The letter, he perceived, bore a London postmark instead of the

Christminster one. Arabella informed him that a few days after their

parting in the morning at Christminster, she had been surprised by an

affectionate letter from her Australian husband, formerly manager of

the hotel in Sydney. He had come to England on purpose to find her;

and had taken a free, fully-licensed public, in Lambeth, where he

wished her to join him in conducting the business, which was likely

to be a very thriving one, the house being situated in an excellent,

densely populated, gin-drinking neighbourhood, and already doing a

trade of L200 a month, which could be easily doubled.

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As he had said that he loved her very much still, and implored her to

tell him where she was, and as they had only parted in a slight tiff,

and as her engagement in Christminster was only temporary, she had

just gone to join him as he urged. She could not help feeling that

she belonged to him more than to Jude, since she had properly married

him, and had lived with him much longer than with her first husband.

In thus wishing Jude good-bye she bore him no ill-will, and trusted

he would not turn upon her, a weak woman, and inform against her,

and bring her to ruin now that she had a chance of improving her

circumstances and leading a genteel life.

X

Jude returned to Melchester, which had the questionable

recommendation of being only a dozen and a half miles from his Sue's

now permanent residence. At first he felt that this nearness was a

distinct reason for not going southward at all; but Christminster

was too sad a place to bear, while the proximity of Shaston to

Melchester might afford him the glory of worsting the Enemy in a

close engagement, such as was deliberately sought by the priests and

virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominious flight

from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.

Jude did not pause to remember that, in the laconic words of the

historian, "insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights" in such

circumstances.

He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the

priesthood--in the recognition that the single-mindedness of his

aims, and his fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable

of late. His passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful

abandonment to the society of Arabella for twelve hours seemed

instinctively a worse thing--even though she had not told him of her

Sydney husband till afterwards. He had, he verily believed, overcome

all tendency to fly to liquor--which, indeed, he had never done from

taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind. Yet

he perceived with despondency that, taken all round, he was a man of

too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he could hope

for was that in a life of constant internal warfare between flesh and

spirit the former might not always be victorious.




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