It was evening--so he was at home; and by a species of divination he
jumped up and rushed to the door himself.
"Will you come out with me? I would rather not come in. I want
to--to talk with you--and to go with you to the cemetery."
It had been in the trembling accents of Sue that these words came.
Jude put on his hat. "It is dreary for you to be out," he said.
"But if you prefer not to come in, I don't mind."
"Yes--I do. I shall not keep you long."
Jude was too much affected to go on talking at first; she, too, was
now such a mere cluster of nerves that all initiatory power seemed
to have left her, and they proceeded through the fog like Acherontic
shades for a long while, without sound or gesture.
"I want to tell you," she presently said, her voice now quick, now
slow, "so that you may not hear of it by chance. I am going back to
Richard. He has--so magnanimously--agreed to forgive all."
"Going back? How can you go--"
"He is going to marry me again. That is for form's sake, and to
satisfy the world, which does not see things as they are. But of
course I AM his wife already. Nothing has changed that."
He turned upon her with an anguish that was well-nigh fierce.
"But you are MY wife! Yes, you are. You know it. I have always
regretted that feint of ours in going away and pretending to come
back legally married, to save appearances. I loved you, and you
loved me; and we closed with each other; and that made the marriage.
We still love--you as well as I--KNOW it, Sue! Therefore our
marriage is not cancelled."
"Yes; I know how you see it," she answered with despairing
self-suppression. "But I am going to marry him again, as it would
be called by you. Strictly speaking you, too--don't mind my saying
it, Jude!--you should take back--Arabella."
"I should? Good God--what next! But how if you and I had married
legally, as we were on the point of doing?"
"I should have felt just the same--that ours was not a marriage.
And I would go back to Richard without repeating the sacrament, if
he asked me. But 'the world and its ways have a certain worth' (I
suppose): therefore I concede a repetition of the ceremony... Don't
crush all the life out of me by satire and argument, I implore you!
I was strongest once, I know, and perhaps I treated you cruelly.
But Jude, return good for evil! I am the weaker now. Don't
retaliate upon me, but be kind. Oh be kind to me--a poor wicked
woman who is trying to mend!"