At the last moment he persuaded her to let him make her a cup of
coffee, in a portable apparatus he kept in his room for use on rising
to go to his work every day before the household was astir.
"Now a dew-bit to eat with it," he said; "and off we go. You can
have a regular breakfast when you get there."
They went quietly out of the house, Jude accompanying her to the
station. As they departed along the street a head was thrust out
of an upper window of his lodging and quickly withdrawn. Sue still
seemed sorry for her rashness, and to wish she had not rebelled;
telling him at parting that she would let him know as soon as she
got re-admitted to the training-school. They stood rather miserably
together on the platform; and it was apparent that he wanted to say
more.
"I want to tell you something--two things," he said hurriedly as the
train came up. "One is a warm one, the other a cold one!"
"Jude," she said. "I know one of them. And you mustn't!"
"What?"
"You mustn't love me. You are to like me--that's all!"
Jude's face became so full of complicated glooms that hers was
agitated in sympathy as she bade him adieu through the carriage
window. And then the train moved on, and waving her pretty hand to
him she vanished away.
Melchester was a dismal place enough for Jude that Sunday of her
departure, and the Close so hateful that he did not go once to the
cathedral services. The next morning there came a letter from her,
which, with her usual promptitude, she had written directly she had
reached her friend's house. She told him of her safe arrival and
comfortable quarters, and then added:--
What I really write about, dear Jude, is something I said
to you at parting. You had been so very good and kind to
me that when you were out of sight I felt what a cruel and
ungrateful woman I was to say it, and it has reproached me
ever since. IF YOU WANT TO LOVE ME, JUDE, YOU MAY: I don't
mind at all; and I'll never say again that you mustn't!
Now I won't write any more about that. You do forgive your
thoughtless friend for her cruelty? and won't make her
miserable by saying you don't?--Ever, SUE.
It would be superfluous to say what his answer was; and how he
thought what he would have done had he been free, which should have
rendered a long residence with a female friend quite unnecessary for
Sue. He felt he might have been pretty sure of his own victory if
it had come to a conflict between Phillotson and himself for the
possession of her.