"Richard says he'll have me back, and I'm bound to go! If he had
refused, it might not have been so much my duty to--give up Jude.
But--" She remained with her face in the bed-clothes, and Mrs. Edlin
left the room.
Phillotson in the interval had gone back to his friend Gillingham,
who still sat over the supper-table. They soon rose, and walked out
on the green to smoke awhile. A light was burning in Sue's room, a
shadow moving now and then across the blind.
Gillingham had evidently been impressed with the indefinable charm of
Sue, and after a silence he said, "Well: you've all but got her again
at last. She can't very well go a second time. The pear has dropped
into your hand."
"Yes! ... I suppose I am right in taking her at her word. I confess
there seems a touch of selfishness in it. Apart from her being what
she is, of course, a luxury for a fogy like me, it will set me right
in the eyes of the clergy and orthodox laity, who have never forgiven
me for letting her go. So I may get back in some degree into my old
track."
"Well--if you've got any sound reason for marrying her again, do it
now in God's name! I was always against your opening the cage-door
and letting the bird go in such an obviously suicidal way. You might
have been a school inspector by this time, or a reverend, if you
hadn't been so weak about her."
"I did myself irreparable damage--I know it."
"Once you've got her housed again, stick to her."
Phillotson was more evasive to-night. He did not care to admit
clearly that his taking Sue to him again had at bottom nothing to
do with repentance of letting her go, but was, primarily, a human
instinct flying in the face of custom and profession. He said,
"Yes--I shall do that. I know woman better now. Whatever justice
there was in releasing her, there was little logic, for one holding
my views on other subjects."
Gillingham looked at him, and wondered whether it would ever happen
that the reactionary spirit induced by the world's sneers and his own
physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her
than he had erstwhile been informally and perversely kind.
"I perceive it won't do to give way to impulse," Phillotson resumed,
feeling more and more every minute the necessity of acting up to his
position. "I flew in the face of the Church's teaching; but I did it
without malice prepense. Women are so strange in their influence
that they tempt you to misplaced kindness. However, I know myself
better now. A little judicious severity, perhaps..."