"But you can go and see her to-morrow, Jude!
Don't go now, Jude!" came in plaintive accents from the doorway.
"Oh, it is only to entrap you, I know it is, as she did before!
Don't go, dear!
She is such a low-passioned woman—I can see it in her shape, and hear it in her voice!
"But I shall go," said Jude.
"Don't attempt to detain me, Sue.
God knows I love her little enough now, but I don't want to be cruel to her."
He turned to the stairs.
"But she's not your wife!" cried Sue distractedly.
"And I—"
"And you are not either, dear, yet," said Jude.
"Oh, but are you going to her?
Don't!
Stay at home!
Please, please stay at home, Jude, and not go to her, now she's not your wife any more than I!"
"Well, she is, rather more than you, come to that," he said, taking his hat determinedly.
"I've wanted you to be, and I've waited with the patience of Job, and I don't see that I've got anything by my self-denial.
I shall certainly give her something, and hear what it is she is so anxious to tell me; no man could do less!"
There was that in his manner which she knew it would be futile to oppose.
She said no more, but, turning to her room as meekly as a martyr, heard him go downstairs, unbolt the door, and close it behind him.
With a woman's disregard of her dignity when in the presence of nobody but herself, she also trotted down, sobbing articulately as she went.
She listened.
She knew exactly how far it was to the inn that Arabella had named as her lodging.
It would occupy about seven minutes to get there at an ordinary walking pace; seven to come back again.
If he did not return in fourteen minutes he would have lingered.
She looked at the clock.
It was twenty-five minutes to eleven.
He might enter the inn with Arabella, as they would reach it before closing time; she might get him to drink with her; and Heaven only knew what disasters would befall him then.
In a still suspense she waited on.
It seemed as if the whole time had nearly elapsed when the door was opened again, and Jude appeared.
Sue gave a little ecstatic cry.
"Oh, I knew I could trust you!—how good you are!"—she began.
"I can't find her anywhere in this street, and I went out in my slippers only.
She has walked on, thinking I've been so hard-hearted as to refuse her requests entirely, poor woman.
I've come back for my boots, as it is beginning to rain."
"Oh, but why should you take such trouble for a woman who has served you so badly!" said Sue in a jealous burst of disappointment.
"But, Sue, she's a woman, and I once cared for her; and one can't be a brute in such circumstances."
"She isn't your wife any longer!" exclaimed Sue, passionately excited.
"You mustn't go out to find her!
It isn't right!
You can't join her, now she's a stranger to you.
How can you forget such a thing, my dear, dear one!"
"She seems much the same as ever—an erring, careless, unreflecting fellow-creature," he said, continuing to pull on his boots.
"What those legal fellows have been playing at in London makes no difference in my real relations to her.
If she was my wife while she was away in Australia with another husband she's my wife now."
"But she wasn't! That's just what I hold!
There's the absurdity!— Well—you'll come straight back, after a few minutes, won't you, dear?
She is too low, too coarse for you to talk to long, Jude, and was always!"
"Perhaps I am coarse too, worse luck!