeping, though his

Arabella, hatted, gloved, and ready, sat down and waited, as if expecting some one to come and take her

Certain sounds from without revealed that the town was in festivity, though little of the festival, whatever it

might have been, could be seen here. Bells began to ring, and the notes came into the room through the open

window, and travelled round Jude's head in a hum. They made her restless, and at last she said to herself:

She looked again at Jude, critically gauged his ebbing life, as she had done so many times during the late

months, and glancing at his watch, which was hung up by way of timepiece, rose impatiently. Still he slept,

and coming to a resolution she slipped from the room, closed the door noiselessly, and descended the stairs.

The house was empty. The attraction which moved Arabella to go abroad had evidently drawn away the other

It was a warm, cloudless, enticing day. She shut the front door, and hastened round into Chief Street, and

when near the theatre could hear the notes of the organ, a rehearsal for a coming concert being in progress.

She entered under the archway of Oldgate College, where men were putting up awnings round the quadrangle

for a ball in the hall that evening. People who had come up from the country for the day were picnicking on

the grass, and Arabella walked along the gravel paths and under the aged limes. But finding this place rather

dull she returned to the streets, and watched the carriages drawing up for the concert, numerous dons and

their wives, and undergraduates with gay female companions, crowding up likewise. When the doors were

The powerful notes of that concert rolled forth through the swinging yellow blinds of the open windows, over

the housetops, and into the still air of the lanes. They reached so far as to the room in which Jude lay; and it

As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyes still closed: "A little water, please."

Nothing but the deserted room received his appeal, and he coughed to exhaustion againsaying still more

The room remained still as before. Presently he gasped again: "ThroatwaterSuedarlingdrop of

While he remained, his face changing, shouts and hurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.

The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faint organ notes. Jude's face changed more: he whispered slowly,

HIS MASTER. WHEREFORE IS LIGHT GIVEN TO HIM THAT IS IN MISERY, AND LIFE UNTO THE

Meanwhile Arabella, in her journey to discover what was going on, took a short cut down a narrow street and

through an obscure nook into the quad of Cardinal. It was full of bustle, and brilliant in the sunlight with

flowers and other preparations for a ball here also. A carpenter nodded to her, one who had formerly been a

fellowworkman of Jude's. A corridor was in course of erection from the entrance to the hall staircase, of gay

red and buff bunting. Waggonloads of boxes containing bright plants in full bloom were being placed about,

and the great staircase was covered with red cloth. She nodded to one workman and another, and ascended to

the hall on the strength of their acquaintance, where they were putting down a new floor and decorating for

"I should not mind having a spin there with a fellow's arm round my waist," she said to one of the men. "But

When she reached home she was met at the door by Stagg, and one or two other of Jude's fellow

stoneworkers. "We are just going down to the river," said the former, "to see the boatbumping. But we've

"That's right. Well now, can't you give yourself half an hour's relaxation, Mrs. Fawley, and come along with

"I should like to go," said she. "I've never seen the boatracing, and I hear it is good fun."

"How I WISH I could!" She looked longingly down the street. "Wait a minute, then. I'll just run up and see

They waited, and she entered. Downstairs the inmates were absent as before, having, in fact, gone in a body

to the river where the procession of boats was to pass. When she reached the bedroom she found that her

"Why couldn't he have been here!" she said impatiently. "He wants to see the boats himselfthat's what it

However, on looking round to the bed she brightened, for she saw that Jude was apparently sleeping, though

he was not in the usual halfelevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped down, and lay flat. A

second glance caused her to start, and she went to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming

rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold, though his body was still warm. She listened at his chest. All

After her first appalled sense of what had happened the faint notes of a military or other brass band from the

river reached her ears; and in a provoked tone she exclaimed, "To think he should die just now! Why did he

die just now!" Then meditating another moment or two she went to the door, softly closed it as before, and

"Here she is!" said one of the workmen. "We wondered if you were coming after all. Come along; we must

be quick to get a good place.... Well, how is he? Sleeping well still? Of course, we don't want to drag 'ee

They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street, where they presently reached the bridge, and the gay barges

burst upon their view. Thence they passed by a narrow slit down to the riverside path now dusty, hot, and

thronged. Almost as soon as they had arrived the grand procession of boats began; the oars smacking with a

loud kiss on the face of the stream, as they were lowered from the perpendicular.

"Oh, I sayhow jolly! I'm glad I've come," said Arabella. "Andit can't hurt my husbandmy being

On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty,

fashionably arrayed in green, pink, blue, and white. The blue flag of the boat club denoted the centre of

interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the notes she had already heard in the deathchamber.

Collegians of all sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for "our" boat, darted up and down. While she

regarded the lively scene somebody touched Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.

"That philtre is operating, you know!" he said with a leer. "Shame on 'ee to wreck a heart so!"

She did not reply. Vilbert's arm stole round her waist, which act could be performed unobserved in the crowd.

An arch expression overspread Arabella's face at the feel of the arm, but she kept her eyes on the river as if

The crowd surged, pushing Arabella and her friends sometimes nearly into the river, and she would have

laughed heartily at the horseplay that succeeded, if the imprint on her mind's eye of a pale, statuesque

The fun on the water reached the acme of excitement; there were immersions, there were shouts: the race was

lost and won, the pink and blue and yellow ladies retired from the barges, and the people who had watched

"Wellit's been awfully good," cried Arabella. "But I think I must get back to my poor man. Father is there,

At the narrow gangway where the people ascended from the riverside path to the bridge the crowd was

literally jammed into one hot mass Arabella and Vilbert with the rest; and here they remained motionless,

Arabella exclaiming, "Dear, dear!" more and more impatiently; for it had just occurred to her mind that if

"What a fidget you are, my love," said the physician, who, being pressed close against her by the throng, had

no need of personal effort for contact. "Just as well have patience: there's no getting away yet!"

It was nearly ten minutes before the wedged multitude moved sufficiently to let them pass through. As soon

as she got up into the street Arabella hastened on, forbidding the physician to accompany her further that day.

She did not go straight to her house; but to the abode of a woman who performed the last necessary offices

"My husband has just gone, poor soul," she said. "Can you come and lay him out?"

Arabella waited a few minutes; and the two women went along, elbowing their way through the stream of

fashionable people pouring out of Cardinal meadow, and being nearly knocked down by the carriages.

"I must call at the sexton's about the bell, too," said Arabella. "It is just round here, isn't it? I'll meet you at my

By ten o'clock that night Jude was lying on the bedstead at his lodging covered with a sheet, and straight as

an arrow. Through the partly opened window the joyous throb of a waltz entered from the ballroom at

Two days later, when the sky was equally cloudless, and the air equally still, two persons stood beside Jude's

open coffin in the same little bedroom. On one side was Arabella, on the other the Widow Edlin. They were

The window was still open to ventilate the room, and it being about noontide the clear air was motionless and

quiet without. From a distance came voices; and an apparent noise of persons stamping.

"Oh, that's the doctors in the theatre, conferring honorary degrees on the Duke of Hamptonshire and a lot

more illustrious gents of that sort. It's Remembrance Week, you know. The cheers come from the young

An occasional word, as from some one making a speech, floated from the open windows of the theatre across

to this quiet corner, at which there seemed to be a smile of some sort upon the marble features of Jude; while

the old, superseded, Delphin editions of Virgil and Horace, and the dogeared Greek Testament on the

neighbouring shelf, and the few other volumes of the sort that he had not parted with, roughened with

stonedust where he had been in the habit of catching them up for a few minutes between his labours, seemed

to pale to a sickly cast at the sounds. The bells struck out joyously; and their reverberations travelled round

Arabella's eyes removed from Jude to Mrs. Edlin. "D'ye think she will come?" she asked.

"Tired and miserable, poor heart. Years and years older than when you saw her last. Quite a staid, worn

"If Jude had been alive to see her, he would hardly have cared for her any more, perhaps."

"That's what we don't know.... Didn't he ever ask you to send for her, since he came to see her in that strange

"No. Quite the contrary. I offered to send, and he said I was not to let her know how ill he was."

"Wellpoor little thing, 'tis to be believed she's found forgiveness somewhere! She said she had found

"She may swear that on her knees to the holy cross upon her necklace till she's hoarse, but it won't be true!"

said Arabella. "She's never found peace since she left his arms, and never will again till she's as he is now!