They Won't Have Me Back — Jude the Obscure

Morning puts Sue back in her own clothes. She wants to leave before the town is astir, fears what Phillotson will say, then says she does not care and will do as she chooses. She will stay with a fellow-student's sister near Shaston until the school takes her again. At the station Jude has two things to tell her, one warm, one cold. She names the warm one: he must not love her. He is to like her. That is all. The next morning a letter arrives. If he wants to love her, he may. She does not mind at all.

Days of silence follow. He writes that he will come on Sunday. A little girl at the school-house says Miss Bridehead is only a little ill. Sue tells him she could have written. Only she would not. They will not have her back. Someone has sent baseless reports, and the parting advice is that she and Jude ought to marry at once for her reputation. She is furious that he let affection show without declaring it. He came partly to tell his own fatal story and cannot. He names the recognised barriers instead. Phillotson has already visited. She will ask him what to do.

He leaves hopelessly unhappy, then wakes vexed at her caprice. A note written almost as he walked away asks him to keep her as a friend. She is coming to Melchester on Saturday to get her things from the training school, and could walk with him for half an hour if he would like.