"Well--why did you let it be under false pretences? You have only
yourself to blame," he said mischievously.
"Jude--don'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 anything. That was their
business. Anyhow we are living together."
"Yes. Though not in their sense."
"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
her--nobody inquired, nobody suspected it. If we'd been patented
nobilities we should have had infinite trouble, and days and weeks
would have been spent in investigations."
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 up-stairs and prepared to start, putting
on a joyful coloured gown in observance of her liberty; seeing which
Jude put on a lighter tie.
"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 low-lying
lands that bordered it, though these were frosty now, and the
extensive seed-fields 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."
"Yes; I suppose we can," said Sue, without enthusiasm.
"And aren't we going to?"
"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 between our unfortunate parents."
"Still, what can we do? I do love you, as you know, Sue."
"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 sweeter--for 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."