Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/298

 returning, sat down on the lower stairs, holding the newel with one hand, and bowing his face into the other. Thus he remained for a long, long time—a pitiable object enough to one who had seen him; till, raising his head, and sighing a sigh which seemed to say that the business of his life must be carried on, whether he had a wife or no, he took the candle and went up-stairs to his lonely room on the other side of the landing.

No further incident touching the matter between them occurred till the following evening, when, immediately school was over, Phillotson walked out of Shaston, saying he required no tea, and not informing Sue where he was going. He descended from the town level by a steep road in a northwesterly direction, and continued to move downward till the soil changed from its white dryness to a tough brown clay. He was now on the low alluvial beds.

More than once he looked back in the increasing obscurity of evening. Against the sky was Shaston, dimly visible

The new-lit lights from its windows burned with a steady shine as if watching him, one of which windows was his own. Above it he could just discern the pinnacled tower of Trinity Church. The air down here, tempered by the thick damp bed of tenacious clay, was not as it had been above, but soft and relaxing, so that when he had walked a mile or two he was obliged to wipe his face with his handkerchief.