"Come along, and I'll treat you!"
"Very well.
It will help me home, for I feel the chilly fog from the meadows of Cardinal as if death-claws were grabbing me through and through.
As Antigone said, I am neither a dweller among men nor ghosts.
But, Arabella, when I am dead, you'll see my spirit flitting up and down here among these!"
"Pooh!
You mayn't die after all. You are tough enough yet, old man."
It was night at Marygreen, and the rain of the afternoon showed no sign of abatement.
About the time at which Jude and Arabella were walking the streets of Christminster homeward, the Widow Edlin crossed the green, and opened the back door of the schoolmaster's dwelling, which she often did now before bedtime, to assist Sue in putting things away.
Sue was muddling helplessly in the kitchen, for she was not a good housewife, though she tried to be, and grew impatient of domestic details.
"Lord love 'ee, what do ye do that yourself for, when I've come o' purpose!
You knew I should come."
"Oh—I don't know—I forgot!
No, I didn't forget.
I did it to discipline myself.
I have scrubbed the stairs since eight o'clock.
I must practise myself in my household duties.
I've shamefully neglected them!"
"Why should ye?
He'll get a better school, perhaps be a parson, in time, and you'll keep two servants.
'Tis a pity to spoil them pretty hands."
"Don't talk of my pretty hands, Mrs. Edlin.
This pretty body of mine has been the ruin of me already!"
"Pshoo—you've got no body to speak of!
You put me more in mind of a sperrit.
But there seems something wrong to-night, my dear.
Husband cross?"
"No.
He never is.
He's gone to bed early."
"Then what is it?"
"I cannot tell you.
I have done wrong to-day. And I want to eradicate it… Well—I will tell you this—Jude has been here this afternoon, and I find I still love him—oh, grossly!
I cannot tell you more."
"Ah!" said the widow.
"I told 'ee how 'twould be!"
"But it shan't be!
I have not told my husband of his visit; it is not necessary to trouble him about it, as I never mean to see Jude any more.
But I am going to make my conscience right on my duty to Richard—by doing a penance—the ultimate thing.
I must!"
"I wouldn't—since he agrees to it being otherwise, and it has gone on three months very well as it is."
"Yes—he agrees to my living as I choose; but I feel it is an indulgence I ought not to exact from him. It ought not to have been accepted by me.
To reverse it will be terrible—but I must be more just to him.
O why was I so unheroic!"
"What is it you don't like in him?" asked Mrs. Edlin curiously.
"I cannot tell you.
It is something… I cannot say.
The mournful thing is, that nobody would admit it as a reason for feeling as I do; so that no excuse is left me."
"Did you ever tell Jude what it was?"
"Never."