blight. There he remained
hidden till they had reached Sue's cottage and she had passed in,
Phillotson going on to the school hard by.

"Oh, he's too old for her--too old!" cried Jude in all the terrible
sickness of hopeless, handicapped love.

He could not interfere. Was he not Arabella's? He was unable to
go on further, and retraced his steps towards Christminster. Every
tread of his feet seemed to say to him that he must on no account
stand in the schoolmaster's way with Sue. Phillotson was perhaps
twenty years her senior, but many a happy marriage had been made
in such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow was
given by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and the
schoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.

VI

Jude's old and embittered aunt lay unwell at Marygreen, and on the
following Sunday he went to see her--a visit which was the result of
a victorious struggle against his inclination to turn aside to the
village of Lumsdon and obtain a miserable interview with his cousin,
in which the word nearest his heart could not be spoken, and the
sight which had tortured him could not be revealed.

His aunt was now unable to leave her bed, and a great part of Jude's
short day was occupied in making arrangements for her comfort. The
little bakery business had been sold to a neighbour, and with the
proceeds of this and her savings she was comfortably supplied with
necessaries and more, a widow of the same village living with her and
ministering to her wants. It was not till the time had nearly come
for him to leave that he obtained a quiet talk with her, and his
words tended insensibly towards his cousin.

"Was Sue born here?"

"She was--in this room. They were living here at that time. What
made 'ee ask that?"

"Oh--I wanted to know."

"Now you've been seeing her!" said the harsh old woman. "And what
did I tell 'ee?"

"Well--that I was not to see her."

"Have you gossiped with her?"

"Yes."

"Then don't keep it up. She was brought up by her father to hate her
mother's family; and she'll look with no favour upon a working chap
like you--a townish girl as she's become by now. I never cared much
about her. A pert little thing, that's what she was too often, with
her tight-strained nerves. Many's the time I've smacked her for her
impertinence. Why, one day when she was walking into the pond with
her shoes and stockings off, and her petticoats pul