"But they won't--Sue 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 learn
whether what that woman said is true or no."
As he had made up his mind to do this before he had written to his
friend, there had not been much reason for writing to the latter at
all. However, it was Phillotson's way to act thus.
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
care of itself.
He suggested that she should come to him there at Marygreen.
On second thoughts he took out the last paragraph but one; and having
rewritten the letter he dispatched it immediately, and in some
excitement awaited the issue.
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 Sue. A
timid knock sounded upon the door of his abode.