III
But under the various deterrent influences Jude's instinct was to
approach her timidly, and the next Sunday he went to the morning
service in the Cathedral church of Cardinal College to gain a further
view of her, for he had found that she frequently attended there.
She did not come, and he awaited her in the afternoon, which was
finer. He knew that if she came at all she would approach the
building along the eastern side of the great green quadrangle from
which it was accessible, and he stood in a corner while the bell was
going. A few minutes before the hour for service she appeared as
one of the figures walking along under the college walls, and at
sight of her he advanced up the side opposite, and followed her into
the building, more than ever glad that he had not as yet revealed
himself. To see her, and to be himself unseen and unknown, was
enough for him at present.
He lingered awhile in the vestibule, and the service was some way
advanced when he was put into a seat. It was a louring, mournful,
still afternoon, when a religion of some sort seems a necessity to
ordinary practical men, and not only a luxury of the emotional
and leisured classes. In the dim light and the baffling glare of
the clerestory windows he could discern the opposite worshippers
indistinctly only, but he saw that Sue was among them. He had not
long discovered the exact seat that she occupied when the chanting
of the 119th Psalm in which the choir was engaged reached its second
part, _In quo corriget_, the organ changing to a pathetic Gregorian
tune as the singers gave forth:
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
It was the very question that was engaging Jude's attention at this
moment. What a wicked worthless fellow he had been to give vent as
he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead
to such disastrous consequences; then to think of putting an end to
himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The great waves of
pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on the supernatural
as he had been, it is not wonderful that he could hardly believe that
the psalm was not specially set by some regardful Providence for this
moment of his first entry into the solemn building. And yet it was
the ordinary psalm for the twenty-fourth evening of the month.
The girl for whom he was beginning to nourish an extraordinary
tenderness was at this time ensphered by the same harmonies as those
which floated into his ears; and the thought was a delight to him.
She was probably a frequenter of this place, and, steeped body and
soul in church sentiment as she must be by occupation and habit, had,
no doubt, much in common with him. To an impressionable and lonely
young man the consciousness of having at last found anchorage for
his thoughts, which promised to supply both social and spiritual
possibilities, was like the dew of Hermon, and he remained throughout
the service in a sustaining atmosphere of ecstasy.