How can you go--"

"He is going to marry me again. That is for form's sake, and to
satisfy the world, which does not see things as they are. But of
course I AM his wife already. Nothing has changed that."

He turned upon her with an anguish that was well-nigh fierce.

"But you are MY wife! Yes, you are. You know it. I have always
regretted that feint of ours in going away and pretending to come
back legally married, to save appearances. I loved you, and you
loved me; and we closed with each other; and that made the marriage.
We still love--you as well as I--KNOW it, Sue! Therefore our
marriage is not cancelled."

"Yes; I know how you see it," she answered with despairing
self-suppression. "But I am going to marry him again, as it would
be called by you. Strictly speaking you, too--don't mind my saying
it, Jude!--you should take back--Arabella."

"I should? Good God--what next! But how if you and I had married
legally, as we were on the point of doing?"

"I should have felt just the same--that ours was not a marriage.
And I would go back to Richard without repeating the sacrament, if
he asked me. But 'the world and its ways have a certain worth' (I
suppose): therefore I concede a repetition of the ceremony... Don't
crush all the life out of me by satire and argument, I implore you!
I was strongest once, I know, and perhaps I treated you cruelly.
But Jude, return good for evil! I am the weaker now. Don't
retaliate upon me, but be kind. Oh be kind to me--a poor wicked
woman who is trying to mend!"

He shook his head hopelessly, his eyes wet. The blow of her
bereavement seemed to have destroyed her reasoning faculty. The once
keen vision was dimmed. "All wrong, all wrong!" he said huskily.
"Error--perversity! It drives me out of my senses. Do you care for
him? Do you love him? You know you don't! It will be a fanatic
prostitution--God forgive me, yes--that's what it will be!"

"I don't love him--I must, must, own it, in deepest remorse! But I
shall try to learn to love him by obeying him."

Jude argued, urged, implored; but her conviction was proof against
all. It seemed to be the one thing on earth on which she was firm,
and that her firmness in this had left her tottering in every other
impulse and wish she possessed.

"I have been considerate enough to let you know the whole truth,
and to tell it you myself," she said in cut tones; "that you might
not consider yourself slighted by