No. I get in, dear one! I've packed. Besides this bag I've only a
big box which is labelled."

"But don't I get out? Aren't we going to stay here?"

"We couldn't possibly, don't you see. We are known here--I, at any
rate, am well known. I've booked for Aldbrickham; and here's your
ticket for the same place, as you have only one to here."

"I thought we should have stayed here," she repeated.

"It wouldn't have done at all."

"Ah! Perhaps not."

"There wasn't time for me to write and say the place I had decided
on. Aldbrickham is a much bigger town--sixty or seventy thousand
inhabitants--and nobody knows anything about us there."

"And you have given up your cathedral work here?"

"Yes. It was rather sudden--your message coming unexpectedly.
Strictly, I might have been made to finish out the week. But I
pleaded urgency and I was let off. I would have deserted any day at
your command, dear Sue. I have deserted more than that for you!"

"I fear I am doing you a lot of harm. Ruining your prospects of the
Church; ruining your progress in your trade; everything!"

"The Church is no more to me. Let it lie! _I_ am not to be one of

The soldier-saints who, row on row,
Burn upward each to his point of bliss,

if any such there be! My point of bliss is not upward, but here."

"Oh I seem so bad--upsetting men's courses like this!" said she,
taking up in her voice the emotion that had begun in his. But she
recovered her equanimity by the time they had travelled a dozen
miles.

"He has been so good in letting me go," she resumed. "And here's a
note I found on my dressing-table, addressed to you."

"Yes. He's not an unworthy fellow," said Jude, glancing at the note.
"And I am ashamed of myself for hating him because he married you."

"According to the rule of women's whims I suppose I ought to suddenly
love him, because he has let me go so generously and unexpectedly,"
she answered smiling. "But I am so cold, or devoid of gratitude, or
so something, that even this generosity hasn't made me love him, or
repent, or want to stay with him as his wife; although I do feel I
like his large-mindedness, and respect him more than ever."

"It may not work so well for us as if he had been less kind, and you
had run away against his will," murmured Jude.

"That I NEVER would have done."

Jude's eyes rested musingly on her face. Then he suddenly kissed
her; and was going to kiss her again. "N