room. Before they
could open it the comer did so, and a woman's form appeared.

"Is Mr. Fawley here?"

Jude and Sue started as he mechanically replied in the affirmative,
for the voice was Arabella's.

He formally requested her to come in, and she sat down in the window
bench, where they could distinctly see her outline against the light;
but no characteristic that enabled them to estimate her general
aspect and air. Yet something seemed to denote that she was not
quite so comfortably circumstanced, nor so bouncingly attired, as she
had been during Cartlett's lifetime.

The three attempted an awkward conversation about the tragedy, of
which Jude had felt it to be his duty to inform her immediately,
though she had never replied to his letter.

"I have just come from the cemetery," she said. "I inquired and
found the child's grave. I couldn't come to the funeral--thank you
for inviting me all the same. I read all about it in the papers,
and I felt I wasn't wanted... No--I couldn't come to the funeral,"
repeated Arabella, who, seeming utterly unable to reach the ideal of
a catastrophic manner, fumbled with iterations. "But I am glad I
found the grave. As 'tis your trade, Jude, you'll be able to put up
a handsome stone to 'em."

"I shall put up a headstone," said Jude drearily.

"He was my child, and naturally I feel for him."

"I hope so. We all did."

"The others that weren't mine I didn't feel so much for, as was
natural."

"Of course."

A sigh came from the dark corner where Sue sat.

"I had often wished I had mine with me," continued Mrs. Cartlett.
"Perhaps 'twouldn't have happened then! But of course I didn't wish
to take him away from your wife."

"I am not his wife," came from Sue.

The unexpectedness of her words struck Jude silent.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said Arabella. "I thought you
were!"

Jude had known from the quality of Sue's tone that her new and
transcendental views lurked in her words; but all except their
obvious meaning was, naturally, missed by Arabella. The latter,
after evincing that she was struck by Sue's avowal, recovered
herself, and went on to talk with placid bluntness about "her" boy,
for whom, though in his lifetime she had shown no care at all,
she now exhibited a ceremonial mournfulness that was apparently
sustaining to the conscience. She alluded to the past, and in making
some remark appealed again to Sue. There was no answer: Sue had
inv