Jude the Obsure

The farcical yet melancholy event was the beginning of a serious

illness for him; and he lay in his lonely bed in the pathetic state

of mind of a middle-aged man who perceives at length that his

life, intellectual and domestic, is tending to failure and gloom.

Gillingham came to see him in the evenings, and on one occasion

mentioned Sue's name.

"She doesn't care anything about me!" said Phillotson. "Why should

she?"

"She doesn't know you are ill."

"So much the better for both of us."

"Where are her lover and she living?"

"At Melchester--I suppose; at least he was living there some time

ago."

When Gillingham reached home he sat and reflected, and at last wrote

an anonymous line to Sue, on the bare chance of its reaching her,

the letter being enclosed in an envelope addressed to Jude at the

diocesan capital. Arriving at that place it was forwarded to

Marygreen in North Wessex, and thence to Aldbrickham by the only

person who knew his present address--the widow who had nursed his

aunt.

Three days later, in the evening, when the sun was going down in

splendour over the lowlands of Blackmoor, and making the Shaston

windows like tongues of fire to the eyes of the rustics in that vale,

the sick man fancied that he heard somebody come to the house, and a

few minutes after there was a tap at the bedroom door. Phillotson

did not speak; the door was hesitatingly opened, and there

entered--Sue.

She was in light spring clothing, and her advent seemed ghostly--like

the flitting in of a moth. He turned his eyes upon her, and flushed;

but appeared to check his primary impulse to speak.

"I have no business here," she said, bending her frightened face to

him. "But I heard you were ill--very ill; and--and as I know that

you recognize other feelings between man and woman than physical

love, I have come."

"I am not very ill, my dear friend. Only unwell."

"I didn't know that; and I am afraid that only a severe illness would

have justified my coming!"

"Yes... yes. And I almost wish you had not come! It is a little

too soon--that's all I mean. Still, let us make the best of it. You

haven't heard about the school, I suppose?"

"No--what about it?"

"Only that I am going away from here to another place. The managers

and I don't agree, and we are going to part--that's all."