Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Christminster Again
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which a bed had been spread on the 
floor. There she heard him say:
‘If we children was gone there’d be no trouble at all!’
‘Don’t think that, dear,’ she cried, rather peremptorily. ‘But go to
sleep!’
The following morning she awoke at a little past six, and decided
to get up and run across before breakfast to the inn which Jude had
informed her to be his quarters, to tell him what had happened
before he went out. She arose softly, to avoid disturbing the chil-
dren, who, as she knew, must be fatigued by their exertions of
yesterday.
She found Jude at breakfast in the obscure tavern he had chosen as
a counterpoise to the expense of her lodging; and she explained to
him her homelessness. He had been so anxious about her all night, he
said. Somehow, now it was morning, the request to leave the lodgings
did not seem such a depressing incident as it had seemed the night
before, nor did even her failure to 
find another place affect her so
deeply as at 
first. Jude agreed with her that it would not be worth
while to insist upon her right to stay a week, but to take immediate
steps for removal.
‘You must all come to this inn for a day or two,’ he said. ‘It is a
rough place, and it will not be so nice for the children, but we shall
have more time to look round. There are plenty of lodgings in the
suburbs––in my old quarter of Beersheba. Have breakfast with me
now you are here, my bird? You are sure you are well? There will be
plenty of time to get back and prepare the children’s meal before
they wake. In fact, I’ll go with you.’
She joined Jude in a hasty meal, and in a quarter of an hour they
started together, resolving to clear out from Sue’s too respectable
lodging immediately. On reaching the place and going upstairs she
found that all was quiet in the children’s room, and called to the
landlady in timorous tones to please bring up the tea-kettle and
something for their breakfast. This was perfunctorily done, and pro-
ducing a couple of eggs which she had brought with her she put
them into the boiling kettle, and summoned Jude to watch them for
the youngsters, while she went to call them, it being now about
half-past eight o’clock.
Jude stood bending over the kettle, with his watch in his hand,
timing the eggs, so that his back was turned to the little inner cham-
ber where the children lay. A shriek from Sue suddenly caused him
Jude the Obscure
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to start round. He saw that the door of the room, or rather closet––
which had seemed to go heavily upon its hinges as she pushed it
back––was open, and that Sue had sunk to the 
floor just within it.
Hastening forward to pick her up he turned his eyes to the little bed
spread on the boards; no children were there. He looked in bewil-
derment round the room. At the back of the door were 
fixed two
hooks for hanging garments, and from these the forms of the two
youngest children were suspended, by a piece of box-cord round
each of their necks, while from a nail a few yards o
ff the body of little
Jude was hanging in a similar manner. An overturned chair was near
the elder boy, and his glazed eyes were slanted into the room; but
those of the girl and the baby boy were closed.
Half paralyzed by the strange and consummate horror of the
scene* he let Sue lie, cut the cords with his pocket-knife and threw the
three children on the bed; but the feel of their bodies in the moment-
ary handling seemed to say that they were dead. He caught up Sue,
who was in fainting 
fits, and put her on the bed in the other room,
after which he breathlessly summoned the landlady and ran out for a
doctor.
When he got back Sue had come to herself, and the two helpless
women, bending over the children in wild e
fforts to restore them and
the triplet of little corpses, formed a sight which overthrew his self-
command. The nearest surgeon came in, but, as Jude had inferred,
his presence was super
fluous. The children were past saving, for
though their bodies were still barely cold it was conjectured that they
had been hanging more than an hour. The probability held by the
parents later on, when they were able to reason on the case, was that
the elder boy, on waking, looked into the outer room for Sue, and,
finding her absent, was thrown into a fit of aggravated despondency
that the events and information of the evening before had induced in
his morbid temperament. Moreover a piece of paper was found upon
the 
floor, on which was written, in the boy’s hand, with the bit of
lead pencil that he carried: