They had informed him at the school where she was living, and having
no immediate anxiety about her comfort his thoughts took the
direction of a burning indignation against the training school
committee. In his bewilderment Phillotson entered the adjacent
cathedral, just now in a direly dismantled state by reason of
the repairs. He sat down on a block of freestone, regardless of
the dusty imprint it made on his breeches; and his listless eyes
following the movements of the workmen he presently became aware
that the reputed culprit, Sue's lover Jude, was one amongst them.
Jude had never spoken to his former hero since the meeting by the
model of Jerusalem. Having inadvertently witnessed Phillotson's
tentative courtship of Sue in the lane there had grown up in the
younger man's mind a curious dislike to think of the elder, to meet
him, to communicate in any way with him; and since Phillotson's
success in obtaining at least her promise had become known to Jude,
he had frankly recognized that he did not wish to see or hear of his
senior any more, learn anything of his pursuits, or even imagine
again what excellencies might appertain to his character. On this
very day of the schoolmaster's visit Jude was expecting Sue, as she
had promised; and when therefore he saw the schoolmaster in the nave
of the building, saw, moreover, that he was coming to speak to him,
he felt no little embarrassment; which Phillotson's own embarrassment
prevented his observing.
Jude joined him, and they both withdrew from the other workmen to the
spot where Phillotson had been sitting. Jude offered him a piece of
sackcloth for a cushion, and told him it was dangerous to sit on the
bare block.
"Yes; yes," said Phillotson abstractedly, as he reseated himself, his
eyes resting on the ground as if he were trying to remember where he
was. "I won't keep you long. It was merely that I have heard that
you have seen my little friend Sue recently. It occurred to me to
speak to you on that account. I merely want to ask--about her."
"I think I know what!" Jude hurriedly said. "About her escaping
from the training school, and her coming to me?"
"Yes."
"Well"--Jude for a moment felt an unprincipled and fiendish wish to
annihilate his rival at all cost. By the exercise of that treachery
which love for the same woman renders possible to men the most
honourable in every other relation of life, he could send off
Phillotson in agony and defeat by saying that the scandal was true,
and that Sue had irretrievably committed herself with him. But his
action did not respond for a moment to his animal instinct; and what
he said was, "I am glad of your kindness in coming to talk plainly to
me about it. You know what they say?--that I ought to marry her."