Jude the Obsure

"Richard says he'll have me back, and I'm bound to go! If he had

refused, it might not have been so much my duty to--give up Jude.

But--" She remained with her face in the bed-clothes, and Mrs. Edlin

left the room.

Phillotson in the interval had gone back to his friend Gillingham,

who still sat over the supper-table. They soon rose, and walked out

on the green to smoke awhile. A light was burning in Sue's room, a

shadow moving now and then across the blind.

Gillingham had evidently been impressed with the indefinable charm of

Sue, and after a silence he said, "Well: you've all but got her again

at last. She can't very well go a second time. The pear has dropped

into your hand."

"Yes! ... I suppose I am right in taking her at her word. I confess

there seems a touch of selfishness in it. Apart from her being what

she is, of course, a luxury for a fogy like me, it will set me right

in the eyes of the clergy and orthodox laity, who have never forgiven

me for letting her go. So I may get back in some degree into my old

track."

"Well--if you've got any sound reason for marrying her again, do it

now in God's name! I was always against your opening the cage-door

and letting the bird go in such an obviously suicidal way. You might

have been a school inspector by this time, or a reverend, if you

hadn't been so weak about her."

"I did myself irreparable damage--I know it."

"Once you've got her housed again, stick to her."

Phillotson was more evasive to-night. He did not care to admit

clearly that his taking Sue to him again had at bottom nothing to

do with repentance of letting her go, but was, primarily, a human

instinct flying in the face of custom and profession. He said,

"Yes--I shall do that. I know woman better now. Whatever justice

there was in releasing her, there was little logic, for one holding

my views on other subjects."

Gillingham looked at him, and wondered whether it would ever happen

that the reactionary spirit induced by the world's sneers and his own

physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her

than he had erstwhile been informally and perversely kind.

"I perceive it won't do to give way to impulse," Phillotson resumed,

feeling more and more every minute the necessity of acting up to his

position. "I flew in the face of the Church's teaching; but I did it

without malice prepense. Women are so strange in their influence

that they tempt you to misplaced kindness. However, I know myself

better now. A little judicious severity, perhaps..."