A week before the wedding day he went to Justine, utterly conscienceless, glorying in his love for her, rejoicing in his capacity to share it with another. Happy were the day and night he spent with her. She gave him the fullness of a love long restrained, long pent-up. She had not seen him in more than three months. All the unhappiness, all the joylessness, all the lonesomeness were swept away by the return of this handsome boy, her husband, her Jud.
It must be confessed that she felt some uneasiness lest he meet 'Gene Crawley on the place and lest the long averted catastrophe might occur. She felt guilty in that she was deceiving Jud in regard to 'Gene. That was her greatest sin! But Crawley went to the village on that day. He had seen Jud enter the gate the evening before while he was doing the work about the barn, and had slunk back to his lodging place in Martin Grimes' barn. An ugly hatred came into the soul Justine had tempered until it was gentler than one could have supposed 'Gene Crawley's soul could be. The little farm looked fairly prosperous. Jud did not know that the season had turned unproductive and that Justine had been forced to observe the utmost frugality in order to make both ends meet.
And so he basked in her love and then went away, loving her more deeply than ever. He told her of his hopes and his desires and of his struggles to go ahead. Some time, he was sure, he could take her to the city and they could be happy forever.
"Poor Jud," she said, with tears in her eyes. "You are so lonesome, so unhappy! I wish I could be with you. But we are so awfully, awfully poor, aren't we?"
"Cruelly poor, dear, is better. You haven't had a new dress in a year, and look at these clothes of mine."
He was wearing once more the wretched garments in which he was married! Down at the tollgate Jim Hardesty said to the crowd the day after his departure for Chicago:
"He's made a fizzle uv it, boys. Gol-dinged, ef I c'n make it out. 'Peared as though he wuz bound to make it go up yander an' I'd 'a' bet my last chaw tebaccer 'at he'd 'a' got to be president er somethin' two year' ago. But he's fell down somehow. I never did see sitch a wreck as him. He don't look 's if he had money 'nough to git a good squar' meal. No wonder he ain't been to see her. It's too dern' fer to walk."
A week afterwards Justine received a letter from Jud. With pale face and crushed heart she read and re-read it. It brought grief and joy, terror and gladness, distress and pride. In her solitude she wept piteously, but whether with joy or sadness she could not have told.
"And now I must tell you of the great good luck that has befallen me. It means that poor Jud Sherrod is to have the greatest opportunity that ever came to a man. I am going to Europe, across the ocean, dearest. Can you imagine such a thing? Think of me going to Europe, think of me sailing across the sea. I'll believe it when I find that I am not really dreaming. Truly, it is too wonderful to be true. How I wish I could take you with me. But think of the wonderful things I'll have to tell you when I come back. I can tell you of Paris, London, Rome and all the places we have talked and read about so often together. Am I not fortunate to have such a friend as the one who is to give me this unheard of chance? I must tell you that I don't think I deserve it at all. Some day my benefactor will learn that kindness can be wasted and that barrenness sometimes follows the best of sowing. This friend, of whom I shall write you more fully when I have obtained consent, is so deeply interested in me and my future that the art schools in Europe are to be made accessible to me—poverty-stricken me—because of that interest. There is so much to be gained by a brief tour of Europe and by a short stay in the big art schools that my benefactor says it would be criminal for me to be deprived of the chance because I have no money. We are to go together and we are to stay several months, possibly six. I am to have the best of instruction and am to have the additional lessons acquired only by travel. When I come back to this country I shall be ready to startle the world. We sail next week and I don't know just where we are to go after first reaching England. Of course, I shall write to you every day, dearest, and I shall think of you every moment. It is for you that I am building all my future. When I am rich and famous, we will go to Europe together, you and I. I am so rushed now for time, getting ready and everything, that I cannot come to see you before I go, but you must pray for me and you must love me more than ever. At the end of this week I give up my place on the paper, and when I come back I expect to open a studio of my own. The only thing I hate about the affair is that I must leave you, but it won't be so hard for you to bear, will it, dear? You know it is for my own and your good."
When all the misery of losing him for months, when all the dread of losing him forever, perhaps, in that voyage across the awful sea, had been lost in the joy over his good fortune, Justine gloried. Though her voice trembled and grew faint and her eyes glistened as she read the news to Mrs. Crane and 'Gene, it was from pride and joy. How proud she was of him!