ght in charity to
let you approach me--that it was damnably selfish to torture you as
I did my other friend. But I shouldn't have given way if you hadn't
broken me down by making me fear you would go back to her... But
don't let us say any more about it! Jude, will you leave me to
myself now?"

"Yes... But Sue--my wife, as you are!" he burst out; "my old
reproach to you was, after all, a true one. You have never loved me
as I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--your
heart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort of
fay, or sprite--not a woman!"

"At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew
you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt with
you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's morals
almost more than unbridled passion--the craving to attract and
captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man--was in me; and
when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then--I don't
know how it was--I couldn't bear to let you go--possibly to Arabella
again--and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly
it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart
ache for me without letting mine ache for you."

"And now you add to your cruelty by leaving me!"

"Ah--yes! The further I flounder, the more harm I do!"

"O Sue!" said he with a sudden sense of his own danger. "Do not
do an immoral thing for moral reasons! You have been my social
salvation. Stay with me for humanity's sake! You know what a weak
fellow I am. My two arch-enemies you know--my weakness for womankind
and my impulse to strong liquor. Don't abandon me to them, Sue, to
save your own soul only! They have been kept entirely at a distance
since you became my guardian-angel! Since I have had you I have been
able to go into any temptations of the sort, without risk. Isn't
my safety worth a little sacrifice of dogmatic principle? I am in
terror lest, if you leave me, it will be with me another case of the
pig that was washed turning back to his wallowing in the mire!"

Sue burst out weeping. "Oh, but you must not, Jude! You won't!
I'll pray for you night and day!"

"Well--never mind; don't grieve," said Jude generously. "I did
suffer, God knows, about you at that time; and now I suffer again.
But perhaps not so much as you. The woman mostly gets the worst of
it in the long run!"

"She does."

"Unless she is ab