"Well--why did you let it be under false pretences? You have only

yourself to blame," he said mischievously.

"Jude--don't! You ought not to be touchy about that still. You must

take me as I am."

"Very well, darling: so I will. Perhaps you were right. As to your

question, we were not obliged to prove anything. That was their

business. Anyhow we are living together."

"Yes. Though not in their sense."

"One thing is certain, that however the decree may be brought

about, a marriage is dissolved when it is dissolved. There is this

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advantage in being poor obscure people like us--that these things are

done for us in a rough and ready fashion. It was the same with me

and Arabella. I was afraid her criminal second marriage would have

been discovered, and she punished; but nobody took any interest in

her--nobody inquired, nobody suspected it. If we'd been patented

nobilities we should have had infinite trouble, and days and weeks

would have been spent in investigations."

By degrees Sue acquired her lover's cheerfulness at the sense of

freedom, and proposed that they should take a walk in the fields,

even if they had to put up with a cold dinner on account of it.

Jude agreed, and Sue went up-stairs and prepared to start, putting

on a joyful coloured gown in observance of her liberty; seeing which

Jude put on a lighter tie.

"Now we'll strut arm and arm," he said, "like any other engaged

couple. We've a legal right to."

They rambled out of the town, and along a path over the low-lying

lands that bordered it, though these were frosty now, and the

extensive seed-fields were bare of colour and produce. The pair,

however, were so absorbed in their own situation that their

surroundings were little in their consciousness.

"Well, my dearest, the result of all this is that we can marry after

a decent interval."

"Yes; I suppose we can," said Sue, without enthusiasm.

"And aren't we going to?"

"I don't like to say no, dear Jude; but I feel just the same about

it now as I have done all along. I have just the same dread lest an

iron contract should extinguish your tenderness for me, and mine for

you, as it did between our unfortunate parents."

"Still, what can we do? I do love you, as you know, Sue."

"I know it abundantly. But I think I would much rather go on living

always as lovers, as we are living now, and only meeting by day. It

is so much sweeter--for the woman at least, and when she is sure of

the man. And henceforward we needn't be so particular as we have

been about appearances."




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