She had touched the subject at last. "I had a suspicion, a fear,"

said Jude, "that he--cared about you rather warmly, and perhaps

wanted to marry you."

"Now don't be such a silly boy!"

"He has said something about it, I expect."

"If he had, what would it matter? An old man like him!"

"Oh, come, Sue; he's not so very old. And I know what I saw him

doing--"

"Not kissing me--that I'm certain!"

"No. But putting his arm round your waist."

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"Ah--I remember. But I didn't know he was going to."

"You are wriggling out if it, Sue, and it isn't quite kind!"

Her ever-sensitive lip began to quiver, and her eye to blink, at

something this reproof was deciding her to say.

"I know you'll be angry if I tell you everything, and that's why I

don't want to!"

"Very well, then, dear," he said soothingly. "I have no real right

to ask you, and I don't wish to know."

"I shall tell you!" said she, with the perverseness that was

part of her. "This is what I have done: I have promised--I

have promised--that I will marry him when I come out of the

training-school two years hence, and have got my certificate; his

plan being that we shall then take a large double school in a great

town--he the boys' and I the girls'--as married school-teachers often

do, and make a good income between us."

"Oh, Sue! ... But of course it is right--you couldn't have done

better!"

He glanced at her and their eyes met, the reproach in his own belying

his words. Then he drew his hand quite away from hers, and turned

his face in estrangement from her to the window. Sue regarded him

passively without moving.

"I knew you would be angry!" she said with an air of no emotion

whatever. "Very well--I am wrong, I suppose! I ought not to have

let you come to see me! We had better not meet again; and we'll only

correspond at long intervals, on purely business matters!"

This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear, as she

probably knew, and it brought him round at once. "Oh yes, we will,"

he said quickly. "Your being engaged can make no difference to me

whatever. I have a perfect right to see you when I want to; and I

shall!"




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