A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked round.
“Oh—I didn’t think it was you! I didn’t—Oh, Jude!” A hysterical catch in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but she quickly recovered and went back.
“Don’t go—don’t go!” he implored. “This is my last time! I thought it would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall never come again. Don’t then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are acting by the letter; and ‘the letter killeth’!”
“I’ll stay—I won’t be unkind!” she said, her mouth quivering and her tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. “But why did you come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you have done?”
“What right thing?”
“Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has never been other than yours, Jude—in a proper sense. And therefore you did so well—Oh so well!—in recognizing it—and taking her to you again.”
“God above—and is that all I’ve come to hear? If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing the right thing! And you too—you call yourself Phillotson’s wife! His wife! You are mine.”
“Don’t make me rush away from you—I can’t bear much! But on this point I am decided.”
“I cannot understand how you did it—how you think it—I cannot!”
“Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me—And I—I’ve wrestled and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body into complete subjection. And you mustn’t—will you—wake—”