Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/407

 because we had only a mistress down at our place, and you taught better. But you wouldn't remember me as I should you?—Arabella Donn."

He shook his head. "No," he said, politely, "I don't recall the name. And I should hardly recognize in your present portly self the slim school child no doubt you were then."

"Well, I always had plenty of flesh on my bones. However, I am staying down here with some friends at present. You know, I suppose, who I married?"

"No."

"Jude Fawley—also a scholar of yours—at least a night-scholar—for some little time, I think? And known to you afterwards, if I am not mistaken.

"Dear me, dear me," said Phillotson, starting out of his stiffness. "You Fawley's wife? To be sure—he had a wife! And he―I understood—"

"Divorced her—as you did yours—perhaps for better reasons."

"Indeed?"

"Well—he med have been right in doing it—right for both; for I soon married again, and all went pretty straight till my husband died lately. But you—you were decidedly wrong."

"No," said Phillotson, with sudden testiness. "I would rather not talk of this, but—I am convinced I did only what was right, and just, and moral. I have suffered for my act and opinions, but I hold to them; though her loss was a loss to me in more ways than one!"

"You lost your school and good income through her, did you not?"

"I don't care to talk of it. I have recently come back here—to Marygreen, I mean."

"You are keeping the school there again, just as formerly?"

The pressure of a sadness that would out unsealed him.