Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/294

 IV

was sitting up late, as was often his custom, trying to get together the materials for his long-neglected hobby of Roman antiquities. For the first time since reviving the subject he felt a return of his old interest in it. He forgot time and place, and when he remembered himself and ascended to rest it was nearly two o'clock.

His preoccupation was such that, though he now slept on the other side of the house, he mechanically went to the room that he and his wife had occupied when he first became a tenant of Old-Grove's Place, which, since his differences with Sue, had been hers exclusively. He entered, and unconsciously began to undress.

There was a cry from the bed, and a quick movement. Before the school-master had realized where he was he perceived Sue, starting up half awake, staring wildly, and springing out upon the floor on the side away from him, which was towards the window. This was somewhat hidden by the canopy of the bedstead, and in a moment he heard her flinging up the sash. Before he had thought that she meant to do more than get air she had mounted upon the sill and leaped out. She disappeared in the darkness, and he heard her fall below.

Phillotson, horrified, ran down-stairs, striking himself sharply against the newel in his haste. Opening the heavy door, he ascended the two or three steps to the level of the ground, and there, on the gravel before him, lay a white heap. Phillotson seized it in his arms, and bringing Sue into the hall seated her on a chair, where