swallowed his pride and resentment as he drew back his hand. He was silent for some moments, and then said, as indifferently as he could, “I don’t know what you mean by clearing up, Adam. I’ve told you already that you think too seriously of a little flirtation. But if you are right in supposing there is any danger in it—I’m going away on Saturday, and there will be an end of it. As for the pain it has given you, I’m heartily sorry for it. I can say no more.”
Adam said nothing, but rose from his chair and stood with his face towards one of the windows, as if looking at the blackness of the moonlit fir-trees; but he was in reality conscious of nothing but the conflict within him. It was of no use now—his resolution not to speak till to-morrow. He must speak there and then. But it was several minutes before he turned round and stepped nearer to Arthur, standing and looking down on him as he lay.
“It’ll be better for me to speak plain,” he said, with evident effort, “though it’s hard work. You see, sir, this isn’t a trifle to me, whatever it may be to you. I’m none o’ them men as can go making love first to one woman and then t’ another, and don’t think it much odds which of ’em I take. What I feel for Hetty’s a different sort o’ love, such as I believe nobody can know much about but them as feel it and God as has given it to ’em. She’s more nor everything else to me, all but my conscience and my good name. And if it’s true what you’ve been saying all along—and if it’s only been trifling and flirting as you call it, as ’ll be put an end to by your going away—why, then, I’d wait, and hope her heart ’ud turn to me after all. I’m loath to think you’d speak false to me, and I’ll believe your word, however things may look.”
“You would be wronging Hetty more than me not to believe it,” said Arthur, almost violently, starting up from the ottoman and moving away. But he threw himself into a chair again directly, saying, more feebly, “You seem to forget that, in suspecting me, you are casting imputations upon her.”
“Nay, sir,” Adam said, in a calmer voice, as if he were half-relieved—for he was too straightforward to make a distinction between a direct falsehood and an indirect one—“Nay, sir, things don’t lie level between Hetty and you. You’re acting with your eyes open, whatever you may do; but how do you know what’s been in her mind? She’s all but a child—as any man with a conscience in him ought to feel bound to take care on. And whatever you may think, I know you’ve disturbed her mind. I know she’s been fixing her heart on you, for there’s a many things clear to me now as I didn’t understand before. But you seem to make light o’ what she may feel—you don’t think o’ that.”
“Good God, Adam, let me alone!” Arthur burst out impetuously; “I feel it enough without your worrying me.”
He was aware of his indiscretion as soon as the words had escaped him.
“Well, then, if you feel it,” Adam rejoined, eagerly; “if you feel as you may ha’ put false notions into her mind, and made her believe as you loved her, when all the while you meant nothing, I’ve this demand to make of you—I’m not speaking for myself, but for her. I ask you t’ undeceive her before you go away. Y’aren’t going away for ever, and if you leave her behind with a notion in her head o’ your feeling about her the same as she feels about you, she’ll be hankering after you, and the mischief may get worse. It may be a smart to her now, but it’ll save her pain i’ th’ end. I ask you to write a letter—you may trust to my seeing as she gets it. Tell her the truth, and take blame to yourself for behaving as you’d no right to do to a young woman as isn’t your equal. I speak plain, sir, but I can’t speak any other way. There’s nobody can take care o’ Hetty in this thing but me.”
“I can do what I think needful in the matter,” said Arthur, more and more irritated by mingled distress and perplexity, “without giving promises to you. I shall take what measures I think proper.”
“No,” said Adam, in an abrupt decided tone, “that won’t do. I must know what ground I’m treading on. I must be safe as you’ve put an end to what ought never to ha’ been begun. I don’t forget what’s owing to you as a gentleman, but in this thing we’re man and man, and I can’t give up.”
There was no answer for some moments. Then Arthur said, “I’ll see you to-morrow. I can bear no more now; I’m ill.” He rose as he spoke, and reached his cap, as if intending to go.
“You won’t see her again!” Adam exclaimed, with a flash of recurring anger and suspicion, moving towards the door and placing his back against it. “Either tell me she can never be my wife—tell me you’ve been lying—or else promise me what I’ve said.”
Adam, uttering this alternative, stood like a terrible fate before Arthur, who had moved forward a step or two, and now stopped, faint, shaken, sick in mind and body. It seemed long to both of them—that inward struggle of Arthur’s—before he said, feebly, “I promise; let me go.”
Adam moved away from the door and opened it, but when Arthur reached the step, he stopped again and leaned against the door-post.
“You’re not well enough to walk alone, sir,” said Adam. “Take my arm again.”
Arthur made no answer, and presently walked on, Adam following. But, after a few steps, he stood still again, and said, coldly, “I believe I must trouble you. It’s getting late now, and there may be an alarm set up about me at home.”
Adam gave his arm, and they walked on without uttering a word, till they came where the basket and the tools lay.
“I must pick up the tools, sir,” Adam said. “They’re my brother’s. I doubt they’ll be rusted. If you’ll please to wait a minute.”
Arthur stood still without speaking, and no other word passed between them till they were at the side entrance, where he hoped to get in without being seen by any one. He said then, “Thank you; I needn’t trouble you any further.”
“What time will it be conven’ent for me to see you to-morrow, sir?” said Adam.
“You may send me word that you’re here at five o’clock,” said Arthur; “not before.”
“Good-night, sir,” said Adam. But he heard no reply; Arthur had turned into the house.
Chapter III.
The Next Morning.
Arthur did not pass a sleepless night; he slept long and well. For sleep comes to the perplexed—if the perplexed are only weary enough. But at seven he rang his bell and astonished Pym by declaring he was going to get up, and must have breakfast brought to him at eight.
“And see that my mare is saddled at half-past eight, and tell my grandfather when he’s down that I’m better this morning and am gone for a ride.”
He had been awake an hour, and could rest in bed no longer. In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past—sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories. And if there were such a thing as taking averages of feeling, it would certainly be found that in the hunting and shooting seasons regret, self-reproach, and mortified pride weigh lighter on country gentlemen than in late spring and summer. Arthur felt that he should be more of a man on horseback. Even the presence of Pym, waiting on him with the usual deference, was a reassurance to him after the scenes of yesterday. For, with Arthur’s sensitiveness to opinion, the loss of Adam’s respect was a shock to his self-contentment which suffused his imagination with the sense that he had sunk in all eyes—as a sudden shock of fear from some real peril makes a nervous woman afraid even to step, because all her perceptions are suffused with a sense of danger.
Arthur’s, as you know, was a loving nature. Deeds of kindness were as easy to him as a bad habit: they were the common issue of his weaknesses and good qualities, of his egoism and his sympathy. He didn’t like