She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested.
He did not turn his head, but took up his blanket, which she had not
seen, and went straight out. As he passed the end of the church she
heard his coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last
instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued by her fetters, she
sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and
stopped her ears with her hands till all possible sound of him had
passed away.
He was by this time at the corner of the green, from which the path
ran across the fields in which he had scared rooks as a boy. He
turned and looked back, once, at the building which still contained
Sue; and then went on, knowing that his eyes would light on that
scene no more.
There are cold spots up and down Wessex in autumn and winter weather;
but the coldest of all when a north or east wind is blowing is the
crest of the down by the Brown House, where the road to Alfredston
crosses the old Ridgeway. Here the first winter sleets and snows
fall and lie, and here the spring frost lingers last unthawed. Here
in the teeth of the north-east wind and rain Jude now pursued his
way, wet through, the necessary slowness of his walk from lack of his
former strength being insufficent to maintain his heat. He came to
the milestone, and, raining as it was, spread his blanket and lay
down there to rest. Before moving on he went and felt at the back
of the stone for his own carving. It was still there; but nearly
obliterated by moss. He passed the spot where the gibbet of his
ancestor and Sue's had stood, and descended the hill.
It was dark when he reached Alfredston, where he had a cup of tea,
the deadly chill that began to creep into his bones being too much
for him to endure fasting. To get home he had to travel by a steam
tram-car, and two branches of railway, with much waiting at a
junction. He did not reach Christminster till ten o'clock.
IX
On the platform stood Arabella. She looked him up and down.
"You've been to see her?" she asked.
"I have," said Jude, literally tottering with cold and lassitude.
"Well, now you'd best march along home."
The water ran out of him as he went, and he was compelled to lean
against the wall to support himself while coughing.