"Did it keep you awake?" he said.

"No--I was awake."

"How was that?"

"Oh, you know--now! I know you, with your religious doctrines, think

that a married woman in trouble of a kind like mine commits a mortal

sin in making a man the confidant of it, as I did you. I wish I

hadn't, now!"

"Don't wish it, dear," he said. "That may have BEEN my view; but my

doctrines and I begin to part company."

"I knew it--I knew it! And that's why I vowed I wouldn't disturb

your belief. But--I am SO GLAD to see you!--and, oh, I didn't mean

to see you again, now the last tie between us, Aunt Drusilla, is

dead!"

Jude seized her hand and kissed it. "There is a stronger one left!"

he said. "I'll never care about my doctrines or my religion any

more! Let them go! Let me help you, even if I do love you, and even

if you..."

"Don't say it!--I know what you mean; but I can't admit so much as

that. There! Guess what you like, but don't press me to answer

questions!"

"I wish you were happy, whatever I may be!"

"I CAN'T be! So few could enter into my feeling--they would say

'twas my fanciful fastidiousness, or something of that sort, and

condemn me... It is none of the natural tragedies of love that's

love's usual tragedy in civilized life, but a tragedy artificially

manufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief in

parting! ... It would have been wrong, perhaps, for me to tell my

distress to you, if I had been able to tell it to anybody else. But

I have nobody. And I MUST tell somebody! Jude, before I married

him I had never thought out fully what marriage meant, even though I

knew. It was idiotic of me--there is no excuse. I was old enough,

and I thought I was very experienced. So I rushed on, when I had got

into that training school scrape, with all the cock-sureness of the

fool that I was! ... I am certain one ought to be allowed to undo

what one had done so ignorantly! I daresay it happens to lots of

women, only they submit, and I kick... When people of a later age

look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitions of the times

that we have the unhappiness to live in, what WILL they say!"

"You are very bitter, darling Sue! How I wish--I wish--"




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