Having you back in the house was one thing—this another.
So think again."
"I have thought—I wish this!"
"That's a complaisant spirit—and perhaps you are right.
With a lover hanging about, a half-marriage should be completed.
But I repeat my reminder this third and last time."
"It is my wish! … O God!"
"What did you say 'O God' for?"
"I don't know!"
"Yes you do!
But …" He gloomily considered her thin and fragile form a moment longer as she crouched before him in her night-clothes. "Well, I thought it might end like this," he said presently.
"I owe you nothing, after these signs; but I'll take you in at your word, and forgive you."
He put his arm round her to lift her up.
Sue started back.
"What's the matter?" he asked, speaking for the first time sternly.
"You shrink from me again?—just as formerly!"
"No, Richard—I—I—was not thinking—"
"You wish to come in here?"
"Yes."
"You still bear in mind what it means?"
"Yes.
It is my duty!"
Placing the candlestick on the chest of drawers he led her through the doorway, and lifting her bodily, kissed her.
A quick look of aversion passed over her face, but clenching her teeth she uttered no cry.
Mrs. Edlin had by this time undressed, and was about to get into bed when she said to herself:
"Ah—perhaps I'd better go and see if the little thing is all right.
How it do blow and rain!"
The widow went out on the landing, and saw that Sue had disappeared.
"Ah! Poor soul!
Weddings be funerals 'a b'lieve nowadays.
Fifty-five years ago, come Fall, since my man and I married!
Times have changed since then!"
X
Despite himself Jude recovered somewhat, and worked at his trade for several weeks. After Christmas, however, he broke down again.
With the money he had earned he shifted his lodgings to a yet more central part of the town.
But Arabella saw that he was not likely to do much work for a long while, and was cross enough at the turn affairs had taken since her remarriage to him.
"I'm hanged if you haven't been clever in this last stroke!" she would say, "to get a nurse for nothing by marrying me!"
Jude was absolutely indifferent to what she said, and indeed, often regarded her abuse in a humorous light.
Sometimes his mood was more earnest, and as he lay he often rambled on upon the defeat of his early aims.
"Every man has some little power in some one direction," he would say.
"I was never really stout enough for the stone trade, particularly the fixing.
Moving the blocks always used to strain me, and standing the trying draughts in buildings before the windows are in always gave me colds, and I think that began the mischief inside.
But I felt I could do one thing if I had the opportunity. I could accumulate ideas, and impart them to others.
I wonder if the founders had such as I in their minds—a fellow good for nothing else but that particular thing? … I hear that soon there is going to be a better chance for such helpless students as I was.
There are schemes afoot for making the university less exclusive, and extending its influence.
I don't know much about it.
And it is too late, too late for me!
Ah—and for how many worthier ones before me!"
"How you keep a-mumbling!" said Arabella.
"I should have thought you'd have got over all that craze about books by this time.