Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/277

 ment enable it to escape, it would die in the fields from the mortification of the limb. If it were a "good catch"—namely, by the fore-leg—the bone would be broken, and the limb nearly torn in two in attempts at an impossible escape.

Almost half an hour passed, and the rabbit repeated its cry. Jude could rest no longer till he had put it out of its pain; so dressing himself quickly he descended, and by the light of the moon went across the green in the direction of the sound. He reached the hedge bordering the widow's garden, when he stood still. The faint click of the trap as dragged about by the writhing animal guided him now, and, reaching the spot, he struck the rabbit on the back of the neck with the side of his palm, and it stretched itself out dead.

He was turning away, when he saw a woman looking out of the open casement at a window on the ground-floor of the adjacent cottage. "Jude!" said a voice, timidly—Sue's voice. "It is you—is it not?"

"Yes, dear!"

"I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then I heard the rabbit, and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered, till I felt I must come down and kill it! But I am so glad you got there first.... They ought not to be allowed to set these steel traps, ought they?"

Jude had reached the window, which was quite a low one, so that she was visible down to her waist. She let go the casement-stay and put her hand upon his, her moonlit face regarding him wistfully.

"Did it keep you awake?" he said.

"No; I was awake."

"How was that?"

"Oh, you know—now! I know you, with your religious doctrines, think that a married woman in trouble of a kind like mine commits a mortal sin in making a man the confidant of it, as I did you. I wish I hadn't, now!"