moving on he went and felt at the back
of the stone for his own carving. It was still there; but nearly
obliterated by moss. He passed the spot where the gibbet of his
ancestor and Sue's had stood, and descended the hill.

It was dark when he reached Alfredston, where he had a cup of tea,
the deadly chill that began to creep into his bones being too much
for him to endure fasting. To get home he had to travel by a steam
tram-car, and two branches of railway, with much waiting at a
junction. He did not reach Christminster till ten o'clock.

IX

On the platform stood Arabella. She looked him up and down.

"You've been to see her?" she asked.

"I have," said Jude, literally tottering with cold and lassitude.

"Well, now you'd best march along home."

The water ran out of him as he went, and he was compelled to lean
against the wall to support himself while coughing.

"You've done for yourself by this, young man," said she. "I don't
know whether you know it."

"Of course I do. I meant to do for myself."

"What--to commit suicide?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I'm blest! Kill yourself for a woman."

"Listen to me, Arabella. You think you are the stronger; and so
you are, in a physical sense, now. You could push me over like a
nine-pin. You did not send that letter the other day, and I could
not resent your conduct. But I am not so weak in another way as
you think. I made up my mind that a man confined to his room by
inflammation of the lungs, a fellow who had only two wishes left in
the world, to see a particular woman, and then to die, could neatly
accomplish those two wishes at one stroke by taking this journey in
the rain. That I've done. I have seen her for the last time, and
I've finished myself--put an end to a feverish life which ought never
to have been begun!"

"Lord--you do talk lofty! Won't you have something warm to drink?"

"No thank you. Let's get home."

They went along by the silent colleges, and Jude kept stopping.

"What are you looking at?"

"Stupid fancies. I see, in a way, those spirits of the dead again,
on this my last walk, that I saw when I first walked here!"

"What a curious chap you are!"

"I seem to see them, and almost hear them rustling. But I don't
revere all of them as I did then. I don't believe in half of them.
The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians,
the high-handed statesmen, and others, no longer interest me. All
t