double school in a great
town--he the boys' and I the girls'--as married school-teachers often
do, and make a good income between us."

"Oh, Sue! ... But of course it is right--you couldn't have done
better!"

He glanced at her and their eyes met, the reproach in his own belying
his words. Then he drew his hand quite away from hers, and turned
his face in estrangement from her to the window. Sue regarded him
passively without moving.

"I knew you would be angry!" she said with an air of no emotion
whatever. "Very well--I am wrong, I suppose! I ought not to have
let you come to see me! We had better not meet again; and we'll only
correspond at long intervals, on purely business matters!"

This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear, as she
probably knew, and it brought him round at once. "Oh yes, we will,"
he said quickly. "Your being engaged can make no difference to me
whatever. I have a perfect right to see you when I want to; and I
shall!"

"Then don't let us talk of it any more. It is quite spoiling our
evening together. What does it matter about what one is going to do
two years hence!"

She was something of a riddle to him, and he let the subject drift
away. "Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?" he asked, when their
meal was finished.

"Cathedral? Yes. Though I think I'd rather sit in the railway
station," she answered, a remnant of vexation still in her voice.
"That's the centre of the town life now. The cathedral has had its
day!"

"How modern you are!"

"So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as I
have done these last few years! The cathedral was a very good place
four or five centuries ago; but it is played out now... I am not
modern, either. I am more ancient than mediaevalism, if you only
knew."

Jude looked distressed.

"There--I won't say any more of that!" she cried. "Only you don't
know how bad I am, from your point of view, or you wouldn't think so
much of me, or care whether I was engaged or not. Now there's just
time for us to walk round the Close, then I must go in, or I shall be
locked out for the night."

He took her to the gate and they parted. Jude had a conviction that
his unhappy visit to her on that sad night had precipitated this
marriage engagement, and it did anything but add to his happiness.
Her reproach had taken that shape, then, and not the shape of words.
However, next day he set about seeking employment, whic