Jude the Obsure

"How could you?"

"I wanted to go to Alfredston to get a few things I left there. And

I could see Anny, who'll be sure to have heard all about it, as she

has friends at Marygreen."

Jude could not bear to acquiesce in this proposal; but his suspense

pitted itself against his discretion, and won in the struggle. "You

can ask about it if you like," he said. "I've not heard a sound from

there. It must have been very private, if--they have married."

"I am afraid I haven't enough cash to take me there and back, or I

should have gone before. I must wait till I have earned some."

"Oh--I can pay the journey for you," he said impatiently. And thus

his suspense as to Sue's welfare, and the possible marriage, moved

him to dispatch for intelligence the last emissary he would have

thought of choosing deliberately.

Arabella went, Jude requesting her to be home not later than by

the seven o'clock train. When she had gone he said: "Why should I

have charged her to be back by a particular time! She's nothing to

me--nor the other neither!"

But having finished work he could not help going to the station to

meet Arabella, dragged thither by feverish haste to get the news

she might bring, and know the worst. Arabella had made dimples

most successfully all the way home, and when she stepped out of the

railway carriage she smiled. He merely said "Well?" with the very

reverse of a smile.

"They are married."

"Yes--of course they are!" he returned. She observed, however, the

hard strain upon his lip as he spoke.

"Anny says she has heard from Belinda, her relation out at Marygreen,

that it was very sad, and curious!"

"How do you mean sad? She wanted to marry him again, didn't she?

And he her!"

"Yes--that was it. She wanted to in one sense, but not in the

other. Mrs. Edlin was much upset by it all, and spoke out her mind

at Phillotson. But Sue was that excited about it that she burnt her

best embroidery that she'd worn with you, to blot you out entirely.

Well--if a woman feels like it, she ought to do it. I commend her

for it, though others don't." Arabella sighed. "She felt he was her

only husband, and that she belonged to nobody else in the sight of

God A'mighty while he lived. Perhaps another woman feels the same

about herself, too!" Arabella sighed again.