Jude the Obscure

by Thomas Hardy

  V

  When he returned she was dressed as usual.

  "Now could I get out without anybody seeing me?" she asked. "Thetown is not yet astir."

  "But you have had no breakfast."

  "Oh, I don't want any! I fear I ought not to have run away from thatschool! Things seem so different in the cold light of morning, don'tthey? What Mr. Phillotson will say I don't know! It was quite byhis wish that I went there. He is the only man in the world for whomI have any respect or fear. I hope he'll forgive me; but he'll scoldme dreadfully, I expect!"

  "I'll go to him and explain--" began Jude.

  "Oh no, you shan't. I don't care for him! He may think what helikes--I shall do just as I choose!"

  "But you just this moment said--"

  "Well, if I did, I shall do as I like for all him! I have thought ofwhat I shall do--go to the sister of one of my fellow-students in thetraining-school, who has asked me to visit her. She has a schoolnear Shaston, about eighteen miles from here--and I shall stay theretill this has blown over, and I get back to the training-schoolagain."

  At the last moment he persuaded her to let him make her a cup ofcoffee, in a portable apparatus he kept in his room for use on risingto go to his work every day before the household was astir.

  "Now a dew-bit to eat with it," he said; "and off we go. You canhave a regular breakfast when you get there."

  They went quietly out of the house, Jude accompanying her to thestation. As they departed along the street a head was thrust outof an upper window of his lodging and quickly withdrawn. Sue stillseemed sorry for her rashness, and to wish she had not rebelled;telling him at parting that she would let him know as soon as shegot re-admitted to the training-school. They stood rather miserablytogether on the platform; and it was apparent that he wanted to saymore.

  "I want to tell you something--two things," he said hurriedly as thetrain came up. "One is a warm one, the other a cold one!"

  "Jude," she said. "I know one of them. And you mustn't!"

  "What?"

  "You mustn't love me. You are to like me--that's all!"

  Jude's face became so full of complicated glooms that hers wasagitated in sympathy as she bade him adieu through the carriagewindow. And then the train moved on, and waving her pretty hand tohim she vanished away.