`They are married.'

`Yes - of course they are!' he returned. She observed, however, the hard strain upon his lip as he spoke.

`Anny says she has heard from Belinda, her relation out at Marygreen, that it was very sad, and curious!'

`How do you mean sad? She wanted to marry him again, didn't she? And he her!'

`Yes - that was it. She wanted to in one sense, but not in the other. Mrs. Edlin was much upset by it all, and spoke out her mind at Phillotson. But Sue was that excited about it that she burnt her best embroidery that she'd worn with you, to blot you out entirely. Well - if a woman feels like it, she ought to do it. I commend her for it, though others don't.' Arabella sighed. `She felt he was her only husband, and that she belonged to nobody else in the sight of God A'mighty while he lived. Perhaps another woman feels the same about herself, too!' Arabella sighed again.

`I don't want any cant!' exclaimed Jude.

`It isn't cant,' said Arabella. `I feel exactly the same as she!'

He closed that issue by remarking abruptly: `Well - now I know all I wanted to know. Many thanks for your information. I am not going back to my lodgings just yet.' And he left her straightway.

In his misery and depression Jude walked to well-nigh every spot in the city that he had visited with Sue; thence he did not know whither, and then thought of going home to his usual evening meal. But having all the vices of his virtues, and some to spare, he turned into a public house, for the first time during many months. Among the possible consequences of her marriage Sue had not dwelt on this.

Arabella, meanwhile, had gone back. The evening passed, and Jude did not return. At half-past nine Arabella herself went out, first proceeding to an outlying district near the river where her father lived, and had opened a small and precarious pork-shop lately.

`Well,' she said to him, `for all your rowing me that night, I've called in, for I have something to tell you. I think I shall get married and settled again. Only you must help me: and you can do no less, after what I've stood 'ee.'

`I'll do anything to get thee off my hands!'

`Very well. I am now going to look for my young man. He's on the loose I'm afraid, and I must get him home. All I want you to do to-night is not to fasten the door, in case I should want to sleep here, and should be late.'

`I thought you'd soon get tired of giving yourself airs and keeping away!'

`Well - don't do the door. That's all I say.'

She then sallied out again, and first hastening back to Jude's to make sure that he had not returned, began her search for him. A shrewd guess as to his probable course took her straight to the tavern which Jude had formerly frequented, and where she had been barmaid for a brief term. She had no sooner opened the door of the `Private Bar' than her eyes fell upon him - sitting in the shade at the back of the compartment, with his eyes fixed on the floor in a blank stare. He was drinking nothing stronger than ale just then. He did not observe her, and she entered and sat beside him.

Jude looked up, and said without surprise: `You've come to have something, Arabella? ... I'm trying to forget her: that's all! But I can't; and I am going home.' She saw that he was a little way on in liquor, but only a little as yet.