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.
"Oh, it is only a tale," said Sue cheeringly.
After this exhilarating tradition from the widow on the eve of
the solemnization they rose, and, wishing their guest good-night,
retired.
The next morning Sue, whose nervousness intensified with the
hours, took Jude privately into the sitting-room 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 to-day. It makes me feel as if a tragic doom
overhung our family, as it did the house of Atreus."
"Or the house of Jeroboam," said the quondam theologian.
"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 deterrent lesson we were taught by those experiments!"
"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 morning--that'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 "Royal-tower'd
Thame." On the steps of the office there were the muddy foot-marks
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.
Law-books in musty calf covered one wall, and elsewhere were
post-office directories, and other books of reference. Papers in
packets tied with red tape were pigeon-holed around, and some iron
safes filled a recess, while the bare wood floor was, like the
door-step, stained by previous visitors.