`Oh don't you understand my feeling! Why don't you! Why are you so gross! I jumped out of the window!'

`Jumped out of window?'

`I can't explain!'

It was true that he did not understand her feelings very well. But he did a little; and began to love her none the less.

`I - I thought you cared for nobody - desired nobody in the world but me at that time - and ever since!' continued Sue.

`It is true. I did not, and don't now!' said Jude, as distressed as she.

`But you must have thought much of her! Or - '

`No - I need not - you don't understand me either - women never do! Why should you get into such a tantrum about nothing?'

Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly: `If it hadn't been for that, perhaps I would have gone on to the Temperance Hotel, after all, as you proposed; for I was beginning to think I did belong to you!'

`Oh, it is of no consequence!' said Jude distantly.

`I thought, of course, that she had never been really your wife since she left you of her own accord years and years ago! My sense of it was, that a parting such as yours from her, and mine from him, ended the marriage.'

`I can't say more without speaking against her, and I don't want to do that,' said he. `Yet I must tell you one thing, which would settle the matter in any case. She has married another man - really married him! I knew nothing about it till after the visit we made here.'

`Married another? ... It is a crime - as the world treats it, but does not believe.'

`There - now you are yourself again. Yes, it is a crime - as you don't hold, but would fearfully concede. But I shall never inform against her! And it is evidently a prick of conscience in her that has led her to urge me to get a divorce, that she may remarry this man legally. So you perceive I shall not be likely to see her again.'

`And you didn't really know anything of this when you saw her?' said Sue more gently, as she rose.

`I did not. Considering all things, I don't think you ought to be angry, darling!'

`I am not. But I shan't go to the Temperance Hotel!'

He laughed. `Never mind!' he said. `So that I am near you, I am comparatively happy. It is more than this earthly wretch called Me deserves - you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet, tantalizing phantom - hardly flesh at all; so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to pass through you as through air! Forgive me for being gross, as you call it! Remember that our calling cousins when really strangers was a snare. The enmity of our parents gave a piquancy to you in my eyes that was intenser even than the novelty of ordinary new acquaintance.'

`Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley's `Epipsychidion' as if they meant me!' she solicited, slanting up closer to him as they stood. `Don't you know them?'