Even at this obvious moment for candour Sue could not be quite candid as to the state of that mystery, her heart. "Put it down to my timidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; "to a woman's natural timidity when the crisis comes. I may feel as well as you that I have a perfect right to live with you as you thought--from this moment. I may hold the opinion that, in a proper state of society, the father of a woman's child will be as much a private matter of hers as the cut of her underlinen, on whom nobody will have any right to question her. But partly, perhaps, because it is by his generosity that I am now free, I would rather not be other than a little rigid. If there had been a rope-ladder, and he had run after us with pistols, it would have seemed different, and I may have acted otherwise. But don't press me and criticize me, Jude! Assume that I haven't the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poor miserable creature. My nature is not so passionate as yours!"
He repeated simply! "I thought--what I naturally thought. But if we are not lovers, we are not. Phillotson thought so, I am sure. See, here is what he has written to me." He opened the letter she had brought, and read:
"I make only one condition--that you are tender and kind to her. I know you love her. But even love may be cruel at times. You are made for each other: it is obvious, palpable, to any unbiased older person. You were all along 'the shadowy third' in my short life with her. I repeat, take care of Sue."
"He's a good fellow, isn't he!" she said with latent tears. On reconsideration she added, "He was very resigned to letting me go-- too resigned almost! I never was so near being in love with him as when he made such thoughtful arrangements for my being comfortable on my journey, and offering to provide money. Yet I was not. If I loved him ever so little as a wife, I'd go back to him even now."
"But you don't, do you?"
"It is true--oh so terribly true!--I don't."
"Nor me neither, I half-fear!" he said pettishly. "Nor anybody perhaps! Sue, sometimes, when I am vexed with you, I think you are incapable of real love."
"That's not good and loyal of you!" she said, and drawing away from him as far as she could, looked severely out into the darkness. She added in hurt tones, without turning round: "My liking for you is not as some women's perhaps. But it is a delight in being with you, of a supremely delicate kind, and I don't want to go further and risk it by--an attempt to intensify it! I quite realized that, as woman with man, it was a risk to come. But, as me with you, I resolved to trust you to set my wishes above your gratification. Don't discuss it further, dear Jude!"
"Of course, if it would make you reproach yourself ... but you do like me very much, Sue? Say you do! Say that you do a quarter, a tenth, as much as I do you, and I'll be content!"
"I've let you kiss me, and that tells enough."
"Just once or so!"
"Well--don't be a greedy boy."
He leant back, and did not look at her for a long time. That episode in her past history of which she had told him-- of the poor Christminster graduate whom she had handled thus, returned to Jude's mind; and he saw himself as a possible second in such a torturing destiny.
"This is a queer elopement!" he murmured. "Perhaps you are making a cat's paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word it almost seems so--to see you sitting up there so prim!"
"Now you mustn't be angry--I won't let you!" she coaxed, turning and moving nearer to him. "You did kiss me just now, you know; and I didn't dislike you to, I own it, Jude. Only I don't want to let you do it again, just yet--considering how we are circumstanced, don't you see!"
He could never resist her when she pleaded (as she well knew). And they sat side by side with joined hands, till she aroused herself at some thought.
"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn, after your telegraphing that message!"
"Why not?"
"You can see well enough!"
"Very well; there'll be some other one open, no doubt. I have sometimes thought, since your marrying Phillotson because of a stupid scandal, that under the affectation of independent views you are as enslaved to the social code as any woman I know!"
"Not mentally. But I haven't the courage of my views, as I said before. I didn't marry him altogether because of the scandal. But sometimes a woman's LOVE OF BEING LOVED gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong."
"You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though you tortured yourself to death by doing it."
"Well--if you will put it brutally!--it was a little like that-- that and the scandal together--and your concealing from me what you ought to have told me before!"
He could see that she was distressed and tearful at his criticisms, and soothed her, saying: "There, dear; don't mind! Crucify me, if you will! You know you are all the world to me, whatever you do!"
"I am very bad and unprincipled--I know you think that!" she said, trying to blink away her tears.
"I think and know you are my dear Sue, from whom neither length nor breadth, nor things present nor things to come, can divide me!"
Though so sophisticated in many things she was such a child in others that this satisfied her, and they reached the end of their journey on the best of terms. It was about ten o'clock when they arrived at Aldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. As she would not go to the Temperance Hotel because of the form of his telegram, Jude inquired for another; and a youth who volunteered to find one wheeled their luggage to the George farther on, which proved to be the inn at which Jude had stayed with Arabella on that one occasion of their meeting after their division for years.
Owing, however, to their now entering it by another door, and to his preoccupation, he did not at first recognize the place. When they had engaged their respective rooms they went down to a late supper. During Jude's temporary absence the waiting-maid spoke to Sue.
"I think, ma'am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever he is, coming here once before--late, just like this, with his wife--a lady, at any rate, that wasn't you by no manner of means--jest as med be with you now."
"Oh do you?" said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. "Though I think you must be mistaken! How long ago was it?"
"About a month or two. A handsome, full-figured woman. They had this room."
When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping and miserable. "Jude," she said to him plaintively, at their parting that night upon the landing, "it is not so nice and pleasant as it used to be with us! I don't like it here--I can't bear the place! And I don't like you so well as I did!"
"How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you change like this?"
"Because it was cruel to bring me here!"
"Why?"
"You were lately here with Arabella. There, now I have said it!"
"Dear me, why--" said Jude looking round him. "Yes--it is the same! I really didn't know it, Sue. Well--it is not cruel, since we have come as we have--two relations staying together."
"How long ago was it you were here? Tell me, tell me!"
"The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back to Marygreen together. I told you I had met her."
"Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn't tell me all. Your story was that you had met as estranged people, who were not husband and wife at all in Heaven's sight-- not that you had made it up with her."
"We didn't make it up," he said sadly. "I can't explain, Sue."
"You've been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall never forget it, never!"
"But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, not lovers! It is so very inconsistent of you to----"
"Friends can be jealous!"
"I don't see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concede everything to you. After all, you were on good terms with your husband at that time."
"No, I wasn't, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken me in, even if you didn't intend to." She was so mortified that he was obliged to take her into her room and close the door lest the people should hear. "Was it this room? Yes it was--I see by your look it was! I won't have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of you to have her again! I jumped out of the window!"
"But Sue, she was, after all, my legal wife, if not--"
Slipping down on her knees Sue buried her face in the bed and wept.
"I never knew such an unreasonable--such a dog-in-the-manger feeling," said Jude. "I am not to approach you, nor anybody else!"
"Oh don't you UNDERSTAND my feeling! Why don't you! Why are you so gross! I jumped out of the window!"
"Jumped out of window?"
"I can't explain!"
It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. But he did a little; and began to love her none the less.
"I--I thought you cared for nobody--desired nobody in the world but me at that time--and ever since!" continued Sue.
"It is true. I did not, and don't now!" said Jude, as distressed as she.
"But you must have thought much of her! Or--"
"No--I need not--you don't understand me either--women never do! Why should you get into such a tantrum about nothing?"
Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: "If it hadn't been for that, perhaps I would have gone on to the Temperance Hotel, after all, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong to you!"
"Oh, it is of no consequence!" said Jude distantly.
"I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife since she left you of her own accord years and years ago! My sense of it was, that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, ended the marriage."
"I can't say more without speaking against her, and I don't want to do that," said he. "Yet I must tell you one thing, which would settle the matter in any case. She has married another man--really married him! I knew nothing about it till after the visit we made here."
"Married another? ... It is a crime--as the world treats it, but does not believe."
"There--now you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crime--as you don't hold, but would fearfully concede. But I shall never inform against her! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has led her to urge me to get a divorce, that she may remarry this man legally. So you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again."
"And you didn't really know anything of this when you saw her?" said Sue more gently, as she rose.
"I did not. Considering all things, I don't think you ought to be angry, darling!"
"I am not. But I shan't go to the Temperance Hotel!"
He laughed. "Never mind!" he said. "So that I am near you, I am comparatively happy. It is more than this earthly wretch called Me deserves--you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet, tantalizing phantom--hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air! Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that our calling cousins when really strangers was a snare. The enmity of our parents gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even than the novelty of ordinary new acquaintance."
"Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley's 'Epipsychidion' as if they meant me!" she solicited, slanting up closer to him as they stood. "Don't you know them?"
"I know hardly any poetry," he replied mournfully.
"Don't you? These are some of them:
There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings far aloft.
A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman....
Oh it is too flattering, so I won't go on! But say it's me! Say it's me!"
"It is you, dear; exactly like you!"
"Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me just once there--not very long." She put the tip of her finger gingerly to her cheek; and he did as commanded. "You do care for me very much, don't you, in spite of my not--you know?"
"Yes, sweet!" he said with a sigh; and bade her good-night.
比上面说的那个时间还早二十四个钟头，苏就给裘德写了如下短信：
一切如我所告。我预定明晚离此。费乐生与我都认为天黑后走不那么惹眼。我心里非常慌，将于七点差一刻到达，请你一定到麦尔切斯特车站接我。亲爱的裘德，我知你必来不误，但我甚为胆怯，望你务必准时。此事自始至终他待我极为厚道！
亟盼见面！
苏
公共马车载着她——那晚唯一旅客——驶下山镇，越来越远。她不断望着后退的道路，神情凄苦，但是她显然已下定决心，义无反顾。
她坐的上行车要看到信号才停。她觉得一列力量如此强大的火车竟然为她这个逃出合法家庭的人停下来，可谓奇矣。
这段旅程经过二十分钟就结束了，苏开始把自己的东西归到一起，准备下车。火车在麦尔切斯特站刚一靠站，就有人把车门推开，原来正是裘德。他立刻进了车厢，手上拿着黑提包，身穿礼拜天和工余晚上才穿的深色套装，真是个非常英俊的小伙子。他眼里燃烧着对她的热烈的情意。
“哦，裘德呀！”她两只手把他的手握住，情绪紧张，难以抑制断断续续、有声无泪的抽咽。“我——我太高兴啦！就在这儿下车吧？”
“不在这儿下。亲爱的，我上车！我已经安排好啦。除了这个包，我还有个大箱子，已经打好行李票啦。”
“可是我干吗不下去呀？咱们怎么不呆在这地方？”
“咱们可不便呆在这地方，你还没明白过来呢。这儿人认识咱们——反正人家对我都挺熟的。我订了到奥尔布里肯的票，这是你上那儿的票，因为你手里的票就到这儿。”
“我原来想咱们呆在这儿呢。”她重说了一遍。
“那可绝对不行！”
“唉，也许不行吧。”
“我给你写信来不及了，没法告诉你我想好要去的地方。奥尔布里肯大得多，六七千号人，咱们的事，那儿谁也不知道。”
“这么说，这儿大教堂的活儿，你丢下不干了？”
“就是。因为太突然啦——你信里传到的消息实在想不到。要是严格的话，人家本来可以要我干完这礼拜的活才行，不过一跟他们说我有急事，他们也就放了我。亲爱的苏啊，只要你吩咐，我哪一天都可以甩手不干。我为你甩掉的东西比这个还多哪。”
“我现在可害怕把你坑得太厉害呢。把你给教会服务的前程断送啦，把你这行手艺上的发展断送啦，什么都断送啦！”
“教会跟我不沾边啦，去它的吧！咱再也不想当个
兵士加圣徒，一排又一排
朝天望，心如火，求至福。
就算有这样的人，也不是我！我的福用不着向天求，就在眼前。”
“唉，我太坏啦——我把男人走的路全都给搞得颠倒错乱啦！”她说，声音中的感情跟他心里开始涌动的一样，显得很激越。不过他们坐了十二英里车之后，她的平静恢复了。
“他人多好，还是让我走啦，”她又拾起话碴说，“我走之前，在梳妆台上瞧见张条子，是他给你的。”
“是啊，他这人可真不赖。”裘德说，看了看信。“以前你嫁了他，我挺恨他，这会儿再想想，就觉着惭愧啦。”
“要按女人总免不了的那股子心血来潮劲儿，我看我真该一下子爱上他才对，因为他那么宽宏大量叫我走，真是料也料不到。”她笑着回答，“不过我这人天生冷，或者说不知道感恩，还是什么吧，就是他那么宽宏大量，也还是没法叫我爱起来，叫我痛改前非，叫我做他妻子，跟他一块儿过日子；不过我真觉着他度量大、心胸广，所以比以前还要敬重他。”
“要是他不那么宽厚，你又硬拗着他，干脆跑了，咱们的事可就砸啦。”
