LITMIR.BIZ

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the painful thoughts that crowded upon him. It was a bitter remembrance to him now—that morning when Arthur breakfasted with him and seemed as if he were on the verge of a confession. It was plain enough now what he had wanted to confess. And if their words had taken another turn … if he himself had been less fastidious about intruding on another man’s secrets … it was cruel to think how thin a film had shut out rescue from all this guilt and misery. He saw the whole history now by that terrible illumination which the present sheds back upon the past. But every other feeling as it rushed upon his was thrown into abeyance by pity, deep respectful pity, for the man who sat before him—already so bruised, going forth with sad blind resignedness to an unreal sorrow, while a real one was close upon him, too far beyond the range of common trial for him ever to have feared it. His own agitation was quelled by a certain awe that comes over us in the presence of a great anguish, for the anguish he must inflict on Adam was already present to him. Again he put his hand on the arm that lay on the table, but very gently this time, as he said solemnly:

      “Adam, my dear friend, you have had some hard trials in your life. You can bear sorrow manfully, as well as act manfully. God requires both tasks at our hands. And there is a heavier sorrow coming upon you than any you have yet known. But you are not guilty—you have not the worst of all sorrows. God help him who has!”

      The two pale faces looked at each other; in Adam’s there was trembling suspense, in Mr. Irwine’s hesitating, shrinking pity. But he went on.

      “I have had news of Hetty this morning. She is not gone to him. She is in Stonyshire—at Stoniton.”

      Adam started up from his chair, as if he thought he could have leaped to her that moment. But Mr. Irwine laid hold of his arm again and said, persuasively, “Wait, Adam, wait.” So he sat down.

      “She is in a very unhappy position—one which will make it worse for you to find her, my poor friend, than to have lost her for ever.”

      Adam’s lips moved tremulously, but no sound came. They moved again, and he whispered, “Tell me.”

      “She has been arrested … she is in prison.”

      It was as if an insulting blow had brought back the spirit of resistance into Adam. The blood rushed to his face, and he said, loudly and sharply, “For what?”

      “For a great crime—the murder of her child.”

      “It can’t be!” Adam almost shouted, starting up from his chair and making a stride towards the door; but he turned round again, setting his back against the bookcase, and looking fiercely at Mr. Irwine. “It isn’t possible. She never had a child. She can’t be guilty. Who says it?”

      “God grant she may be innocent, Adam. We can still hope she is.”

      “But who says she is guilty?” said Adam violently. “Tell me everything.”

      “Here is a letter from the magistrate before whom she was taken, and the constable who arrested her is in the dining-room. She will not confess her name or where she comes from; but I fear, I fear, there can be no doubt it is Hetty. The description of her person corresponds, only that she is said to look very pale and ill. She had a small red-leather pocket-book in her pocket with two names written in it—one at the beginning, ‘Hetty Sorrel, Hayslope,’ and the other near the end, ‘Dinah Morris, Snowfield.’ She will not say which is her own name—she denies everything, and will answer no questions, and application has been made to me, as a magistrate, that I may take measures for identifying her, for it was thought probable that the name which stands first is her own name.”

      “But what proof have they got against her, if it is Hetty?” said Adam, still violently, with an effort that seemed to shake his whole frame. “I’ll not believe it. It couldn’t ha’ been, and none of us know it.”

      “Terrible proof that she was under the temptation to commit the crime; but we have room to hope that she did not really commit it. Try and read that letter, Adam.”

      Adam took the letter between his shaking hands and tried to fix his eyes steadily on it. Mr. Irwine meanwhile went out to give some orders. When he came back, Adam’s eyes were still on the first page—he couldn’t read—he could not put the words together and make out what they meant. He threw it down at last and clenched his fist.

      “It’s his doing,” he said; “if there’s been any crime, it’s at his door, not at hers. He taught her to deceive—he deceived me first. Let ’em put him on his trial—let him stand in court beside her, and I’ll tell ’em how he got hold of her heart, and ’ticed her t’ evil, and then lied to me. Is he to go free, while they lay all the punishment on her … so weak and young?”

      The image called up by these last words gave a new direction to poor Adam’s maddened feelings. He was silent, looking at the corner of the room as if he saw something there. Then he burst out again, in a tone of appealing anguish, “I can’t bear it … O God, it’s too hard to lay upon me—it’s too hard to think she’s wicked.”

      Mr. Irwine had sat down again in silence. He was too wise to utter soothing words at present, and indeed, the sight of Adam before him, with that look of sudden age which sometimes comes over a young face in moments of terrible emotion—the hard bloodless look of the skin, the deep lines about the quivering mouth, the furrows in the brow—the sight of this strong firm man shattered by the invisible stroke of sorrow, moved him so deeply that speech was not easy. Adam stood motionless, with his eyes vacantly fixed in this way for a minute or two; in that short space he was living through all his love again.

      “She can’t ha’ done it,” he said, still without moving his eyes, as if he were only talking to himself: “it was fear made her hide it … I forgive her for deceiving me … I forgive thee, Hetty … thee wast deceived too … it’s gone hard wi’ thee, my poor Hetty … but they’ll never make me believe it.”

      He was silent again for a few moments, and then he said, with fierce abruptness, “I’ll go to him—I’ll bring him back—I’ll make him go and look at her in her misery—he shall look at her till he can’t forget it—it shall follow him night and day—as long as he lives it shall follow him—he shan’t escape wi’ lies this time—I’ll fetch him, I’ll drag him myself.”

      In the act of going towards the door, Adam paused automatically and looked about for his hat, quite unconscious where he was or who was present with him. Mr. Irwine had followed him, and now took him by the arm, saying, in a quiet but decided tone, “No, Adam, no; I’m sure you will wish to stay and see what good can be done for her, instead of going on a useless errand of vengeance. The punishment will surely fall without your aid. Besides, he is no longer in Ireland. He must be on his way home—or would be, long before you arrived, for his grandfather, I know, wrote for him to come at least ten days ago. I want you now to go with me to Stoniton. I have ordered a horse for you to ride with us, as soon as you can compose yourself.”

      While Mr. Irwine was speaking, Adam recovered his consciousness of the actual scene. He rubbed his hair off his forehead and listened.

      “Remember,” Mr. Irwine went on, “there are others to think of, and act for, besides yourself, Adam: there are Hetty’s friends, the good Poysers, on whom this stroke will fall more heavily than I can bear to think. I expect it from your strength of mind, Adam—from your sense of duty to God and man—that you will try to act as long as action can be of any use.”

      In reality, Mr. Irwine proposed this journey to Stoniton for Adam’s own sake. Movement, with some object before him, was the best means of counteracting the violence of suffering in these first hours.

      “You will go with me to Stoniton, Adam?” he said again, after a moment’s pause. “We have to see if it is really Hetty who is there, you know.”

      “Yes, sir,” said Adam, “I’ll do what you think right. But the folks at th’ Hall Farm?”

      “I wish them not to know till I return to tell them myself. I shall have ascertained things then which I am uncertain about now, and I shall return as soon as possible. Come now, the horses are ready.”

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