"I thought," she began with nervous quickness, "that it would be
so sad to let you attend the funeral alone! And so--at the last
moment--I came."
"Dear faithful Sue!" murmured Jude.
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 was opposed to marriage, from first to last, you say?" murmured
Sue.
"Yes. Particularly for members of our family."
Her eyes met his, and remained on him awhile.
"We are rather a sad family, don't you think, Jude?"
"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 known--which it seems to
be--why surely a person may say, even proclaim upon the housetops,
that it hurts and grieves him or her?"
"I have said so, anyhow, to you."
Presently she went on: "Are there many couples, do you think, where
one dislikes the other for no definite fault?"
"Yes, I suppose. If either cares for another person, for instance."
"But even apart from that? Wouldn't the woman, for example, be very
bad-natured 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 it--a physical objection--a fastidiousness,
or whatever it may be called--although she might respect and be
grateful to him? I am merely putting a case. Ought she to try to
overcome her pruderies?"