Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/269

 II

, if God disposed not, woman did. The next morning but one brought him this note from her:

"Don't come next week. On your own account don't. We were too free, under the influence of that morbid hymn and the twilight. Think no more than you can help of

The disappointment was keen. He knew her mood, the look of her face, when she subscribed herself at length thus. But, whatever her mood, he could not say she was wrong in her view. He replied:

"I acquiesce. You are right. It is a lesson in renunciation which, I suppose, I ought to learn at this season.."

He despatched the note on Easter Eve, and there seemed a finality in their decisions. But other forces and laws than theirs were in operation. On Easter Monday morning he received a message from the Widow Edlir, whom he had directed to telegraph if anything serious happened:

He threw down his tools and went. Three and a half hours later he was crossing the downs about Marygreen. and presently plunged into the concave field across which the short cut was made to the village. As he ascended on the other side a laboring man, who had been watching