He suggested it at the very first!"
"How?"
"I mean it is a nominal marriage only.
It hasn't been more than that at all since I came back to him!"
"Sue!" he said. Pressing her to him in his arms he bruised her lips with kisses:
"If misery can know happiness, I have a moment's happiness now!
Now, in the name of all you hold holy, tell me the truth, and no lie. You do love me still?"
"I do!
You know it too well! … But I mustn't do this!
I mustn't kiss you back as I would!"
"But do!"
"And yet you are so dear!—and you look so ill—"
"And so do you!
There's one more, in memory of our dead little children—yours and mine!"
The words struck her like a blow, and she bent her head.
"I mustn't—I can't go on with this!" she gasped presently.
"But there, there, darling; I give you back your kisses; I do, I do!
And now I'll hate myself for ever for my sin!"
"No—let me make my last appeal. Listen to this!
We've both remarried out of our senses.
I was made drunk to do it. You were the same.
I was gin-drunk; you were creed-drunk.
Either form of intoxication takes away the nobler vision… Let us then shake off our mistakes, and run away together!"
"No; again no! … Why do you tempt me so far, Jude!
It is too merciless! … But I've got over myself now.
Don't follow me—don't look at me.
Leave me, for pity's sake!"
She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested.
He did not turn his head, but took up his blanket, which she had not seen, and went straight out.
As he passed the end of the church she heard his coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued by her fetters, she sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and stopped her ears with her hands till all possible sound of him had passed away.
He was by this time at the corner of the green, from which the path ran across the fields in which he had scared rooks as a boy.
He turned and looked back, once, at the building which still contained Sue; and then went on, knowing that his eyes would light on that scene no more.
There are cold spots up and down Wessex in autumn and winter weather; but the coldest of all when a north or east wind is blowing is the crest of the down by the Brown House, where the road to Alfredston crosses the old Ridgeway.
Here the first winter sleets and snows fall and lie, and here the spring frost lingers last unthawed.
Here in the teeth of the north-east wind and rain Jude now pursued his way, wet through, the necessary slowness of his walk from lack of his former strength being insufficent to maintain his heat.
He came to the milestone, and, raining as it was, spread his blanket and lay down there to rest.
Before moving on he went and felt at the back of the stone for his own carving. It was still there; but nearly obliterated by moss.
He passed the spot where the gibbet of his ancestor and Sue's had stood, and descended the hill.
It was dark when he reached Alfredston, where he had a cup of tea, the deadly chill that began to creep into his bones being too much for him to endure fasting.
To get home he had to travel by a steam tram-car, and two branches of railway, with much waiting at a junction.
He did not reach Christminster till ten o'clock.
IX
On the platform stood Arabella.
She looked him up and down.
"You've been to see her?" she asked.
"I have," said Jude, literally tottering with cold and lassitude.
"Well, now you'd best march along home."
The water ran out of him as he went, and he was compelled to lean against the wall to support himself while coughing.
"You've done for yourself by this, young man," said she.
"I don't know whether you know it."