"Hush!" he said, pressing her little face against his breast as if
she were an infant. "It is bereavement that has brought you to this!
Such remorse is not for you, my sensitive plant, but for the wicked
ones of the earth--who never feel it!"
"I ought not to stay like this," she murmured, when she had remained
in the position a long while.
"Why not?"
"It is indulgence."
"Still on the same tack! But is there anything better on earth than
that we should love one another?"
"Yes. It depends on the sort of love; and yours--ours--is the
wrong."
"I won't have it, Sue! Come, when do you wish our marriage to be
signed in a vestry?"
She paused, and looked up uneasily. "Never," she whispered.
Not knowing the whole of her meaning he took the objection serenely,
and said nothing. Several minutes elapsed, and he thought she had
fallen asleep; but he spoke softly, and found that she was wide awake
all the time. She sat upright and sighed.
"There is a strange, indescribable perfume or atmosphere about you
to-night, Sue," he said. "I mean not only mentally, but about your
clothes, also. A sort of vegetable scent, which I seem to know, yet
cannot remember."
"It is incense."
"Incense?"
"I have been to the service at St. Silas', and I was in the fumes of
it."
"Oh--St. Silas."
"Yes. I go there sometimes."
"Indeed. You go there!"
"You see, Jude, it is lonely here in the weekday mornings, when you
are at work, and I think and think of--of my--" She stopped till she
could control the lumpiness of her throat. "And I have taken to go
in there, as it is so near."
"Oh well--of course, I say nothing against it. Only it is odd, for
you. They little think what sort of chiel is amang them!"
"What do you mean, Jude?"
"Well--a sceptic, to be plain."
"How can you pain me so, dear Jude, in my trouble! Yet I know you
didn't mean it. But you ought not to say that."
"I won't. But I am much surprised!"
"Well--I want to tell you something else, Jude. You won't be angry,
will you? I have thought of it a good deal since my babies died.
I don't think I ought to be your wife--or as your wife--any longer."