The softer side of his nature, the desire to see Sue, made him unable
to resist the offer even now, provoked as he had been; and he replied
breathlessly: "Yes, I agree. Only send for her!"
In the evening he inquired if she had written.
"Yes," she said; "I wrote a note telling her you were ill, and asking
her to come to-morrow or the day after. I haven't posted it yet."
The next day Jude wondered if she really did post it, but would not
ask her; and foolish Hope, that lives on a drop and a crumb, made him
restless with expectation. He knew the times of the possible trains,
and listened on each occasion for sounds of her.
She did not come; but Jude would not address Arabella again thereon.
He hoped and expected all the next day; but no Sue appeared; neither
was there any note of reply. Then Jude decided in the privacy of his
mind that Arabella had never posted hers, although she had written
it. There was something in her manner which told it. His physical
weakness was such that he shed tears at the disappointment when she
was not there to see. His suspicions were, in fact, well founded.
Arabella, like some other nurses, thought that your duty towards your
invalid was to pacify him by any means short of really acting upon
his fancies.
He never said another word to her about his wish or his conjecture.
A silent, undiscerned resolve grew up in him, which gave him, if not
strength, stability and calm. One midday when, after an absence of
two hours, she came into the room, she beheld the chair empty.
Down she flopped on the bed, and sitting, meditated. "Now where the
devil is my man gone to!" she said.
A driving rain from the north-east had been falling with more or less
intermission all the morning, and looking from the window at the
dripping spouts it seemed impossible to believe that any sick man
would have ventured out to almost certain death. Yet a conviction
possessed Arabella that he had gone out, and it became a certainty
when she had searched the house. "If he's such a fool, let him be!"
she said. "I can do no more."
Jude was at that moment in a railway train that was drawing near to
Alfredston, oddly swathed, pale as a monumental figure in alabaster,
and much stared at by other passengers. An hour later his thin form,
in the long great-coat and blanket he had come with, but without an
umbrella, could have been seen walking along the five-mile road to
Marygreen. On his face showed the determined purpose that alone
sustained him, but to which has weakness afforded a sorry foundation.
By the up-hill walk he was quite blown, but he pressed on; and at
half-past three o'clock stood by the familiar well at Marygreen.
The rain was keeping everybody indoors; Jude crossed the green to the
church without observation, and found the building open. Here he
stood, looking forth at the school, whence he could hear the usual
sing-song tones of the little voices that had not learnt Creation's
groan.