"So be it!"
"Don't think me hard because I have acted on conviction. Your
generous devotion to me is unparalleled, Jude! Your worldly failure,
if you have failed, is to your credit rather than to your blame.
Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do
themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a
selfish man. The devoted fail... 'Charity seeketh not her own.'"
"In that chapter we are at one, ever beloved darling, and on it we'll
part friends. Its verses will stand fast when all the rest that you
call religion has passed away!"
"Well--don't discuss it. Good-bye, Jude; my fellow-sinner, and
kindest friend!"
"Good-bye, my mistaken wife. Good-bye!"
V
The next afternoon the familiar Christminster fog still hung over all
things. Sue's slim shape was only just discernible going towards the
station.
Jude had no heart to go to his work that day. Neither could he go
anywhere in the direction by which she would be likely to pass.
He went in an opposite one, to a dreary, strange, flat scene, where
boughs dripped, and coughs and consumption lurked, and where he had
never been before.
"Sue's gone from me--gone!" he murmured miserably.
She in the meantime had left by the train, and reached Alfredston
Road, where she entered the steam-tram and was conveyed into the
town. It had been her request to Phillotson that he should not meet
her. She wished, she said, to come to him voluntarily, to his very
house and hearthstone.
It was Friday evening, which had been chosen because the schoolmaster
was disengaged at four o'clock that day till the Monday morning
following. The little car she hired at the Bear to drive her to
Marygreen set her down at the end of the lane, half a mile from the
village, by her desire, and preceded her to the schoolhouse with
such portion of her luggage as she had brought. On its return she
encountered it, and asked the driver if he had found the master's
house open. The man informed her that he had, and that her things
had been taken in by the schoolmaster himself.
She could now enter Marygreen without exciting much observation.
She crossed by the well and under the trees to the pretty new school
on the other side, and lifted the latch of the dwelling without
knocking. Phillotson stood in the middle of the room, awaiting her,
as requested.
"I've come, Richard," said she, looking pale and shaken, and sinking
into a chair. "I cannot believe--you forgive your--wife!"