oor of the adjacent cottage.
"Jude!" said a voice timidly--Sue's voice. "It is you--is it not?"

"Yes, dear!"

"I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then I heard the rabbit,
and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered, till I felt I must
come down and kill it! But I am so glad you got there first... They
ought not to be allowed to set these steel traps, ought they!"

Jude had reached the window, which was quite a low one, so that she
was visible down to her waist. She let go the casement-stay and put
her hand upon his, her moonlit face regarding him wistfully.

"Did it keep you awake?" he said.

"No--I was awake."

"How was that?"

"Oh, you know--now! I know you, with your religious doctrines, think
that a married woman in trouble of a kind like mine commits a mortal
sin in making a man the confidant of it, as I did you. I wish I
hadn't, now!"

"Don't wish it, dear," he said. "That may have BEEN my view; but my
doctrines and I begin to part company."

"I knew it--I knew it! And that's why I vowed I wouldn't disturb
your belief. But--I am SO GLAD to see you!--and, oh, I didn't mean
to see you again, now the last tie between us, Aunt Drusilla, is
dead!"

Jude seized her hand and kissed it. "There is a stronger one left!"
he said. "I'll never care about my doctrines or my religion any
more! Let them go! Let me help you, even if I do love you, and even
if you..."

"Don't say it!--I know what you mean; but I can't admit so much as
that. There! Guess what you like, but don't press me to answer
questions!"

"I wish you were happy, whatever I may be!"

"I CAN'T be! So few could enter into my feeling--they would say
'twas my fanciful fastidiousness, or something of that sort, and
condemn me... It is none of the natural tragedies of love that's
love's usual tragedy in civilized life, but a tragedy artificially
manufactured for people who in a natural state would find relief in
parting! ... It would have been wrong, perhaps, for me to tell my
distress to you, if I had been able to tell it to anybody else. But
I have nobody. And I MUST tell somebody! Jude, before I married
him I had never thought out fully what marriage meant, even though I
knew. It was idiotic of me--there is no excuse. I was old enough,
and I thought I was very experienced. So I rushed on, when I had got
into that training school scrape, with all the cock-sureness of the
fool that I was! ... I am certain one ough