olidly constructed Latin cross--as large, probably, as the original
it was designed to commemorate. It seemed to be suspended in the
air by invisible wires; it was set with large jewels, which faintly
glimmered in some weak ray caught from outside, as the cross swayed
to and fro in a silent and scarcely perceptible motion. Underneath,
upon the floor, lay what appeared to be a heap of black clothes, and
from this was repeated the sobbing that he had heard before. It was
his Sue's form, prostrate on the paving.

"Sue!" he whispered.

Something white disclosed itself; she had turned up her face.

"What--do you want with me here, Jude?" she said almost sharply.
"You shouldn't come! I wanted to be alone! Why did you intrude
here?"

"How can you ask!" he retorted in quick reproach, for his full heart
was wounded to its centre at this attitude of hers towards him.
"Why do I come? Who has a right to come, I should like to know, if
I have not! I, who love you better than my own self--better--far
better--than you have loved me! What made you leave me to come here
alone?"

"Don't criticize me, Jude--I can't bear it!--I have often told
you so. You must take me as I am. I am a wretch--broken by my
distractions! I couldn't BEAR it when Arabella came--I felt so
utterly miserable I had to come away. She seems to be your wife
still, and Richard to be my husband!"

"But they are nothing to us!"

"Yes, dear friend, they are. I see marriage differently now. My
babies have been taken from me to show me this! Arabella's child
killing mine was a judgement--the right slaying the wrong. What,
WHAT shall I do! I am such a vile creature--too worthless to mix
with ordinary human beings!"

"This is terrible!" said Jude, verging on tears. "It is monstrous
and unnatural for you to be so remorseful when you have done no
wrong!"

"Ah--you don't know my badness!"

He returned vehemently: "I do! Every atom and dreg of it! You make
me hate Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever it
may be called, if it's that which has caused this deterioration in
you. That a woman-poet, a woman-seer, a woman whose soul shone like
a diamond--whom all the wise of the world would have been proud of,
if they could have known you--should degrade herself like this! I am
glad I had nothing to do with Divinity--damn glad--if it's going to
ruin you in this way!"

"You are angry, Jude, and unkind to me, and don't see how thin