e a passionate letter arrived from Sue.
She was quite lonely and miserable, she told him. She hated the
place she was in; it was worse than the ecclesiastical designer's;
worse than anywhere. She felt utterly friendless; could he come
immediately?--though when he did come she would only be able to
see him at limited times, the rules of the establishment she found
herself in being strict to a degree. It was Mr. Phillotson who had
advised her to come there, and she wished she had never listened to
him.

Phillotson's suit was not exactly prospering, evidently; and Jude
felt unreasonably glad. He packed up his things and went to
Melchester with a lighter heart than he had known for months.

This being the turning over a new leaf he duly looked about for
a temperance hotel, and found a little establishment of that
description in the street leading from the station. When he had
had something to eat he walked out into the dull winter light over
the town bridge, and turned the corner towards the Close. The
day was foggy, and standing under the walls of the most graceful
architectural pile in England he paused and looked up. The lofty
building was visible as far as the roofridge; above, the dwindling
spire rose more and more remotely, till its apex was quite lost in
the mist drifting across it.

The lamps now began to be lighted, and turning to the west front
he walked round. He took it as a good omen that numerous blocks
of stone were lying about, which signified that the cathedral was
undergoing restoration or repair to a considerable extent. It seemed
to him, full of the superstitions of his beliefs, that this was an
exercise of forethought on the part of a ruling Power, that he might
find plenty to do in the art he practised while waiting for a call to
higher labours.

Then a wave of warmth came over him as he thought how near he now
stood to the bright-eyed vivacious girl with the broad forehead
and pile of dark hair above it; the girl with the kindling glance,
daringly soft at times--something like that of the girls he had
seen in engravings from paintings of the Spanish school. She was
here--actually in this Close--in one of the houses confronting this
very west facade.

He went down the broad gravel path towards the building. It was
an ancient edifice of the fifteenth century, once a palace, now
a training-school, with mullioned and transomed windows, and a
courtyard in front shut in from the road by a