Aldbrickham is a much bigger town—sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants—and nobody knows anything about us there."
"And you have given up your cathedral work here?"
"Yes.
It was rather sudden—your message coming unexpectedly.
Strictly, I might have been made to finish out the week. But I pleaded urgency and I was let off.
I would have deserted any day at your command, dear Sue.
I have deserted more than that for you!"
"I fear I am doing you a lot of harm.
Ruining your prospects of the Church; ruining your progress in your trade; everything!"
"The Church is no more to me.
Let it lie!
I am not to be one of
The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upward each to his point of bliss,
if any such there be!
My point of bliss is not upward, but here."
"Oh I seem so bad—upsetting men's courses like this!" said she, taking up in her voice the emotion that had begun in his.
But she recovered her equanimity by the time they had travelled a dozen miles.
"He has been so good in letting me go," she resumed.
"And here's a note I found on my dressing-table, addressed to you."
"Yes. He's not an unworthy fellow," said Jude, glancing at the note.
"And I am ashamed of myself for hating him because he married you."
"According to the rule of women's whims I suppose I ought to suddenly love him, because he has let me go so generously and unexpectedly," she answered smiling.
"But I am so cold, or devoid of gratitude, or so something, that even this generosity hasn't made me love him, or repent, or want to stay with him as his wife; although I do feel I like his large-mindedness, and respect him more than ever."
"It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and you had run away against his will," murmured Jude.
"That I never would have done."
Jude's eyes rested musingly on her face.
Then he suddenly kissed her; and was going to kiss her again.
"No—only once now—please, Jude!"
"That's rather cruel," he answered; but acquiesced.
"Such a strange thing has happened to me," Jude continued after a silence.
"Arabella has actually written to ask me to get a divorce from her—in kindness to her, she says.
She wants to honestly and legally marry that man she has already married virtually; and begs me to enable her to do it."
"What have you done?"
"I have agreed.
I thought at first I couldn't do it without getting her into trouble about that second marriage, and I don't want to injure her in any way.
Perhaps she's no worse than I am, after all!
But nobody knows about it over here, and I find it will not be a difficult proceeding at all. If she wants to start afresh I have only too obvious reasons for not hindering her."
"Then you'll be free?"
"Yes, I shall be free."
"Where are we booked for?" she asked, with the discontinuity that marked her to-night.
"Aldbrickham, as I said."
"But it will be very late when we get there?"
"Yes. I thought of that, and I wired for a room for us at the Temperance Hotel there."
"One?"
"Yes—one."
She looked at him.
"Oh Jude!" Sue bent her forehead against the corner of the compartment. "I thought you might do it; and that I was deceiving you.
But I didn't mean that!"
In the pause which followed, Jude's eyes fixed themselves with a stultified expression on the opposite seat.
"Well!" he said…