Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
Sue's distressful confession recurred to Jude's mind all the night as being a sorrow indeed. The morning after, when it was time for her to go, the neighbours saw her companion and herself disappearing on foot down the hill path which led into the lonely road to Alfredston.
She told him the pecuniary results, and then hesitated. At last, when they were left alone, she informed him of the unexpected meeting with Arabella, and the latter's widowhood. Jude was discomposed. "What is she living here?" he said. "No; at Alfredston," said Sue. Jude's countenance remained clouded. "I thought I had better tell you?" she continued, kissing him anxiously. "Yes... Dear me!
Arabella not in the depths of London, but down here! It is only a little over a dozen miles across the country to Alfredston. What is she doing there?" She told him all she knew. "She has taken to chapel-going," Sue added; "and talks accordingly." "Well," said Jude, "perhaps it is for the best that we have almost decided to move on.
Having timed her by her only possible train, he locked the door about mid-day, and crossed the hollow field to the verge of the upland by the Brown House, where he stood and looked over the vast prospect northwards, and over the nearer landscape in which Alfredston stood. Two miles behind it a jet of white steam was travelling from the left to the right of the picture.
Then he found that, though the marks of pig-dressing, of fats and scallops, were visible, the materials themselves had been taken away. A line written by his wife on the inside of an old envelope was pinned to the cotton blower of the fireplace: "Have gone to my friends. Shall not return." All the next day he remained at home, and sent off the carcase of the pig to Alfredston.
However, there was only one thing now to be done, and that was to play a straightforward part, the law being the law, and the woman between whom and himself there was no more unity than between east and west being in the eye of the Church one person with him. Having to meet Arabella here, it was impossible to meet Sue at Alfredston as he had promised.
He noted its date, which came and passed without Jude's going near the place, or perceiving that the traffic out of Alfredston by the southern road was materially increased by the auction.
He then cleaned up the premises, locked the door, put the key in a place she would know if she came back, and returned to his masonry at Alfredston. At night when he again plodded home he found she had not visited the house. The next day went in the same way, and the next. Then there came a letter from her. That she had gone tired of him she frankly admitted.
One day while in lodgings at Alfredston he had gone to Marygreen to see his old aunt, and had observed between the brass candlesticks on her mantlepiece the photograph of a pretty girlish face, in a broad hat with radiating folds under the brim like the rays of a halo. He had asked who she was.
The remainder of the journey was down-hill, and guessing him to be going to Alfredston they offered him a lift, which he accepted. Arabella looked at him, and looked again, till at length she spoke. "If I don't mistake I am talking to Mr. Phillotson?" The wayfarer faced round and regarded her in turn. "Yes; my name is Phillotson," he said. "But I don't recognize you, ma'am."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking