ed over the town into the country beyond, to the trees which
screened her whose presence had at first been the support of his
heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. But for this blow
he might have borne with his fate. With Sue as companion he could
have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Without her it was
inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to which he had
subjected himself should affect him disastrously. Phillotson had
no doubt passed through a similar intellectual disappointment to
that which now enveloped him. But the schoolmaster had been since
blest with the consolation of sweet Sue, while for him there was no
consoler.

Descending to the streets, he went listlessly along till he arrived
at an inn, and entered it. Here he drank several glasses of beer in
rapid succession, and when he came out it was night. By the light of
the flickering lamps he rambled home to supper, and had not long been
sitting at table when his landlady brought up a letter that had just
arrived for him. She laid it down as if impressed with a sense of
its possible importance, and on looking at it Jude perceived that it
bore the embossed stamp of one of the colleges whose heads he had
addressed. "ONE--at last!" cried Jude.

The communication was brief, and not exactly what he had expected;
though it really was from the master in person. It ran thus:

BIBLIOLL COLLEGE.

SIR,--I have read your letter with interest; and, judging
from your description of yourself as a working-man, I
venture to think that you will have a much better chance
of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and
sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course.
That, therefore, is what I advise you to do. Yours
faithfully,

T. TETUPHENAY.

To Mr. J. FAWLEY, Stone-mason.

This terribly sensible advice exasperated Jude. He had known all
that before. He knew it was true. Yet it seemed a hard slap after
ten years of labour, and its effect upon him just now was to make him
rise recklessly from the table, and, instead of reading as usual, to
go downstairs and into the street. He stood at a bar and tossed off
two or three glasses, then unconsciously sauntered along till he
came to a spot called The Fourways in the middle of the city, gazing
abstractedly at the groups of people like one in a trance, till,
coming to himself, he began talking to the policeman fixed there.

That of