He waited till a small boy came from the school--one evidently
allowed out before hours for some reason or other. Jude held up his
hand, and the child came.
"Please call at the schoolhouse and ask Mrs. Phillotson if she will
be kind enough to come to the church for a few minutes."
The child departed, and Jude heard him knock at the door of the
dwelling. He himself went further into the church. Everything
was new, except a few pieces of carving preserved from the wrecked
old fabric, now fixed against the new walls. He stood by these:
they seemed akin to the perished people of that place who were his
ancestors and Sue's.
A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an
added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked
round.
"Oh--I didn't think it was you! I didn't--Oh, Jude!" A hysterical
catch in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but
she quickly recovered and went back.
"Don't go--don't go!" he implored. "This is my last time! I thought
it would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall
never come again. Don't then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are
acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth'!"
"I'll stay--I won't be unkind!" she said, her mouth quivering and her
tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. "But why did you
come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you
have done?"
"What right thing?"
"Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has
never been other than yours, Jude--in a proper sense. And therefore
you did so well--Oh so well!--in recognizing it--and taking her to
you again."
"God above--and is that all I've come to hear? If there is anything
more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is
this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing
the right thing! And you too--you call yourself Phillotson's wife!
HIS wife! You are mine."
"Don't make me rush away from you--I can't bear much! But on this
point I am decided."
"I cannot understand how you did it--how you think it--I cannot!"
"Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me--And I--I've wrestled
and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body
into complete subjection. And you mustn't--will you--wake--"
"Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have
suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I
didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all
appeals to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as
so many women do about these things; and don't actually believe what
you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion
raised by an affected belief?"