"Yes, yes," said Jude. "She has really taken me quite unawares; but I should wish to help her out of her difficulty." And an arrangement was ultimately come to under which a bed was to be thrown down in Jude's lumber-room, to make it comfortable for Arabella till she could get out of the strait she was in—not by her own fault, as she declared—and return to her father's again.
While they were waiting for this to be done Arabella said: "You know the news, I suppose?"
"I guess what you mean; but I know nothing."
"I had a letter from Anny at Alfredston to-day. She had just heard that the wedding was to be yesterday: but she didn't know if it had come off."
"I don't wish to talk of it."
"No, no: of course you don't. Only it shows what kind of woman—"
"Don't speak of her I say! She's a fool! And she's an angel, too, poor dear!"
"If it's done, he'll have a chance of getting back to his old position, by everybody's account, so Anny says. All his well-wishers will be pleased, including the bishop himself."
"Do spare me, Arabella."
Arabella was duly installed in the little attic, and at first she did not come near Jude at all. She went to and fro about her own business, which, when they met for a moment on the stairs or in the passage, she informed him was that of obtaining another place in the occupation she understood best. When Jude suggested London as affording the most likely opening in the liquor trade, she shook her head. "No—the temptations are too many," she said. "Any humble tavern in the country before that for me."