`Surely not at this time o' night?' said Jude. `It is shut.'

`She knows somebody who keeps the key, and she has it whenever she wants it.'

`How long has she been going on with this?'

`Oh, some few weeks, I think.'

Jude went vaguely in the direction of the church, which he had never once approached since he lived out that way years before, when his young opinions were more mystical than they were now. The spot was deserted, but the door was certainly unfastened; he lifted the latch without noise, and pushing to the door behind him, stood absolutely still inside. The prevalent silence seemed to contain a faint sound, explicable as a breathing, or a sobbing, which came from the other end of the building. The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.

High overhead, above the chancel steps, Jude could discern a huge, solidly constructed Latin cross - as large, probably, as the original it was designed to commemorate. It seemed to be suspended in the air by invisible wires; it was set with large jewels, which faintly glimmered in some weak ray caught from outside, as the cross swayed to and fro in a silent and scarcely perceptible motion. Underneath, upon the floor, lay what appeared to be a heap of black clothes, and from this was repeated the sobbing that he had heard before. It was his Sue's form, prostrate on the paving.

`Sue!' he whispered.

Something white disclosed itself; she had turned up her face.

`What - do you want with me here, Jude?' she said almost sharply. `You shouldn't come! I wanted to be alone! Why did you intrude here?'

`How can you ask!' he retorted in quick reproach, for his full heart was wounded to its centre at this attitude of hers towards him. `Why do I come? Who has a right to come, I should like to know, if I have not! I, who love you better than my own self - better - far better - than you have loved me! What made you leave me to come here alone?'

`Don't criticize me, Jude - I can't bear it! - I have often told you so. You must take me as I am. I am a wretch - broken by my distractions! I couldn't bear it when Arabella came - I felt so utterly miserable I had to come away. She seems to be your wife still, and Richard to be my husband!'

`But they are nothing to us!'

`Yes, dear friend, they are. I see marriage differently now. My babies have been taken from me to show me this! Arabella's child killing mine was a judgement - the right slaying the wrong. What, what shall I do! I am such a vile creature - too worthless to mix with ordinary human beings!'

`This is terrible!' said Jude, verging on tears. `It is monstrous and unnatural for you to be so remorseful when you have done no wrong!'

`Ah - you don't know my badness!'

He returned vehemently: `I do! Every atom and dreg of it! You make me hate Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever it may be called, if it's that which has caused this deterioration in you. That a woman-poet, a woman-seer, a woman whose soul shone like a diamond - whom all the wise of the world would have been proud of, if they could have known you - should degrade herself like this! I am glad I had nothing to do with Divinity - damn glad - if it's going to ruin you in this way!'