manner when I
called on them."

"Not live with her husband? Why, I should have thought 'twould have
united them more."

"He's not her husband, after all. She has never really married him
although they have passed as man and wife so long. And now, instead
of this sad event making 'em hurry up, and get the thing done
legally, she's took in a queer religious way, just as I was in my
affliction at losing Cartlett, only hers is of a more 'sterical sort
than mine. And she says, so I was told, that she's your wife in the
eye of Heaven and the Church--yours only; and can't be anybody else's
by any act of man."

"Ah--indeed? ... Separated, have they!"

"You see, the eldest boy was mine--"

"Oh--yours!"

"Yes, poor little fellow--born in lawful wedlock, thank God. And
perhaps she feels, over and above other things, that I ought to have
been in her place. I can't say. However, as for me, I am soon off
from here. I've got Father to look after now, and we can't live in
such a hum-drum place as this. I hope soon to be in a bar again at
Christminster, or some other big town."

They parted. When Phillotson had ascended the hill a few steps he
stopped, hastened back, and called her.

"What is, or was, their address?"

Arabella gave it.

"Thank you. Good afternoon."

Arabella smiled grimly as she resumed her way, and practised
dimple-making all along the road from where the pollard willows begin
to the old almshouses in the first street of the town.

Meanwhile Phillotson ascended to Marygreen, and for the first time
during a lengthened period he lived with a forward eye. On crossing
under the large trees of the green to the humble schoolhouse to which
he had been reduced he stood a moment, and pictured Sue coming out of
the door to meet him. No man had ever suffered more inconvenience
from his own charity, Christian or heathen, than Phillotson had done
in letting Sue go. He had been knocked about from pillar to post at
the hands of the virtuous almost beyond endurance; he had been nearly
starved, and was now dependent entirely upon the very small stipend
from the school of this village (where the parson had got ill-spoken
of for befriending him). He had often thought of Arabella's remarks
that he should have been more severe with Sue, that her recalcitrant
spirit would soon have been broken. Yet such was his obstinate and
illogical disregard of opinion, and of the principles in which he had
been trained