
much his anxiety to get on with his work that made him go up to it immediately
the worshippers began to take their leave: it was that he dared not, in this
holy spot, confront the woman who was beginning to influence him in such an
indescribable manner. Those three enormous reasons why he must not attempt
intimate acquaintance with Sue Bridehead now that his interest in her had shown
itself to be unmistakably of a sexual kind, loomed as stubbornly as ever. But it
was also obvious that man could not live by work alone; that the particular man
Jude, at any rate, wanted something to love. Some men would have rushed
incontinently to her, snatched the pleasure of easy friendship which she could
hardly refuse, and have left the rest to chance. Not so Jude - at first.
    But as the days, and still more particularly the lonely evenings, dragged
along, he found himself, to his moral consternation, to be thinking more of her
instead of thinking less of her, and experiencing a fearful bliss in doing what
was erratic, informal, and unexpected. Surrounded by her influence all day,
walking past the spots she frequented, he was always thinking of her, and was
obliged to own to himself that his conscience was likely to be the loser in this
battle.
    To be sure she was almost an ideality to him still. Perhaps to know her
would be to cure himself of this unexpected and unauthorized passion. A voice
whispered that, though he desired to know her, he did not desire to be cured.
    There was not the least doubt that from his own orthodox point of view the
situation was growing immoral. For Sue to be the loved one of a man who was
licensed by the laws of his country to love Arabella and none other unto his
life's end, was a pretty bad second beginning when the man was bent on such a
course as Jude purposed. This conviction was so real with him that one day when,
as was frequent, he was at work in a neighbouring village church alone, he felt
it to be his duty to pray against his weakness. But much as he wished to be an
exemplar in these things he could not get on. It was quite impossible, he found,
to ask to be delivered from temptation when your heart's desire was to be
tempted unto seventy times seven. So he excused himself. »After all,« he said,
»it is not altogether an erotolepsy that is the matter with me, as at that first
time. I can see that she is exceptionally bright; and it
