Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/461

 "Going back? How can you go—"

"He is going to marry me again. That is for form's sake, and to satisfy the world, which does not see things as they are. But, of course, I am his wife already. Nothing has changed that."

He turned upon her with an anguish that was wellnigh fierce.

"But you are my wife! Yes, you are! You know it! I have always regretted that feint of ours in going away and pretending to come back legally married, to save appearances. I loved you and you loved me, and we closed with each other, and that made the marriage. We still love—you as well as I—I know it, Sue! Therefore, our marriage is not cancelled."

"Yes; I know how you see it," she answered, with despairing self-suppression. But I am going to marry him again, as it would be called by you. Strictly speaking, you, too—don't mind my saying it, Jude!—you should take back—Arabella."

"I should? Good God, what next! But how if you and I had married legally, as we were on the point of doing?"

"I should have felt just the same—that ours was not a marriage. And I would go back to Richard without repeating the sacrament if he asked me. But the world and its ways have a certain worth' (I suppose), therefore I concede a repetition of the ceremony.... Don't crush all the life out of me by satire and argument, I implore you! I was strongest once, I know, and perhaps I treated you cruelly. But, Jude, return good for evil! I am the weaker now. Don't retaliate upon me, but be kind. Oh, be kind to me—a poor, wicked woman who is trying to mend!"

He shook his head hopelessly, his eyes wet. The blow of her bereavement seemed to have destroyed her reasoning faculty. The once keen vision was dimmed. "All wrong, all wrong!" he said, huskily. "Error—perversity!