Chapter: Jude returned to Melchester, which had the questionable
recommendation of being only a dozen and a half miles from his Sue's
now permanent residence.  At first he felt that this nearness was a
distinct reason for not going southward at all; but Christminster
was too sad a place to bear, while the proximity of Shaston to
Melchester might afford him the glory of worsting the Enemy in a
close engagement, such as was deliberately sought by the priests and
virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominious flight
from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.
Jude did not pause to remember that, in the laconic words of the
historian, "insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights" in such
circumstances.

He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the
priesthood--in the recognition that the single-mindedness of his
aims, and his fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable
of late.  His passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful
abandonment to the society of Arabella for twelve hours seemed
instinctively a worse thing--even though she had not told him of her
Sydney husband till afterwards.  He had, he verily believed, overcome
all tendency to fly to liquor--which, indeed, he had never done from
taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind.  Yet
he perceived with despondency that, taken all round, he was a man of
too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he could hope
for was that in a life of constant internal warfare between flesh and
spirit the former might not always be victorious.

As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity, he developed his
slight skill in church-music and thorough-bass, till he could join in
part-singing from notation with some accuracy.  A mile or two from
Melchester there was a restored village church, to which Jude had
originally gone to fix the new columns and capitals.  By this means
he had become acquainted with the organist, and the ultimate result
was that he joined the choir as a bass voice.

He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday, and sometimes in the
week.  One evening about Easter the choir met for practice, and a new
hymn which Jude had heard of as being by a Wessex composer was to be
tried and prepared for the following week.  It turned out to be a
strangely emotional composition.  As they all sang it over and over
again its harmonies grew upon Jude, and moved him exceedingly.

When they had finished he went round to the organist to make
inquiries.  The score was in manuscript, the name of the composer
being at the head, together with the title of the hymn: "The Foot
of the Cross."

"Yes," said the organist.  "He is a local man.  He is a professional
musician at Kennetbridge--between here and Christminster.  The
vicar knows him.  He was brought up and educated in Christminster
traditions, which accounts for the quality of the piece.  I think he
plays in the large church there, and has a surpliced choir.  He comes
to Melchester sometimes, and once tried to get the cathedral organ
when the post was vacant.  The hymn is getting about everywhere this
Easter."

As he walked humming the air on his way home, Jude fell to musing
on its composer, and the reasons why he composed it.  What a man of
sympathies he must be!  Perplexed and harassed as he himself was
about Sue and Arabella, and troubled as was his conscience by the
complication of his position, how he would like to know that man!
"He of all men would understand my difficulties," said the impulsive
Jude.  If there were any person in the world to choose as a
confidant, this composer would be the one, for he must have suffered,
and throbbed, and yearned.

In brief, ill as he could afford the time and money for the journey,
Fawley resolved, like the child that he was, to go to Kennetbridge
the very next Sunday.  He duly started, early in the morning, for it
was only by a series of crooked railways that he could get to the
town.  About mid-day he reached it, and crossing the bridge into the
quaint old borough he inquired for the house of the composer.

They told him it was a red brick building some little way further on.
Also that the gentleman himself had just passed along the street not
five minutes before.

"Which way?" asked Jude with alacrity.

"Straight along homeward from church."

Jude hastened on, and soon had the pleasure of observing a man in a
black coat and a black slouched felt hat no considerable distance
ahead.  Stretching out his legs yet more widely, he stalked after.
"A hungry soul in pursuit of a full soul!" he said.  "I must speak
to that man!"

He could not, however, overtake the musician before he had entered
his own house, and then arose the question if this were an expedient
time to call.  Whether or not he decided to do so there and then, now
that he had got here, the distance home being too great for him to
wait till late in the afternoon.  This man of soul would understand
scant ceremony, and might be quite a perfect adviser in a case in
which an earthly and illegitimate passion had cunningly obtained
entrance into his heart through the opening afforded for religion.

Jude accordingly rang the bell, and was admitted.

The musician came to him in a moment, and being respectably dressed,
good-looking, and frank in manner, Jude obtained a favourable
reception.  He was nevertheless conscious that there would be a
certain awkwardness in explaining his errand.

"I have been singing in the choir of a little church near
Melchester," he said.  "And we have this week practised 'The Foot
of the Cross,' which I understand, sir, that you composed?"

"I did--a year or so ago."

"I--like it.  I think it supremely beautiful!"

"Ah well--other people have said so too.  Yes, there's money in
it, if I could only see about getting it published.  I have other
compositions to go with it, too; I wish I could bring them out; for
I haven't made a five-pound note out of any of them yet.  These
publishing people--they want the copyright of an obscure composer's
work, such as mine is, for almost less than I should have to pay a
person for making a fair manuscript copy of the score.  The one you
speak of I have lent to various friends about here and Melchester,
and so it has got to be sung a little.  But music is a poor staff to
lean on--I am giving it up entirely.  You must go into trade if you
want to make money nowadays.  The wine business is what I am thinking
of.  This is my forthcoming list--it is not issued yet--but you can
take one."

He handed Jude an advertisement list of several pages in booklet
shape, ornamentally margined with a red line, in which were set forth
the various clarets, champagnes, ports, sherries, and other wines
with which he purposed to initiate his new venture.  It took Jude
more than by surprise that the man with the soul was thus and thus;
and he felt that he could not open up his confidences.

They talked a little longer, but constrainedly, for when the musician
found that Jude was a poor man his manner changed from what it had
been while Jude's appearance and address deceived him as to his
position and pursuits.  Jude stammered out something about his
feelings in wishing to congratulate the author on such an exalted
composition, and took an embarrassed leave.

All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sitting in the fireless
waiting-rooms on this cold spring day, he was depressed enough at
his simplicity in taking such a journey.  But no sooner did he reach
his Melchester lodging than he found awaiting him a letter which had
arrived that morning a few minutes after he had left the house.  It
was a contrite little note from Sue, in which she said, with sweet
humility, that she felt she had been horrid in telling him he
was not to come to see her, that she despised herself for having
been so conventional; and that he was to be sure to come by the
eleven-forty-five train that very Sunday, and have dinner with them
at half-past one.

Jude almost tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was
too late to act upon its contents; but he had chastened himself
considerably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition
to Kennetbridge really did seem to have been another special
intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation.  But a
growing impatience of faith, which he had noticed in himself more
than once of late, made him pass over in ridicule the idea that God
sent people on fools' errands.  He longed to see her; he was angry
at having missed her: and he wrote instantly, telling her what had
happened, and saying he had not enough patience to wait till the
following Sunday, but would come any day in the week that she liked
to name.

Since he wrote a little over-ardently, Sue, as her manner was,
delayed her reply till Thursday before Good Friday, when she said he
might come that afternoon if he wished, this being the earliest day
on which she could welcome him, for she was now assistant-teacher in
her husband's school.  Jude therefore got leave from the cathedral
works at the trifling expense of a stoppage of pay, and went.

 Back at Melchester, Jude tries to fight against the temptation to visit Sue at Shaston and tries desperately to pursue his study for the ministry. Enlarging his interest in sacred music and eventually joining a choir in a village church nearby, he is greatly moved by a new hymn and thinks that the composer of it must be the kind of man who would understand his own perplexing state of mind. Jude seeks out the composer but discovers he is interested only in money. Coming home from this trip, he discovers Sue has relented and asked him to visit on that very day. Abandoning his attempt to discipline his feelings for her, he writes to arrange to visit as soon as possible.

