s forehead pitifully--just once. Jude said good-bye,
and went away into the darkness.

Passing along Bimport Street he thought he heard the wheels of the
coach departing, and, truly enough, when he reached the Duke's Arms
in the Market Place the coach had gone. It was impossible for him
to get to the station on foot in time for this train, and he settled
himself perforce to wait for the next--the last to Melchester that
night.

He wandered about awhile, obtained something to eat; and then, having
another half-hour on his hands, his feet involuntarily took him
through the venerable graveyard of Trinity Church, with its avenues
of limes, in the direction of the schools again. They were entirely
in darkness. She had said she lived over the way at Old-Grove
Place, a house which he soon discovered from her description of its
antiquity.

A glimmering candlelight shone from a front window, the shutters
being yet unclosed. He could see the interior clearly--the floor
sinking a couple of steps below the road without, which had become
raised during the centuries since the house was built. Sue,
evidently just come in, was standing with her hat on in this front
parlour or sitting-room, whose walls were lined with wainscoting
of panelled oak reaching from floor to ceiling, the latter being
crossed by huge moulded beams only a little way above her head. The
mantelpiece was of the same heavy description, carved with Jacobean
pilasters and scroll-work. The centuries did, indeed, ponderously
overhang a young wife who passed her time here.

She had opened a rosewood work-box, and was looking at a photograph.
Having contemplated it a little while she pressed it against her
bosom, and put it again in its place.

Then becoming aware that she had not obscured the windows she came
forward to do so, candle in hand. It was too dark for her to see
Jude without, but he could see her face distinctly, and there was an
unmistakable tearfulness about the dark, long-lashed eyes.

She closed the shutters, and Jude turned away to pursue his solitary
journey home. "Whose photograph was she looking at?" he said. He
had once given her his; but she had others, he knew. Yet it was his,
surely?

He knew he should go to see her again, according to her invitation.
Those earnest men he read of, the saints, whom Sue, with gentle
irreverence, called his demi-gods, would have shunned such encounters
if they doubted their own strength. But he