Donn and his daughter being probably not up, if they caroused late the night before. However, he found in passing that the door was open, and he could hear voices within, though the shutters of the meat-stall were not down. He went and tapped at the sitting-room door, and opened it.

`Well - to be sure!' he said, astonished.

Hosts and guests were sitting card-playing, smoking, and talking, precisely as he had left them eleven hours earlier; the gas was burning and the curtains drawn, though it had been broad daylight for two hours out of doors.

`Yes!' cried Arabella, laughing. `Here we are, just the same. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, oughtn't we! But it is a sort of housewarming, you see; and our friends are in no hurry. Come in, Mr. Taylor, and sit down.'

The tinker, or rather reduced ironmonger, was nothing loath, and entered and took a seat. `I shall lose a quarter, but never mind,' he said. `Well, really, I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked in! It seemed as if I was flung back again into last night, all of a sudden.'

`So you are. Pour out for Mr. Taylor.'

He now perceived that she was sitting beside Jude, her arm being round his waist. Jude, like the rest of the company, bore on his face the signs of how deeply he had been indulging.

`Well, we've been waiting for certain legal hours to arrive, to tell the truth,' she continued bashfully, and making her spirituous crimson look as much like a maiden blush as possible. `Jude and I have decided to make up matters between us by tying the knot again, as we find we can't do without one another after all. So, as a bright notion, we agreed to sit on till it was late enough, and go and do it off-hand.'

Jude seemed to pay no great heed to what she was announcing, or indeed to anything whatever. The entrance of Taylor infused fresh spirit into the company, and they remained sitting, till Arabella whispered to her father: `Now we may as well go.'

`But the parson don't know?'

`Yes, I told him last night that we might come between eight and nine, as there were reasons of decency for doing it as early and quiet as possible; on account of it being our second marriage, which might make people curious to look on if they knew. He highly approved.'

`Oh very well: I'm ready,' said her father, getting up and shaking himself.

`Now, old darling,' she said to Jude. `Come along, as you promised.'

`When did I promise anything?' asked he, whom she had made so tipsy by her special knowledge of that line of business as almost to have made him sober again - or to seem so to those who did not know him.

`Why!' said Arabella, affecting dismay. `You've promised to marry me several times as we've sat here to- night. These gentlemen have heard you.'

`I don't remember it,' said Jude doggedly. `There's only one woman - but I won't mention her in this Capharnaum!'

Arabella looked towards her father. `Now, Mr. Fawley be honourable,' said Donn. `You and my daughter have been living here together these three or four days, quite on the understanding that you were going to marry her. Of course I shouldn't have had such goings on in my house if I hadn't understood that. As a point of honour you must do it now.'


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