“Then what is it?”
“I cannot tell you. I have done wrong to-day. And I want to eradicate it… Well—I will tell you this—Jude has been here this afternoon, and I find I still love him—oh, grossly! I cannot tell you more.”
“Ah!” said the widow. “I told ’ee how ’twould be!”
“But it shan’t be! I have not told my husband of his visit; it is not necessary to trouble him about it, as I never mean to see Jude any more. But I am going to make my conscience right on my duty to Richard—by doing a penance—the ultimate thing. I must!”
“I wouldn’t—since he agrees to it being otherwise, and it has gone on three months very well as it is.”
“Yes—he agrees to my living as I choose; but I feel it is an indulgence I ought not to exact from him. It ought not to have been accepted by me. To reverse it will be terrible—but I must be more just to him. O why was I so unheroic!”
“What is it you don’t like in him?” asked Mrs. Edlin curiously.
“I cannot tell you. It is something… I cannot say. The mournful thing is, that nobody would admit it as a reason for feeling as I do; so that no excuse is left me.”
“Did you ever tell Jude what it was?”
“Never.”