Chapter: THE first ten days after Hetty's departure passed as quietly as any
other days with the family at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily
work. They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten days at least,
perhaps a little longer if Dinah came back with her, because there might
then be something to detain them at Snowfield. But when a fortnight had
passed they began to feel a little surprise that Hetty did not return;
she must surely have found it pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one
could have supposed. Adam, for his part, was getting very impatient
to see her, and he resolved that, if she did not appear the next day
(Saturday), he would set out on Sunday morning to fetch her. There
was no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it was light, and
perhaps getting a lift in a cart by the way, he would arrive pretty
early at Snowfield, and bring back Hetty the next day--Dinah too, if she
were coming. It was quite time Hetty came home, and he would afford to
lose his Monday for the sake of bringing her.

His project was quite approved at the Farm when he went there on
Saturday evening. Mrs. Poyser desired him emphatically not to come back
without Hetty, for she had been quite too long away, considering the
things she had to get ready by the middle of March, and a week was
surely enough for any one to go out for their health. As for Dinah, Mrs.
Poyser had small hope of their bringing her, unless they could make her
believe the folks at Hayslope were twice as miserable as the folks at
Snowfield. "Though," said Mrs. Poyser, by way of conclusion, "you might
tell her she's got but one aunt left, and SHE'S wasted pretty nigh to
a shadder; and we shall p'rhaps all be gone twenty mile farther off her
next Michaelmas, and shall die o' broken hearts among strange folks, and
leave the children fatherless and motherless."

"Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, who certainly had the air of a man
perfectly heart-whole, "it isna so bad as that. Thee't looking rarely
now, and getting flesh every day. But I'd be glad for Dinah t' come, for
she'd help thee wi' the little uns: they took t' her wonderful."

So at daybreak, on Sunday, Adam set off. Seth went with him the first
mile or two, for the thought of Snowfield and the possibility that Dinah
might come again made him restless, and the walk with Adam in the cold
morning air, both in their best clothes, helped to give him a sense of
Sunday calm. It was the last morning in February, with a low grey sky,
and a slight hoar-frost on the green border of the road and on the black
hedges. They heard the gurgling of the full brooklet hurrying down the
hill, and the faint twittering of the early birds. For they walked in
silence, though with a pleased sense of companionship.

"Good-bye, lad," said Adam, laying his hand on Seth's shoulder and
looking at him affectionately as they were about to part. "I wish thee
wast going all the way wi' me, and as happy as I am."

"I'm content, Addy, I'm content," said Seth cheerfully. "I'll be an old
bachelor, belike, and make a fuss wi' thy children."

They turned away from each other, and Seth walked leisurely homeward,
mentally repeating one of his favourite hymns--he was very fond of
hymns:

     Dark and cheerless is the morn
     Unaccompanied by thee:
     Joyless is the day's return
     Till thy mercy's beams I see:
     Till thou inward light impart,
     Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

     Visit, then, this soul of mine,
     Pierce the gloom of sin and grief--
     Fill me, Radiancy Divine,
     Scatter all my unbelief.
     More and more thyself display,
     Shining to the perfect day.

Adam walked much faster, and any one coming along the Oakbourne road
at sunrise that morning must have had a pleasant sight in this tall
broad-chested man, striding along with a carriage as upright and firm
as any soldier's, glancing with keen glad eyes at the dark-blue hills as
they began to show themselves on his way. Seldom in Adam's life had his
face been so free from any cloud of anxiety as it was this morning; and
this freedom from care, as is usual with constructive practical minds
like his, made him all the more observant of the objects round him
and all the more ready to gather suggestions from them towards his
own favourite plans and ingenious contrivances. His happy love--the
knowledge that his steps were carrying him nearer and nearer to Hetty,
who was so soon to be his--was to his thoughts what the sweet morning
air was to his sensations: it gave him a consciousness of well-being
that made activity delightful. Every now and then there was a rush of
more intense feeling towards her, which chased away other images than
Hetty; and along with that would come a wondering thankfulness that
all this happiness was given to him--that this life of ours had such
sweetness in it. For Adam had a devout mind, though he was perhaps
rather impatient of devout words, and his tenderness lay very close
to his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the
other. But after feeling had welled up and poured itself out in this
way, busy thought would come back with the greater vigour; and this
morning it was intent on schemes by which the roads might be improved
that were so imperfect all through the country, and on picturing all
the benefits that might come from the exertions of a single country
gentleman, if he would set himself to getting the roads made good in his
own district.

It seemed a very short walk, the ten miles to Oakbourne, that pretty
town within sight of the blue hills, where he break-fasted. After
this, the country grew barer and barer: no more rolling woods, no more
wide-branching trees near frequent homesteads, no more bushy hedgerows,
but greystone walls intersecting the meagre pastures, and dismal
wide-scattered greystone houses on broken lands where mines had been and
were no longer. "A hungry land," said Adam to himself. "I'd rather go
south'ard, where they say it's as flat as a table, than come to live
here; though if Dinah likes to live in a country where she can be the
most comfort to folks, she's i' the right to live o' this side; for she
must look as if she'd come straight from heaven, like th' angels in the
desert, to strengthen them as ha' got nothing t' eat." And when at last
he came in sight of Snowfield, he thought it looked like a town that was
"fellow to the country," though the stream through the valley where the
great mill stood gave a pleasant greenness to the lower fields. The town
lay, grim, stony, and unsheltered, up the side of a steep hill, and Adam
did not go forward to it at present, for Seth had told him where to find
Dinah. It was at a thatched cottage outside the town, a little way from
the mill--an old cottage, standing sideways towards the road, with a
little bit of potato-ground before it. Here Dinah lodged with an elderly
couple; and if she and Hetty happened to be out, Adam could learn where
they were gone, or when they would be at home again. Dinah might be out
on some preaching errand, and perhaps she would have left Hetty at home.
Adam could not help hoping this, and as he recognized the cottage by the
roadside before him, there shone out in his face that involuntary smile
which belongs to the expectation of a near joy.

He hurried his step along the narrow causeway, and rapped at the door.
It was opened by a very clean old woman, with a slow palsied shake of
the head.

"Is Dinah Morris at home?" said Adam.

"Eh?...no," said the old woman, looking up at this tall stranger with
a wonder that made her slower of speech than usual. "Will you please to
come in?" she added, retiring from the door, as if recollecting herself.
"Why, ye're brother to the young man as come afore, arena ye?"

"Yes," said Adam, entering. "That was Seth Bede. I'm his brother Adam.
He told me to give his respects to you and your good master."

"Aye, the same t' him. He was a gracious young man. An' ye feature him,
on'y ye're darker. Sit ye down i' th' arm-chair. My man isna come home
from meeting."

Adam sat down patiently, not liking to hurry the shaking old woman with
questions, but looking eagerly towards the narrow twisting stairs in one
corner, for he thought it was possible Hetty might have heard his voice
and would come down them.

"So you're come to see Dinah Morris?" said the old woman, standing
opposite to him. "An' you didn' know she was away from home, then?"

"No," said Adam, "but I thought it likely she might be away, seeing as
it's Sunday. But the other young woman--is she at home, or gone along
with Dinah?"

The old woman looked at Adam with a bewildered air.

"Gone along wi' her?" she said. "Eh, Dinah's gone to Leeds, a big town
ye may ha' heared on, where there's a many o' the Lord's people. She's
been gone sin' Friday was a fortnight: they sent her the money for her
journey. You may see her room here," she went on, opening a door and not
noticing the effect of her words on Adam. He rose and followed her, and
darted an eager glance into the little room with its narrow bed, the
portrait of Wesley on the wall, and the few books lying on the large
Bible. He had had an irrational hope that Hetty might be there. He could
not speak in the first moment after seeing that the room was empty; an
undefined fear had seized him--something had happened to Hetty on the
journey. Still the old woman was so slow of speech and apprehension,
that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all.

"It's a pity ye didna know," she said. "Have ye come from your own
country o' purpose to see her?"

"But Hetty--Hetty Sorrel," said Adam, abruptly; "Where is she?"

"I know nobody by that name," said the old woman, wonderingly. "Is it
anybody ye've heared on at Snowfield?"

"Did there come no young woman here--very young and pretty--Friday was a
fortnight, to see Dinah Morris?"

"Nay; I'n seen no young woman."

"Think; are you quite sure? A girl, eighteen years old, with dark eyes
and dark curly hair, and a red cloak on, and a basket on her arm? You
couldn't forget her if you saw her."

"Nay; Friday was a fortnight--it was the day as Dinah went away--there
come nobody. There's ne'er been nobody asking for her till you come, for
the folks about know as she's gone. Eh dear, eh dear, is there summat
the matter?"

The old woman had seen the ghastly look of fear in Adam's face. But he
was not stunned or confounded: he was thinking eagerly where he could
inquire about Hetty.

"Yes; a young woman started from our country to see Dinah, Friday was a
fortnight. I came to fetch her back. I'm afraid something has happened
to her. I can't stop. Good-bye."

He hastened out of the cottage, and the old woman followed him to the
gate, watching him sadly with her shaking head as he almost ran towards
the town. He was going to inquire at the place where the Oakbourne coach
stopped.

No! No young woman like Hetty had been seen there. Had any accident
happened to the coach a fortnight ago? No. And there was no coach to
take him back to Oakbourne that day. Well, he would walk: he couldn't
stay here, in wretched inaction. But the innkeeper, seeing that Adam was
in great anxiety, and entering into this new incident with the eagerness
of a man who passes a great deal of time with his hands in his pockets
looking into an obstinately monotonous street, offered to take him back
to Oakbourne in his own "taxed cart" this very evening. It was not five
o'clock; there was plenty of time for Adam to take a meal and yet to get
to Oakbourne before ten o'clock. The innkeeper declared that he really
wanted to go to Oakbourne, and might as well go to-night; he should have
all Monday before him then. Adam, after making an ineffectual attempt
to eat, put the food in his pocket, and, drinking a draught of ale,
declared himself ready to set off. As they approached the cottage, it
occurred to him that he would do well to learn from the old woman
where Dinah was to be found in Leeds: if there was trouble at the Hall
Farm--he only half-admitted the foreboding that there would be--the
Poysers might like to send for Dinah. But Dinah had not left any
address, and the old woman, whose memory for names was infirm, could not
recall the name of the "blessed woman" who was Dinah's chief friend in
the Society at Leeds.

During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for
all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope. In the very
first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield, the
thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he
tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with modes
of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that intolerable
thought. Some accident had happened. Hetty had, by some strange chance,
got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been taken ill, and did
not want to frighten them by letting them know. But this frail fence
of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a rush of distinct
agonizing fears. Hetty had been deceiving herself in thinking that she
could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur all the while; and
now, in her desperation at the nearness of their marriage, she had run
away. And she was gone to him. The old indignation and jealousy
rose again, and prompted the suspicion that Arthur had been dealing
falsely--had written to Hetty--had tempted her to come to him--being
unwilling, after all, that she should belong to another man besides
himself. Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived by him, and he had
given her directions how to follow him to Ireland--for Adam knew that
Arthur had been gone thither three weeks ago, having recently learnt it
at the Chase. Every sad look of Hetty's, since she had been engaged
to Adam, returned upon him now with all the exaggeration of painful
retrospect. He had been foolishly sanguine and confident. The poor thing
hadn't perhaps known her own mind for a long while; had thought that
she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily drawn towards the man who
offered her a protecting, faithful love. He couldn't bear to blame her:
she never meant to cause him this dreadful pain. The blame lay with
that man who had selfishly played with her heart--had perhaps even
deliberately lured her away.

At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman
as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a
fortnight ago--wasn't likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in
a hurry--was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went
through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with the
horses and had never set eyes on her again. Adam then went straight to
the house from which the Stonition coach started: Stoniton was the
most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be
her destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief
coach-roads. She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have
sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for
another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three or
four days. He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at the
inn where the coach put up. So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must of
necessity wait and try to rest till morning--nay, till eleven o'clock,
when the coach started.

At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven
Hetty would not be in the town again till night. When he did come he
remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her,
quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that
he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not
laughed when he joked her. But he declared, as the people had done at
the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down. Part of
the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town
from which a coach started--(all in vain, for you know Hetty did not
start from Stonition by coach, but on foot in the grey morning)--and
then in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of
road, in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there. No,
she was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam
was to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm. As to
what he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions
amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him
while he went to and fro. He would not mention what he knew of Arthur
Donnithorne's behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for
it: it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure
might be an injury or an offence to her. And as soon as he had been home
and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further absence, he
would start off to Ireland: if he found no trace of Hetty on the road,
he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make himself certain
how far he was acquainted with her movements. Several times the thought
occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but that would be
useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the secret about Arthur.
It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant occupation of his mind
about Hetty, should never have alighted on the probability that she had
gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no longer there. Perhaps the
reason was that he could not conceive Hetty's throwing herself on Arthur
uncalled; he imagined no cause that could have driven her to such
a step, after that letter written in August. There were but two
alternatives in his mind: either Arthur had written to her again and
enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage
with himself because she found, after all, she could not love him well
enough, and yet was afraid of her friends' anger if she retracted.

With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur,
the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to
be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not
tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his
intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he
had traced her as far as possible.

It was after twelve o'clock on Tuesday night when Adam reached
Treddleston; and, unwilling to disturb his mother and Seth, and also
to encounter their questions at that hour, he threw himself without
undressing on a bed at the "Waggon Overthrown," and slept hard from pure
weariness. Not more than four hours, however, for before five o'clock he
set out on his way home in the faint morning twilight. He always kept a
key of the workshop door in his pocket, so that he could let himself in;
and he wished to enter without awaking his mother, for he was anxious
to avoid telling her the new trouble himself by seeing Seth first, and
asking him to tell her when it should be necessary. He walked gently
along the yard, and turned the key gently in the door; but, as he
expected, Gyp, who lay in the workshop, gave a sharp bark. It subsided
when he saw Adam, holding up his finger at him to impose silence, and
in his dumb, tailless joy he must content himself with rubbing his body
against his master's legs.

Adam was too heart-sick to take notice of Gyp's fondling. He threw
himself on the bench and stared dully at the wood and the signs of work
around him, wondering if he should ever come to feel pleasure in them
again, while Gyp, dimly aware that there was something wrong with his
master, laid his rough grey head on Adam's knee and wrinkled his brows
to look up at him. Hitherto, since Sunday afternoon, Adam had been
constantly among strange people and in strange places, having no
associations with the details of his daily life, and now that by the
light of this new morning he was come back to his home and surrounded
by the familiar objects that seemed for ever robbed of their charm, the
reality--the hard, inevitable reality of his troubles pressed upon him
with a new weight. Right before him was an unfinished chest of drawers,
which he had been making in spare moments for Hetty's use, when his home
should be hers.

Seth had not heard Adam's entrance, but he had been roused by Gyp's
bark, and Adam heard him moving about in the room above, dressing
himself. Seth's first thoughts were about his brother: he would come
home to-day, surely, for the business would be wanting him sadly by
to-morrow, but it was pleasant to think he had had a longer holiday than
he had expected. And would Dinah come too? Seth felt that that was the
greatest happiness he could look forward to for himself, though he had
no hope left that she would ever love him well enough to marry him; but
he had often said to himself, it was better to be Dinah's friend and
brother than any other woman's husband. If he could but be always near
her, instead of living so far off!

He came downstairs and opened the inner door leading from the kitchen
into the workshop, intending to let out Gyp; but he stood still in
the doorway, smitten with a sudden shock at the sight of Adam seated
listlessly on the bench, pale, unwashed, with sunken blank eyes, almost
like a drunkard in the morning. But Seth felt in an instant what the
marks meant--not drunkenness, but some great calamity. Adam looked up at
him without speaking, and Seth moved forward towards the bench, himself
trembling so that speech did not come readily.

"God have mercy on us, Addy," he said, in a low voice, sitting down on
the bench beside Adam, "what is it?"

Adam was unable to speak. The strong man, accustomed to suppress the
signs of sorrow, had felt his heart swell like a child's at this first
approach of sympathy. He fell on Seth's neck and sobbed.

Seth was prepared for the worst now, for, even in his recollections of
their boyhood, Adam had never sobbed before.

"Is it death, Adam? Is she dead?" he asked, in a low tone, when Adam
raised his head and was recovering himself.

"No, lad; but she's gone--gone away from us. She's never been to
Snowfield. Dinah's been gone to Leeds ever since last Friday was a
fortnight, the very day Hetty set out. I can't find out where she went
after she got to Stoniton."

Seth was silent from utter astonishment: he knew nothing that could
suggest to him a reason for Hetty's going away.

"Hast any notion what she's done it for?" he said, at last.

"She can't ha' loved me. She didn't like our marriage when it came
nigh--that must be it," said Adam. He had determined to mention no
further reason.

"I hear Mother stirring," said Seth. "Must we tell her?"

"No, not yet," said Adam, rising from the bench and pushing the hair
from his face, as if he wanted to rouse himself. "I can't have her told
yet; and I must set out on another journey directly, after I've been to
the village and th' Hall Farm. I can't tell thee where I'm going, and
thee must say to her I'm gone on business as nobody is to know anything
about. I'll go and wash myself now." Adam moved towards the door of the
workshop, but after a step or two he turned round, and, meeting Seth's
eyes with a calm sad glance, he said, "I must take all the money out
o' the tin box, lad; but if anything happens to me, all the rest 'll be
thine, to take care o' Mother with."

Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret
under all this. "Brother," he said, faintly--he never called Adam
"Brother" except in solemn moments--"I don't believe you'll do anything
as you can't ask God's blessing on."

"Nay, lad," said Adam, "don't be afraid. I'm for doing nought but what's
a man's duty."

The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would
only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of
irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she
had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and
self-command. He had felt ill on his journey home--he told her when she
came down--had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a
bad headache, that still hung about him this morning, accounted for his
paleness and heavy eyes.

He determined to go to the village, in the first place, attend to his
business for an hour, and give notice to Burge of his being obliged to
go on a journey, which he must beg him not to mention to any one; for
he wished to avoid going to the Hall Farm near breakfast-time, when the
children and servants would be in the house-place, and there must be
exclamations in their hearing about his having returned without Hetty.
He waited until the clock struck nine before he left the work-yard at
the village, and set off, through the fields, towards the Farm. It was
an immense relief to him, as he came near the Home Close, to see Mr.
Poyser advancing towards him, for this would spare him the pain of going
to the house. Mr. Poyser was walking briskly this March morning, with a
sense of spring business on his mind: he was going to cast the master's
eye on the shoeing of a new cart-horse, carrying his spud as a useful
companion by the way. His surprise was great when he caught sight of
Adam, but he was not a man given to presentiments of evil.

"Why, Adam, lad, is't you? Have ye been all this time away and not
brought the lasses back, after all? Where are they?"

"No, I've not brought 'em," said Adam, turning round, to indicate that
he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.

"Why," said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, "ye look
bad. Is there anything happened?"

"Yes," said Adam, heavily. "A sad thing's happened. I didna find Hetty
at Snowfield."

Mr. Poyser's good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment.
"Not find her? What's happened to her?" he said, his thoughts flying at
once to bodily accident.

"That I can't tell, whether anything's happened to her. She never went
to Snowfield--she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can't learn nothing
of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach."

"Why, you donna mean she's run away?" said Martin, standing still, so
puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a
trouble by him.

"She must ha' done," said Adam. "She didn't like our marriage when it
came to the point--that must be it. She'd mistook her feelings."

Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and rooting
up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing. His usual
slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was painful. At
last he looked up, right in Adam's face, saying, "Then she didna deserve
t' ha' ye, my lad. An' I feel i' fault myself, for she was my niece, and
I was allays hot for her marr'ing ye. There's no amends I can make ye,
lad--the more's the pity: it's a sad cut-up for ye, I doubt."

Adam could say nothing; and Mr. Poyser, after pursuing his walk for a
little while, went on, "I'll be bound she's gone after trying to get a
lady's maid's place, for she'd got that in her head half a year ago, and
wanted me to gi' my consent. But I'd thought better on her"--he added,
shaking his head slowly and sadly--"I'd thought better on her, nor to
look for this, after she'd gi'en y' her word, an' everything been got
ready."

Adam had the strongest motives for encouraging this supposition in Mr.
Poyser, and he even tried to believe that it might possibly be true. He
had no warrant for the certainty that she was gone to Arthur.

"It was better it should be so," he said, as quietly as he could, "if
she felt she couldn't like me for a husband. Better run away before than
repent after. I hope you won't look harshly on her if she comes back, as
she may do if she finds it hard to get on away from home."

"I canna look on her as I've done before," said Martin decisively.
"She's acted bad by you, and by all of us. But I'll not turn my back on
her: she's but a young un, and it's the first harm I've knowed on her.
It'll be a hard job for me to tell her aunt. Why didna Dinah come back
wi' ye? She'd ha' helped to pacify her aunt a bit."

"Dinah wasn't at Snowfield. She's been gone to Leeds this fortnight, and
I couldn't learn from th' old woman any direction where she is at Leeds,
else I should ha' brought it you."

"She'd a deal better be staying wi' her own kin," said Mr. Poyser,
indignantly, "than going preaching among strange folks a-that'n."

"I must leave you now, Mr. Poyser," said Adam, "for I've a deal to see
to."

"Aye, you'd best be after your business, and I must tell the missis when
I go home. It's a hard job."

"But," said Adam, "I beg particular, you'll keep what's happened quiet
for a week or two. I've not told my mother yet, and there's no knowing
how things may turn out."

"Aye, aye; least said, soonest mended. We'n no need to say why the match
is broke off, an' we may hear of her after a bit. Shake hands wi' me,
lad: I wish I could make thee amends."

There was something in Martin Poyser's throat at that moment which
caused him to bring out those scanty words in rather a broken fashion.
Yet Adam knew what they meant all the better, and the two honest men
grasped each other's hard hands in mutual understanding.

There was nothing now to hinder Adam from setting off. He had told Seth
to go to the Chase and leave a message for the squire, saying that Adam
Bede had been obliged to start off suddenly on a journey--and to say as
much, and no more, to any one else who made inquiries about him. If the
Poysers learned that he was gone away again, Adam knew they would infer
that he was gone in search of Hetty.

He had intended to go right on his way from the Hall Farm, but now the
impulse which had frequently visited him before--to go to Mr. Irwine,
and make a confidant of him--recurred with the new force which belongs
to a last opportunity. He was about to start on a long journey--a
difficult one--by sea--and no soul would know where he was gone. If
anything happened to him? Or, if he absolutely needed help in any matter
concerning Hetty? Mr. Irwine was to be trusted; and the feeling which
made Adam shrink from telling anything which was her secret must give
way before the need there was that she should have some one else besides
himself who would be prepared to defend her in the worst extremity.
Towards Arthur, even though he might have incurred no new guilt, Adam
felt that he was not bound to keep silence when Hetty's interest called
on him to speak.

"I must do it," said Adam, when these thoughts, which had spread
themselves through hours of his sad journeying, now rushed upon him in
an instant, like a wave that had been slowly gathering; "it's the right
thing. I can't stand alone in this way any longer."

 Meanwhile, back in Hayslope, everything is pretty much normal. True, people have started wondering why Hetty has been gone so long. Did she find it "pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one could have supposed?" . But Adam is getting impatient. He's got a wedding to plan, dang it. So Adam sets off one Sunday morning to bring back the love of his life, the Juliet to his Romeo, the Jenny to his Forrest Gump. Seth accompanies Adam part of the way, and then turns back. Then, to while away the journey, Adam sings a hymn about "sin and grief" and God's redeeming power . Road trip music? After leaving behind Hayslope's unfailingly photogenic landscape, Adam arrives in the "grim, stony, and unsheltered" town of Snowfield . He makes his way to the cottage of an old woman who knows Dinah. He questions her, and discovers that Hetty isn't in Snowfield. But no worries, "The old woman was so slow of speech and apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all" . But the more questions Adam asks, the clearer it becomes that Hetty was never in Snowfield. He leaves the cottage and asks around town. Nope, no Hetty. Worried sick, Adam decides to track down Dinah, or Hetty, or anyone who knows something. So Adam hits the road. He asks around, and makes an educated guess that Hetty is in Stoniton. But why did Hetty flee? Adam has two guesses: "Either Arthur had written to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, that she could not love him well enough" . Adam decides to return to Hayslope and get his bearings. He tries to sneak into his house without disturbing anyone. He wants to suffer this one alone. But Seth hears Adam entering, asks his brother what's wrong. And big, strong Adam "fell on Seth's neck and sobbed" . Adam is now forced to tell Seth, who is all compassion, of his misadventure. He then goes into town to "give notice to Burge of his being obliged to go on a journey" . But as luck, or ill luck, would have it, Adam bumps into Martin Poyser on the road. On the one hand, this means that Martin won't have to wait for his bad news. On the other, the news is really bad. But he also needs a shoulder to cry on , convinced as he is that Hetty "couldn't like me for a husband" . And when there's no other shoulder around, Martin Poyser's big burly shoulder will have to do. The two men part on decent, yet unhappy terms--Adam confused, Mr. Poyser annoyed that Hetty has jilted Adam. Not knowing where else to turn, Adam decides "to go to Mr. Irwine, and make a confidant of him" . Now Adam will have a leisurely, well-tailored shoulder to cry on. Still metaphorically speaking, of course.

