wouldn't you, if it hadn't been for that?"

Instead of replying she rose quickly, and saying she was going to
walk to her aunt's grave in the churchyard to recover herself, went
out of the house. Jude did not follow her. Twenty minutes later he
saw her cross the village green towards Mrs. Edlin's, and soon she
sent a little girl to fetch her bag, and tell him she was too tired
to see him again that night.

In the lonely room of his aunt's house, Jude sat watching the
cottage of the Widow Edlin as it disappeared behind the night shade.
He knew that Sue was sitting within its walls equally lonely and
disheartened; and again questioned his devotional motto that all was
for the best.

He retired to rest early, but his sleep was fitful from the sense
that Sue was so near at hand. At some time near two o'clock, when
he was beginning to sleep more soundly, he was aroused by a shrill
squeak that had been familiar enough to him when he lived regularly
at Marygreen. It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin. As was
the little creature's habit, it did not soon repeat its cry; and
probably would not do so more than once or twice; but would remain
bearing its torture till the morrow when the trapper would come and
knock it on the head.

He who in his childhood had saved the lives of the earthworms now
began to picture the agonies of the rabbit from its lacerated leg.
If it were a "bad catch" by the hind-leg, the animal would tug
during the ensuing six hours till the iron teeth of the trap had
stripped the leg-bone of its flesh, when, should a weak-springed
instrument enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from the
mortification of the limb. If it were a "good catch," namely, by the
fore-leg, the bone would be broken and the limb nearly torn in two in
attempts at an impossible escape.

Almost half an hour passed, and the rabbit repeated its cry. Jude
could rest no longer till he had put it out of its pain, so dressing
himself quickly he descended, and by the light of the moon went
across the green in the direction of the sound. He reached the hedge
bordering the widow's garden, when he stood still. The faint click
of the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now,
and reaching the spot he struck the rabbit on the back of the neck
with the side of his palm, and it stretched itself out dead.

He was turning away when he saw a woman looking out of the open
casement at a window on the ground fl