Chapter: The place was the door of Jude's lodging in the out-skirts of
Christminster--far from the precincts of St. Silas' where he had
formerly lived, which saddened him to sickness.  The rain was coming
down.  A woman in shabby black stood on the doorstep talking to Jude,
who held the door in his hand.

"I am lonely, destitute, and houseless--that's what I am!  Father has
turned me out of doors after borrowing every penny I'd got, to put it
into his business, and then accusing me of laziness when I was only
waiting for a situation.  I am at the mercy of the world!  If you
can't take me and help me, Jude, I must go to the workhouse, or to
something worse.  Only just now two undergraduates winked at me as I
came along.  'Tis hard for a woman to keep virtuous where there's so
many young men!"

The woman in the rain who spoke thus was Arabella, the evening being
that of the day after Sue's remarriage with Phillotson.

"I am sorry for you, but I am only in lodgings," said Jude coldly.

"Then you turn me away?"

"I'll give you enough to get food and lodging for a few days."

"Oh, but can't you have the kindness to take me in?  I cannot endure
going to a public house to lodge; and I am so lonely.  Please, Jude,
for old times' sake!"

"No, no," said Jude hastily.  "I don't want to be reminded of those
things; and if you talk about them I shall not help you."

"Then I suppose I must go!" said Arabella.  She bent her head against
the doorpost and began sobbing.

"The house is full," said Jude.  "And I have only a little extra room
to my own--not much more than a closet--where I keep my tools, and
templates, and the few books I have left!"

"That would be a palace for me!"

"There is no bedstead in it."

"A bit of a bed could be made on the floor.  It would be good enough
for me."

Unable to be harsh with her, and not knowing what to do, Jude called
the man who let the lodgings, and said this was an acquaintance of
his in great distress for want of temporary shelter.

"You may remember me as barmaid at the Lamb and Flag formerly?" spoke
up Arabella.  "My father has insulted me this afternoon, and I've
left him, though without a penny!"

The householder said he could not recall her features.  "But still,
if you are a friend of Mr. Fawley's we'll do what we can for a day
or two--if he'll make himself answerable?"

"Yes, yes," said Jude.  "She has really taken me quite unawares; but
I should wish to help her out of her difficulty."  And an arrangement
was ultimately come to under which a bed was to be thrown down in
Jude's lumber-room, to make it comfortable for Arabella till she
could get out of the strait she was in--not by her own fault, as she
declared--and return to her father's again.

While they were waiting for this to be done Arabella said: "You know
the news, I suppose?"

"I guess what you mean; but I know nothing."

"I had a letter from Anny at Alfredston to-day. She had just heard
that the wedding was to be yesterday: but she didn't know if it had
come off."

"I don't wish to talk of it."

"No, no: of course you don't.  Only it shows what kind of woman--"

"Don't speak of her I say!  She's a fool!  And she's an angel, too,
poor dear!"

"If it's done, he'll have a chance of getting back to his old
position, by everybody's account, so Anny says.  All his well-wishers
will be pleased, including the bishop himself."

"Do spare me, Arabella."

Arabella was duly installed in the little attic, and at first she
did not come near Jude at all.  She went to and fro about her own
business, which, when they met for a moment on the stairs or in the
passage, she informed him was that of obtaining another place in
the occupation she understood best.  When Jude suggested London as
affording the most likely opening in the liquor trade, she shook her
head.  "No--the temptations are too many," she said. "Any humble
tavern in the country before that for me."

On the Sunday morning following, when he breakfasted later than on
other days, she meekly asked him if she might come in to breakfast
with him, as she had broken her teapot, and could not replace it
immediately, the shops being shut.

"Yes, if you like," he said indifferently.

While they sat without speaking she suddenly observed: "You seem all
in a brood, old man.  I'm sorry for you."

"I am all in a brood."

"It is about her, I know.  It's no business of mine, but I could find
out all about the wedding--if it really did take place--if you wanted
to know."

"How could you?"

"I wanted to go to Alfredston to get a few things I left there.  And
I could see Anny, who'll be sure to have heard all about it, as she
has friends at Marygreen."

Jude could not bear to acquiesce in this proposal; but his suspense
pitted itself against his discretion, and won in the struggle.  "You
can ask about it if you like," he said.  "I've not heard a sound from
there.  It must have been very private, if--they have married."

"I am afraid I haven't enough cash to take me there and back, or I
should have gone before.  I must wait till I have earned some."

"Oh--I can pay the journey for you," he said impatiently.  And thus
his suspense as to Sue's welfare, and the possible marriage, moved
him to dispatch for intelligence the last emissary he would have
thought of choosing deliberately.

Arabella went, Jude requesting her to be home not later than by
the seven o'clock train.  When she had gone he said: "Why should I
have charged her to be back by a particular time!  She's nothing to
me--nor the other neither!"

But having finished work he could not help going to the station to
meet Arabella, dragged thither by feverish haste to get the news
she might bring, and know the worst.  Arabella had made dimples
most successfully all the way home, and when she stepped out of the
railway carriage she smiled.  He merely said "Well?" with the very
reverse of a smile.

"They are married."

"Yes--of course they are!" he returned.  She observed, however, the
hard strain upon his lip as he spoke.

"Anny says she has heard from Belinda, her relation out at Marygreen,
that it was very sad, and curious!"

"How do you mean sad?  She wanted to marry him again, didn't she?
And he her!"

"Yes--that was it.  She wanted to in one sense, but not in the
other.  Mrs. Edlin was much upset by it all, and spoke out her mind
at Phillotson.  But Sue was that excited about it that she burnt her
best embroidery that she'd worn with you, to blot you out entirely.
Well--if a woman feels like it, she ought to do it.  I commend her
for it, though others don't."  Arabella sighed.  "She felt he was her
only husband, and that she belonged to nobody else in the sight of
God A'mighty while he lived.  Perhaps another woman feels the same
about herself, too!"  Arabella sighed again.

"I don't want any cant!" exclaimed Jude.

"It isn't cant," said Arabella.  "I feel exactly the same as she!"

He closed that issue by remarking abruptly: "Well--now I know all I
wanted to know.  Many thanks for your information.  I am not going
back to my lodgings just yet."  And he left her straightway.

In his misery and depression Jude walked to well-nigh every spot
in the city that he had visited with Sue; thence he did not know
whither, and then thought of going home to his usual evening meal.
But having all the vices of his virtues, and some to spare, he turned
into a public house, for the first time during many months.  Among
the possible consequences of her marriage Sue had not dwelt on this.

Arabella, meanwhile, had gone back.  The evening passed, and Jude
did not return.  At half-past nine Arabella herself went out, first
proceeding to an outlying district near the river where her father
lived, and had opened a small and precarious pork-shop lately.

"Well," she said to him, "for all your rowing me that night, I've
called in, for I have something to tell you.  I think I shall get
married and settled again.  Only you must help me: and you can do
no less, after what I've stood 'ee."

"I'll do anything to get thee off my hands!"

"Very well.  I am now going to look for my young man.  He's on the
loose I'm afraid, and I must get him home.  All I want you to do
to-night is not to fasten the door, in case I should want to sleep
here, and should be late."

"I thought you'd soon get tired of giving yourself airs and keeping
away!"

"Well--don't do the door.  That's all I say."

She then sallied out again, and first hastening back to Jude's to
make sure that he had not returned, began her search for him.  A
shrewd guess as to his probable course took her straight to the
tavern which Jude had formerly frequented, and where she had been
barmaid for a brief term.  She had no sooner opened the door of the
"Private Bar" than her eyes fell upon him--sitting in the shade at
the back of the compartment, with his eyes fixed on the floor in a
blank stare.  He was drinking nothing stronger than ale just then.
He did not observe her, and she entered and sat beside him.

Jude looked up, and said without surprise: "You've come to have
something, Arabella? ...  I'm trying to forget her: that's all!  But
I can't; and I am going home."  She saw that he was a little way on
in liquor, but only a little as yet.

"I've come entirely to look for you, dear boy.  You are not well.
Now you must have something better than that."  Arabella held up her
finger to the barmaid.  "You shall have a liqueur--that's better fit
for a man of education than beer.  You shall have maraschino, or
curacao dry or sweet, or cherry brandy.  I'll treat you, poor chap!"

"I don't care which!  Say cherry brandy...  Sue has served me badly,
very badly.  I didn't expect it of Sue!  I stuck to her, and she
ought to have stuck to me.  I'd have sold my soul for her sake, but
she wouldn't risk hers a jot for me.  To save her own soul she lets
mine go damn! ...  But it isn't her fault, poor little girl--I am
sure it isn't!"

How Arabella had obtained money did not appear, but she ordered a
liqueur each, and paid for them.  When they had drunk these Arabella
suggested another; and Jude had the pleasure of being, as it were,
personally conducted through the varieties of spirituous delectation
by one who knew the landmarks well.  Arabella kept very considerably
in the rear of Jude; but though she only sipped where he drank, she
took as much as she could safely take without losing her head--which
was not a little, as the crimson upon her countenance showed.

Her tone towards him to-night was uniformly soothing and cajoling;
and whenever he said "I don't care what happens to me," a thing he
did continually, she replied, "But I do very much!"  The closing hour
came, and they were compelled to turn out; whereupon Arabella put her
arm round his waist, and guided his unsteady footsteps.

When they were in the streets she said: "I don't know what our
landlord will say to my bringing you home in this state.  I expect we
are fastened out, so that he'll have to come down and let us in."

"I don't know--I don't know."

"That's the worst of not having a home of your own.  I tell you,
Jude, what we had best do.  Come round to my father's--I made it up
with him a bit to-day.  I can let you in, and nobody will see you at
all; and by to-morrow morning you'll be all right."

"Anything--anywhere," replied Jude.  "What the devil does it matter
to me?"

They went along together, like any other fuddling couple, her arm
still round his waist, and his, at last, round hers; though with no
amatory intent; but merely because he was weary, unstable, and in
need of support.

"This--is th' Martyrs'--burning-place," he stammered as they
dragged across a broad street.  "I remember--in old Fuller's _Holy
State_--and I am reminded of it--by our passing by here--old Fuller
in his _Holy State_ says, that at the burning of Ridley, Doctor
Smith--preached sermon, and took as his text _'Though I give my body
to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.'_--Often
think of it as I pass here.  Ridley was a--"

"Yes.  Exactly.  Very thoughtful of you, deary, even though it hasn't
much to do with our present business."

"Why, yes it has!  I'm giving my body to be burned!  But--ah you
don't understand!--it wants Sue to understand such things!  And I
was her seducer--poor little girl!  And she's gone--and I don't care
about myself!  Do what you like with me! ...  And yet she did it for
conscience' sake, poor little Sue!"

"Hang her!--I mean, I think she was right," hiccuped Arabella.  "I've
my feelings too, like her; and I feel I belong to you in Heaven's
eye, and to nobody else, till death us do part!  It is--hic--never
too late--hic to mend!"

They had reached her father's house, and she softly unfastened the
door, groping about for a light within.

The circumstances were not altogether unlike those of their entry
into the cottage at Cresscombe, such a long time before.  Nor were
perhaps Arabella's motives.  But Jude did not think of that, though
she did.

"I can't find the matches, dear," she said when she had fastened up
the door.  "But never mind--this way.  As quiet as you can, please."

"It is as dark as pitch," said Jude.

"Give me your hand, and I'll lead you.  That's it.  Just sit down
here, and I'll pull off your boots.  I don't want to wake him."

"Who?"

"Father.  He'd make a row, perhaps."

She pulled off his boots.  "Now," she whispered, "take hold of
me--never mind your weight.  Now--first stair, second stair--"

"But--are we out in our old house by Marygreen?" asked the stupefied
Jude.  "I haven't been inside it for years till now!  Hey?  And where
are my books?  That's what I want to know?"

"We are at my house, dear, where there's nobody to spy out how ill
you are.  Now--third stair, fourth stair--that's it.  Now we shall
get on."




Arabella was preparing breakfast in the downstairs back room of this
small, recently hired tenement of her father's.  She put her head
into the little pork-shop in front, and told Mr. Donn it was ready.
Donn, endeavouring to look like a master pork-butcher, in a greasy
blue blouse, and with a strap round his waist from which a steel
dangled, came in promptly.

"You must mind the shop this morning," he said casually.  "I've to
go and get some inwards and half a pig from Lumsdon, and to call
elsewhere.  If you live here you must put your shoulder to the wheel,
at least till I get the business started!"

"Well, for to-day I can't say."  She looked deedily into his face.
"I've got a prize upstairs."

"Oh?  What's that?"

"A husband--almost."

"No!"

"Yes.  It's Jude.  He's come back to me."

"Your old original one?  Well, I'm damned!"

"Well, I always did like him, that I will say."

"But how does he come to be up there?" said Donn, humour-struck, and
nodding to the ceiling.

"Don't ask inconvenient questions, Father.  What we've to do is to
keep him here till he and I are--as we were."

"How was that?"

"Married."

"Ah...  Well it is the rummest thing I ever heard of--marrying an
old husband again, and so much new blood in the world!  He's no
catch, to my thinking.  I'd have had a new one while I was about it."

"It isn't rum for a woman to want her old husband back for
respectability, though for a man to want his old wife back--well,
perhaps it is funny, rather!"  And Arabella was suddenly seized with
a fit of loud laughter, in which her father joined more moderately.

"Be civil to him, and I'll do the rest," she said when she had
recovered seriousness.  "He told me this morning that his head ached
fit to burst, and he hardly seemed to know where he was.  And no
wonder, considering how he mixed his drink last night.  We must keep
him jolly and cheerful here for a day or two, and not let him go back
to his lodging.  Whatever you advance I'll pay back to you again.
But I must go up and see how he is now, poor deary."

Arabella ascended the stairs, softly opened the door of the first
bedroom, and peeped in.  Finding that her shorn Samson was asleep
she entered to the bedside and stood regarding him.  The fevered
flush on his face from the debauch of the previous evening lessened
the fragility of his ordinary appearance, and his long lashes,
dark brows, and curly back hair and beard against the white pillow
completed the physiognomy of one whom Arabella, as a woman of rank
passions, still felt it worth while to recapture, highly important
to recapture as a woman straitened both in means and in reputation.
Her ardent gaze seemed to affect him; his quick breathing became
suspended, and he opened his eyes.

"How are you now, dear?" said she.  "It is I--Arabella."

"Ah!--where--oh yes, I remember!  You gave me shelter...  I am
stranded--ill--demoralized--damn bad!  That's what I am!"

"Then do stay here.  There's nobody in the house but father and me,
and you can rest till you are thoroughly well.  I'll tell them at
the stoneworks that you are knocked up."

"I wonder what they are thinking at the lodgings!"

"I'll go round and explain.  Perhaps you had better let me pay up, or
they'll think we've run away?"

"Yes.  You'll find enough money in my pocket there."

Quite indifferent, and shutting his eyes because he could not bear
the daylight in his throbbing eye-balls, Jude seemed to doze again.
Arabella took his purse, softly left the room, and putting on her
outdoor things went off to the lodgings she and he had quitted the
evening before.

Scarcely half an hour had elapsed ere she reappeared round the
corner, walking beside a lad wheeling a truck on which were piled all
Jude's household possessions, and also the few of Arabella's things
which she had taken to the lodging for her short sojourn there.
Jude was in such physical pain from his unfortunate break-down of
the previous night, and in such mental pain from the loss of Sue and
from having yielded in his half-somnolent state to Arabella, that
when he saw his few chattels unpacked and standing before his eyes in
this strange bedroom, intermixed with woman's apparel, he scarcely
considered how they had come there, or what their coming signalized.

"Now," said Arabella to her father downstairs, "we must keep plenty
of good liquor going in the house these next few days.  I know his
nature, and if he once gets into that fearfully low state that he
does get into sometimes, he'll never do the honourable thing by me
in this world, and I shall be left in the lurch.  He must be kept
cheerful.  He has a little money in the savings bank, and he has
given me his purse to pay for anything necessary.  Well, that will
be the licence; for I must have that ready at hand, to catch him
the moment he's in the humour.  You must pay for the liquor.  A few
friends, and a quiet convivial party would be the thing, if we could
get it up.  It would advertise the shop, and help me too."

"That can be got up easy enough by anybody who'll afford victuals and
drink...  Well yes--it would advertise the shop--that's true."

Three days later, when Jude had recovered somewhat from the fearful
throbbing of his eyes and brain, but was still considerably confused
in his mind by what had been supplied to him by Arabella during
the interval--to keep him, jolly, as she expressed it--the quiet
convivial gathering, suggested by her, to wind Jude up to the
striking point, took place.

Donn had only just opened his miserable little pork and sausage
shop, which had as yet scarce any customers; nevertheless that party
advertised it well, and the Donns acquired a real notoriety among a
certain class in Christminster who knew not the colleges, nor their
works, nor their ways.  Jude was asked if he could suggest any guest
in addition to those named by Arabella and her father, and in a
saturnine humour of perfect recklessness mentioned Uncle Joe, and
Stagg, and the decayed auctioneer, and others whom he remembered as
having been frequenters of the well-known tavern during his bout
therein years before.  He also suggested Freckles and Bower o' Bliss.
Arabella took him at his word so far as the men went, but drew the
line at the ladies.

Another man they knew, Tinker Taylor, though he lived in the same
street, was not invited; but as he went homeward from a late job on
the evening of the party, he had occasion to call at the shop for
trotters.  There were none in, but he was promised some the next
morning.  While making his inquiry Taylor glanced into the back room,
and saw the guests sitting round, card-playing, and drinking, and
otherwise enjoying themselves at Donn's expense.  He went home to
bed, and on his way out next morning wondered how the party went
off.  He thought it hardly worth while to call at the shop for his
provisions at that hour, Donn and his daughter being probably not up,
if they caroused late the night before.  However, he found in passing
that the door was open, and he could hear voices within, though the
shutters of the meat-stall were not down.  He went and tapped at the
sitting-room door, and opened it.

"Well--to be sure!" he said, astonished.

Hosts and guests were sitting card-playing, smoking, and talking,
precisely as he had left them eleven hours earlier; the gas was
burning and the curtains drawn, though it had been broad daylight
for two hours out of doors.

"Yes!" cried Arabella, laughing.  "Here we are, just the same.  We
ought to be ashamed of ourselves, oughtn't we?  But it is a sort of
housewarming, you see; and our friends are in no hurry.  Come in, Mr.
Taylor, and sit down."

The tinker, or rather reduced ironmonger, was nothing loath, and
entered and took a seat.  "I shall lose a quarter, but never mind,"
he said.  "Well, really, I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked
in!  It seemed as if I was flung back again into last night, all of a
sudden."

"So you are.  Pour out for Mr. Taylor."

He now perceived that she was sitting beside Jude, her arm being
round his waist.  Jude, like the rest of the company, bore on his
face the signs of how deeply he had been indulging.

"Well, we've been waiting for certain legal hours to arrive, to
tell the truth," she continued bashfully, and making her spirituous
crimson look as much like a maiden blush as possible.  "Jude and I
have decided to make up matters between us by tying the knot again,
as we find we can't do without one another after all.  So, as a
bright notion, we agreed to sit on till it was late enough, and go
and do it off-hand."

Jude seemed to pay no great heed to what she was announcing, or
indeed to anything whatever.  The entrance of Taylor infused fresh
spirit into the company, and they remained sitting, till Arabella
whispered to her father: "Now we may as well go."

"But the parson don't know?"

"Yes, I told him last night that we might come between eight and
nine, as there were reasons of decency for doing it as early and
quiet as possible; on account of it being our second marriage, which
might make people curious to look on if they knew.  He highly
approved."

"Oh very well, I'm ready," said her father, getting up and shaking
himself.

"Now, old darling," she said to Jude.  "Come along, as you promised."

"When did I promise anything?" asked he, whom she had made so tipsy
by her special knowledge of that line of business as almost to have
made him sober again--or to seem so to those who did not know him.

"Why!" said Arabella, affecting dismay.  "You've promised to marry me
several times as we've sat here to-night. These gentlemen have heard
you."

"I don't remember it," said Jude doggedly.  "There's only one
woman--but I won't mention her in this Capharnaum!"

Arabella looked towards her father.  "Now, Mr. Fawley be honourable,"
said Donn.  "You and my daughter have been living here together these
three or four days, quite on the understanding that you were going to
marry her.  Of course I shouldn't have had such goings on in my house
if I hadn't understood that.  As a point of honour you must do it
now."

"Don't say anything against my honour!" enjoined Jude hotly,
standing up.  "I'd marry the W---- of Babylon rather than do
anything dishonourable!  No reflection on you, my dear.  It is a
mere rhetorical figure--what they call in the books, hyperbole."

"Keep your figures for your debts to friends who shelter you," said
Donn.

"If I am bound in honour to marry her--as I suppose I am--though
how I came to be here with her I know no more than a dead man--marry
her I will, so help me God!  I have never behaved dishonourably to
a woman or to any living thing.  I am not a man who wants to save
himself at the expense of the weaker among us!"

"There--never mind him, deary," said she, putting her cheek against
Jude's.  "Come up and wash your face, and just put yourself tidy, and
off we'll go.  Make it up with Father."

They shook hands.  Jude went upstairs with her, and soon came down
looking tidy and calm.  Arabella, too, had hastily arranged herself,
and accompanied by Donn away they went.

"Don't go," she said to the guests at parting.  "I've told the little
maid to get the breakfast while we are gone; and when we come back
we'll all have some.  A good strong cup of tea will set everybody
right for going home."



When Arabella, Jude, and Donn had disappeared on their matrimonial
errand the assembled guests yawned themselves wider awake, and
discussed the situation with great interest.  Tinker Taylor, being
the most sober, reasoned the most lucidly.

"I don't wish to speak against friends," he said.  "But it do seem a
rare curiosity for a couple to marry over again!  If they couldn't
get on the first time when their minds were limp, they won't the
second, by my reckoning."

"Do you think he'll do it?"

"He's been put upon his honour by the woman, so he med."

"He'd hardly do it straight off like this.  He's got no licence nor
anything."

"She's got that, bless you.  Didn't you hear her say so to her
father?"

"Well," said Tinker Taylor, relighting his pipe at the gas-jet.
"Take her all together, limb by limb, she's not such a bad-looking
piece--particular by candlelight.  To be sure, halfpence that have
been in circulation can't be expected to look like new ones from
the mint.  But for a woman that's been knocking about the four
hemispheres for some time, she's passable enough.  A little bit thick
in the flitch perhaps: but I like a woman that a puff o' wind won't
blow down."

Their eyes followed the movements of the little girl as she spread
the breakfast-cloth on the table they had been using, without wiping
up the slops of the liquor.  The curtains were undrawn, and the
expression of the house made to look like morning.  Some of the
guests, however, fell asleep in their chairs.  One or two went to the
door, and gazed along the street more than once.  Tinker Taylor was
the chief of these, and after a time he came in with a leer on his
face.

"By Gad, they are coming!  I think the deed's done!"

"No," said Uncle Joe, following him in.  "Take my word, he turned
rusty at the last minute.  They are walking in a very unusual way;
and that's the meaning of it!"

They waited in silence till the wedding-party could be heard entering
the house.  First into the room came Arabella boisterously; and her
face was enough to show that her strategy had succeeded.

"Mrs. Fawley, I presume?" said Tinker Taylor with mock courtesy.

"Certainly.  Mrs. Fawley again," replied Arabella blandly, pulling
off her glove and holding out her left hand.  "There's the padlock,
see...  Well, he was a very nice, gentlemanly man indeed.  I mean
the clergyman.  He said to me as gentle as a babe when all was done:
'Mrs. Fawley, I congratulate you heartily,' he says.  'For having
heard your history, and that of your husband, I think you have both
done the right and proper thing.  And for your past errors as a wife,
and his as a husband, I think you ought now to be forgiven by the
world, as you have forgiven each other,' says he.  Yes; he was a very
nice, gentlemanly man.  'The Church don't recognize divorce in her
dogma, strictly speaking,' he says: 'and bear in mind the words of
the service in your goings out and your comings in: What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder.'  Yes; he was a very nice,
gentlemanly man...  But, Jude, my dear, you were enough to make a cat
laugh!  You walked that straight, and held yourself that steady, that
one would have thought you were going 'prentice to a judge; though I
knew you were seeing double all the time, from the way you fumbled
with my finger."

"I said I'd do anything to--save a woman's honour," muttered Jude.
"And I've done it!"

"Well now, old deary, come along and have some breakfast."

"I want--some--more whisky," said Jude stolidly.

"Nonsense, dear.  Not now!  There's no more left.  The tea will take
the muddle out of our heads, and we shall be as fresh as larks."

"All right.  I've--married you.  She said I ought to marry you again,
and I have straightway.  It is true religion!  Ha--ha--ha!"

 In Christminster Arabella comes to Jude's lodgings, saying she has nowhere to go and asking him to take her in. Eventually he does give her a place to sleep, and when she asks him if he knows of the wedding, he is irritable about the subject. Another day, she offers to find out if the wedding actually took place when she goes to Alfredston. Upon her return she tells Jude that Sue and Phillotson are married, that Sue burned her good nightgown to forget Jude, that Sue thought Phillotson her only husband, and that she feels that way with respect to Jude. While Jude goes to a tavern to drink, Arabella arranges with her father, now living in the city, to bring Jude there that night. Finding Jude, Arabella encourages him in his drinking and later guides him to her father's house, Jude drunk enough not to be sure where he is. The next day Arabella arranges with her father to keep Jude in the house until she can get him to marry her, one means of which is a sufficient supply of liquor. She brings his things from his lodgings so he can have no reason to go back there, and has her father give a party to entertain Jude and, supposedly, to advertise his pork shop. After the party, which includes some of Jude's former drinking companions, has been going on a long time, Arabella says it's time for Jude to carry out his promise to marry her; and when Jude says he doesn't remember any promise her father questions his honor. Saying he has never acted dishonorably to anyone, Jude goes off with Arabella and her father to be married. Upon their return Arabella triumphantly describes the wedding, and Jude says he has acted honorably and also done what Sue suggested.

