`I think I know what!' Jude hurriedly said. `About her escaping from the training school, and her coming to me?'

`Yes.'

`Well' - Jude for a moment felt an unprincipled and fiendish wish to annihilate his rival at all cost. By the exercise of that treachery which love for the same woman renders possible to men the most honourable in every other relation of life, he could send off Phillotson in agony and defeat by saying that the scandal was true, and that Sue had irretrievably committed herself with him. But his action did not respond for a moment to his animal instinct; and what he said was, `I am glad of your kindness in coming to talk plainly to me about it. You know what they say? - that I ought to marry her.'

`What!'

`And I wish with all my soul I could!'

Phillotson trembled, and his naturally pale face acquired a corpselike sharpness in its lines. `I had no idea that it was of this nature! God forbid!'

`No, no!' said Jude aghast. `I thought you understood? I mean that were I in a position to marry her, or someone, and settle down, instead of living in lodgings here and there, I should be glad!'

What he had really meant was simply that he loved her.

`But - since this painful matter has been opened up - what really happened?' asked Phillotson, with the firmness of a man who felt that a sharp smart now was better than a long agony of suspense hereafter. `Cases arise, and this is one, when even ungenerous questions must be put to make false assumptions impossible, and to kill scandal.'

Jude explained readily; giving the whole series of adventures, including the night at the shepherd's, her wet arrival at his lodging, her indisposition from her immersion, their vigil of discussion, and his seeing her off next morning.

`Well now,' said Phillotson at the conclusion, `I take it as your final word, and I know I can believe you, that the suspicion which led to her rustication is an absolutely baseless one?'

`It is,' said Jude solemnly. `Absolutely. So help me God!'

The schoolmaster rose. Each of the twain felt that the interview could not comfortably merge in a friendly discussion of their recent experiences, after the manner of friends; and when Jude had taken him round, and shown him some features of the renovation which the old cathedral was undergoing, Phillotson bade the young man good-day and went away.

This visit took place about eleven o'clock in the morning; but no Sue appeared. When Jude went to his dinner at one he saw his beloved ahead of him in the street leading up from the North Gate, walking as if no way looking for him. Speedily overtaking her he remarked that he had asked her to come to him at the cathedral, and she had promised.

`I have been to get my things from the college,' she said - an observation which he was expected to take as an answer, though it was not one. Finding her to be in this evasive mood he felt inclined to give her the information so long withheld.

`You have not seen Mr. Phillotson to-day?' he ventured to inquire.

`I have not. But I am not going to be cross-examined about him; and if you ask anything more I won't answer!'