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 carriage-step she turned round, saying that
she had forgotten something. Jude and the landlady offered to get
it.
"No," she said, running back. "It is my handkerchief. I know where
I left it."
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 whatever she had meant to say remained unspoken.
VIII
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 proceeded to his customary work for the afternoon.
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. "Has anybody been
for me?" he asked.
Nobody had been there.
As he could claim the downstairs sitting-room 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 fellow-lodger 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 Old-Midsummer eves, expecting the
phantom of the Beloved. But she did not come.