holy, tell me the
truth, and no lie. You do love me still?"

"I do! You know it too well! ... But I MUSTN'T do this! I mustn't
kiss you back as I would!"

"But do!"

"And yet you are so dear!--and you look so ill--"

"And so do you! There's one more, in memory of our dead little
children--yours and mine!"

The words struck her like a blow, and she bent her head. "I
MUSTN'T--I CAN'T go on with this!" she gasped presently. "But there,
there, darling; I give you back your kisses; I do, I do! ... And now
I'll HATE myself for ever for my sin!"

"No--let me make my last appeal. Listen to this! We've both
remarried out of our senses. I was made drunk to do it. You were
the same. I was gin-drunk; you were creed-drunk. Either form of
intoxication takes away the nobler vision... Let us then shake off
our mistakes, and run away together!"

"No; again no! ... Why do you tempt me so far, Jude! It is too
merciless! ... But I've got over myself now. Don't follow me--don't
look at me. Leave me, for pity's sake!"

She ran up the church to the east end, and Jude did as she requested.
He did not turn his head, but took up his blanket, which she had not
seen, and went straight out. As he passed the end of the church she
heard his coughs mingling with the rain on the windows, and in a last
instinct of human affection, even now unsubdued by her fetters, she
sprang up as if to go and succour him. But she knelt down again, and
stopped her ears with her hands till all possible sound of him had
passed away.

He was by this time at the corner of the green, from which the path
ran across the fields in which he had scared rooks as a boy. He
turned and looked back, once, at the building which still contained
Sue; and then went on, knowing that his eyes would light on that
scene no more.

There are cold spots up and down Wessex in autumn and winter weather;
but the coldest of all when a north or east wind is blowing is the
crest of the down by the Brown House, where the road to Alfredston
crosses the old Ridgeway. Here the first winter sleets and snows
fall and lie, and here the spring frost lingers last unthawed. Here
in the teeth of the north-east wind and rain Jude now pursued his
way, wet through, the necessary slowness of his walk from lack of his
former strength being insufficent to maintain his heat. He came to
the milestone, and, raining as it was, spread his blanket and lay
down there to rest. Before