"I have only been married a month or two!" she went on, still

remaining bent upon the table, and sobbing into her hands. "And it

is said that what a woman shrinks from--in the early days of her

marriage--she shakes down to with comfortable indifference in half a

dozen years. But that is much like saying that the amputation of a

limb is no affliction, since a person gets comfortably accustomed to

the use of a wooden leg or arm in the course of time!"

Jude could hardly speak, but he said, "I thought there was something

wrong, Sue! Oh, I thought there was!"

"But it is not as you think!--there is nothing wrong except my own

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wickedness, I suppose you'd call it--a repugnance on my part, for a

reason I cannot disclose, and what would not be admitted as one by

the world in general! ... What tortures me so much is the necessity

of being responsive to this man whenever he wishes, good as he is

morally!--the dreadful contract to feel in a particular way in a

matter whose essence is its voluntariness! ... I wish he would beat

me, or be faithless to me, or do some open thing that I could talk

about as a justification for feeling as I do! But he does nothing,

except that he has grown a little cold since he has found out how I

feel. That's why he didn't come to the funeral... Oh, I am very

miserable--I don't know what to do! ... Don't come near me, Jude,

because you mustn't. Don't--don't!"

But he had jumped up and put his face against hers--or rather against

her ear, her face being inaccessible.

"I told you not to, Jude!"

"I know you did--I only wish to--console you! It all arose through

my being married before we met, didn't it? You would have been my

wife, Sue, wouldn't you, if it hadn't been for that?"

Instead of replying she rose quickly, and saying she was going to

walk to her aunt's grave in the churchyard to recover herself, went

out of the house. Jude did not follow her. Twenty minutes later he

saw her cross the village green towards Mrs. Edlin's, and soon she

sent a little girl to fetch her bag, and tell him she was too tired

to see him again that night.

In the lonely room of his aunt's house, Jude sat watching the

cottage of the Widow Edlin as it disappeared behind the night shade.

He knew that Sue was sitting within its walls equally lonely and

disheartened; and again questioned his devotional motto that all was

for the best.




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