`I think, ma'am, I remember your relation, or friend, or whatever he is, coming here once before - late, just like this, with his wife - a lady, at any rate, that wasn't you by no manner of means - jest as med be with you now.'

`Oh do you?' said Sue, with a certain sickness of heart. `Though I think you must be mistaken! How long ago was it?'

`About a month or two. A handsome, full-figured woman. They had this room.'

When Jude came back and sat down to supper Sue seemed moping and miserable. `Jude,' she said to him plaintively, at their parting that night upon the landing, `it is not so nice and pleasant as it used to be with us!

I don't like it here - I can't bear the place! And I don't like you so well as I did!'

`How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you change like this?'

`Because it was cruel to bring me here!'

`Why?'

`You were lately here with Arabella. There, now I have said it!'

`Dear me, why - ` said Jude looking round him. `Yes - it is the same! I really didn't know it, Sue. Well - it is not cruel, since we have come as we have - two relations staying together.'

`How long ago was it you were here? Tell me, tell me!'

`The day before I met you in Christminster, when we went back to Marygreen together. I told you I had met her.'

`Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn't tell me all. Your story was that you had met as estranged people, who were not husband and wife at all in Heaven's sight - not that you had made it up with her.'

`We didn't make it up,' he said sadly. `I can't explain, Sue.'

`You've been false to me; you, my last hope! And I shall never forget it, never!'

`But by your own wish, dear Sue, we are only to be friends, not lovers! It is so very inconsistent of you to - - '

`Friends can be jealous!'

`I don't see that. You concede nothing to me and I have to concede everything to you. After all, you were on good terms with your husband at that time.'

`No, I wasn't, Jude. Oh how can you think so! And you have taken me in, even if you didn't intend to.' She was so mortified that he was obliged to take her into her room and close the door lest the people should hear. `Was it this room? Yes it was - I see by your look it was! I won't have it for mine! Oh it was treacherous of you to have her again! I jumped out of the window!'

`But Sue, she was, after all, my legal wife, if not - '

Slipping down on her knees Sue buried her face in the bed and wept.

`I never knew such an unreasonable - such a dog-in-the-manger feeling,' said Jude. `I am not to approach you, nor anybody else!'