‘I am sorry you have this trial,’ she continued, ‘deeply sorry. But you have won, I know you have won!’
He turned his eyes in a direction away from her, hesitated, rose.
‘Get your things on.’
He was going to the door.
‘Richard!’
She held her hand for the parchment.
‘You can’t trust me to the bottom of the stairs?’ he asked bitterly.
She all but laughed with glad confidence.
‘Oh, I will trust you!’
CHAPTER XXV
Adela and her husband did not return from Belwick till eight o’clock in the evening. In the first place Mr. Yottle had to be sent for from a friend’s house in the country, where he was spending Sunday; then there was long waiting for a train back to Agworth. The Rodmans, much puzzled to account for the disorder, postponed dinner. Adela, however, dined alone, and but slightly, though she had not eaten since breakfast. Then fatigue overcame her. She slept an unbroken sleep till sunrise.
On going down next morning she found ‘Arry alone in the dining-room; he was standing at the window with hands in pocket, and, after a glance round, averted his face again, a low growl his only answer to her morning salutation. Mr. Rodman was the next to appear. He shook hands as usual. In his ‘I hope you are well?’ there was an accent of respectful sympathy. Personally, he seemed in his ordinary spirits. He proceeded to talk of trifles, but in such a tone as he might have used had there been grave sickness in the house. And presently, with yet lower voice and a smile of good-humoured resignation, he said—
‘Our journey, I fear, must be postponed.’
Adela smiled, not quite in the same way, and briefly assented.
‘Alice is not very well,’ Rodman then remarked. ‘I advised her to have breakfast upstairs. I trust you excuse her?’
Mutimer made his appearance. He just nodded round, and asked, as he seated himself at table—
‘Who’s been letting Freeman loose? He’s running about the garden.’
The dog furnished a topic for a few minutes’ conversation, then there was all but unbroken silence to the end of the meal. Richard’s face expressed nothing in particular, unless it were a bad night. Rodman kept up his smile, and, eating little himself, devoted himself to polite waiting upon Adela. When he rose from the table, Richard said to his brother—
‘You’ll go down as usual. I shall be at the office in half-an-hour.’
Adela presently went to the drawing-room. She was surprised to find Alice sitting there. Mrs. Rodman had clearly not enjoyed the unbroken rest which gave Adela her appearance of freshness and calm; her eyes were swollen and red, her lips hung like those of a fretful child that has tired itself with sobbing, her hair was carelessly rolled up, her attire slatternly. She sat in sullen disorder. Seeing Adela, she dropped her eyes, and her lips drew themselves together. Adela hesitated to approach her, but was moved to do so by sheer pity.
‘I’m afraid you’ve had a bad night,’ she said kindly.
‘Yes, I suppose I have,’ was the ungracious reply.
Adela stood before her for a moment, but could find nothing else to say. She was turning when Alice looked up, her red eyes almost glaring, her breast shaken with uncontrollable passion.
‘I think you might have had some consideration,’ she exclaimed. ‘If you didn’t care to speak a word for yourself, you might have thought about others. What are we to do, I. should like to know?’
Adela was struck with consternation. She had been prepared for petulant bewailing, but a vehement outburst of this kind was the last thing she could have foreseen, above all to have it directed against herself.
‘What do you mean, Alice?’ she said with pained surprise.
‘Why, it’s all your doing, I suppose,’ the other pursued, in the same voice. ‘What right had you to let him go off in that way without saying a word to us? If the truth was known, I expect you were at the bottom of it; he wouldn’t have been such a fool, whatever he says. What right had you, I’d like to know?’
Adela calmed herself as she listened. Her surprise at the attack was modified and turned into another channel by Alice’s words.
‘Has Richard told you what passed between us?’ she inquired. It cost her nothing to speak with unmoved utterance; the difficulty was not to seem too indifferent.
‘He’s told us as much as he thought fit. His duty! I like that! As if you couldn’t have stopped him, if you’d chosen! You might have thought of other people.’
‘Did he tell you that I tried to stop him?’ Adela asked, with the same quietness of interrogation.
‘Why, did you?’ cried Alice, looking up scornfully.
‘No.’
‘Of course not! Talk about duty! I should think that was plain enough duty. I only wish he’d come to me with his talk about duty. It’s a duty to rob people, I suppose? Oh, I understand him well enough. It’s an easy way of getting out of his difficulties; as well lose his money this way as any other. He always thinks of himself first, trust him! He’ll go down to New Wanley and make a speech, no doubt, and show off—with his duty and all the rest of it! What’s going to become of me? You’d no right to let him go before telling us.’
‘You would have advised him to say nothing about the will?’
‘Advised him!’ she laughed angrily. ‘I’d have seen if I couldn’t do something more than advise.’
‘I fear you wouldn’t have succeeded in making your brother act dishonourably,’ Adela replied.
It was the first sarcasm that had ever passed her lips, and as soon as it was spoken she turned to leave the room, fearful lest she might say things which would afterwards degrade her in her own eyes. Her body quivered. As she reached the door Rodman opened it and entered. He bowed to let her pass, searching her face the while.
When she was gone he approached to Alice, whom he had at once observed:
‘What have you been up to?’ he asked sternly.
Her head was bent before him, and she gave no answer.
‘Can’t you speak? What’s made her look like that? Have you been quarrelling with her?’
‘Quarrelling?’
‘You know what I mean well enough. Just tell me what you said. I thought I told you to stay upstairs? What’s been going on?’
‘I told her she ought to have let us know,’ replied Alice, timorous, but affecting the look and voice of a spoilt child.
‘Then you’ve made a fool of yourself!’ he exclaimed with subdued violence. ‘You’ve got to learn that when I tell you to do a thing you do it—or I’ll know the reason why! You’d no business to come out of your room. Now you’ll just find her and apologise. You understand? You’ll go and beg her pardon at once.’
Alice raised her eyes in wretched bewilderment.
‘Beg her pardon?’ she faltered. ‘Oh, how can I? Why, what harm have I done, Willis? I’m sure I shan’t beg her pardon.’
‘You won’t? If you talk to me in that way you shall go down on your knees before her. You won’t?’
His voice had such concentrated savagery in its suppression that Alice shrank back in terror.
‘Willis! How can you speak so! What have I done?’
‘You’ve made a confounded fool of yourself, and most likely spoilt the last chance you had, if you want to know. In future, when I say a thing understand that I mean it; I don’t give orders for nothing. Go and find her and beg her pardon. I’ll wait here till you’ve done it.’
‘But I can’t! Willis, you won’t force me to do that? I’d rather die than humble myself to her.’
‘Do you hear me?’
She stood up, almost driven to bay. Her eyes were wet, her poor, crumpled prettiness made a deplorable spectacle.
‘I can’t, I can’t! Why are you so unkind to me? I have only said what any one would. I hate her! My lips won’t speak the words. You’ve no right to ask me to do such a thing.’
Her wrist was caught in a clutch that seemed to crush the muscles, and she was flung back on to the chair. Terror would not let the scream pass her lips: she lay with open mouth and staring eyes.
Rodman looked at her for an instant, then seemed to master his fury and laughed.
‘That doesn’t improve your beauty. Now, no crying out before you’re hurt. There’s no harm done. Only you’ve to learn that I mean what I say, that’s all. Now I haven’t hurt you, so don’t pretend.’
‘Oh, you have hurt me!’ she sobbed wretchedly, with her fingers round her injured wrist. ‘I never thought you could be so cruel. Oh, my hand! What harm have I done? And you used to say you’d never be unkind to me, never! Oh, how miserable I am! Is this how you’re going to treat me? As if I could help it! Willis, you won’t begin to be cruel? Oh, my hand!’
‘Let me look at it. Pooh, what’s amiss?’ He spoke all at once in his usual good-natured voice. ‘Now go and find Adela, whilst I wait here.’
‘You’re going to force me to do that?’
‘You’re going to do it. Now don’t make me angry again.’
She rose, frightened again by his look. She took a step or two, then turned back to him.
‘If I do this, will you be kind to me, the same as before?’
‘Of course I will. You don’t take me for a brute?’
She held her bruised wrist to him.
‘Will you—will you kiss it well again?’
The way in which she said it was as nearly pathetic as anything from poor Alice could be. Her misery was so profound, and this childish forgiveness of an outrage was so true a demonstration of womanly tenderness which her character would not allow to be noble. Her husband laughed rather uneasily, and did her bidding with an ill grace. But yet she could not go.
‘You’ll promise never to speak—’
‘Yes, yes, of course I promise. Come back to me. Mind, shall know how you did it.’
‘But why? What is she to us?’
‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’
There was a dawning of jealousy in her eyes.
‘I don’t think you ought to make your wife lower herself—’
His brow darkened.
‘Will you do as I tell you?’
She moved towards the door, stopped to dry her wet cheeks, half looked round. What she saw sped her on her way.
Adela was just descending the stairs, dressed to go out. Alice let her go past without speaking, but followed her through the hall and into the garden. Adela turned, saying gently—
‘Do you wish to speak to me?’
‘I’m sorry I said those things. I didn’t mean it. I don’t think it was your fault.’
The other smiled; then in that voice which Stella had spoken of as full of forgiveness—
‘No, it is not my fault, Alice. It couldn’t be otherwise.’
‘Don’t think of it another moment.’
Alice would gladly have retreated, but durst not omit what seemed to her the essential because the bitterest words.
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘No, no!’ exclaimed Adela quickly. ‘Go and lie down a little; you look so tired. Try not to be unhappy, your husband will not let harm come to you.’
Alice returned to the house, hating her sister-in-law with a perfect hatred.
The hated one took her way into Wanley. She had no pleasant mission—that of letting her mother and Letty know what had happened. The latter she found in the garden behind the house dancing her baby-boy up and down in the sunlight. Letty did not look very matronly, it must be confessed; but what she lacked in mature dignity was made up in blue-eyed and warm-checked happiness. At the sight of Adela she gave a cry of joy.
‘Why, mother’s just getting ready to go and say good-bye to you. As soon as she comes down and takes this little rogue I shall just slip my own things on. We didn’t think you’d come here.’
‘We’re not going to-day,’ Adela replied, playing with the baby’s face.
‘Not going?’
‘Business prevents Richard.’
‘How you frightened us by leaving church yesterday! I was on my way to ask about you, but Mr. Wyvern met me and said there was nothing the matter. And you went to Agworth, didn’t you?’
‘To Belwick. We had to see Mr. Yottle, the solicitor.’
Mrs. Waltham issued from the house, and explanations were again demanded.
‘Could you give baby to the nurse for a few minutes?’ Adela asked Letty. ‘I should like to speak to you and mother quietly.’
The arrangement was effected and all three went into the sitting-room. There Adela explained in simple words all that had come to pass; emotionless herself, but the cause of utter dismay in her hearers. When she ceased there was blank silence.
Mrs. Waltham was the first to find her voice.
‘But surely Mr. Eldon won’t take everything from you? I don’t think he has the power to—it wouldn’t be just; there must be surely some kind of provision in the law for such a thing. What did Mr. Yottle say?’
‘Only that Mr. Eldon could recover the whole estate.’
‘The estate!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham eagerly. ‘But not the money?’
Adela smiled.
‘The estate includes the money, mother. It means everything.’
‘Oh, Adela!’ sighed Letty, who sat with her hands on her lap, bewildered.
‘But surely not Mrs. Rodman’s settlement?’ cried the elder lady, who was rapidly surveying the whole situation.
‘Everything,’ affirmed Adela.
‘But what an extraordinary, what an unheard-of thing! Such injustice I never knew! Oh, but Mr. Eldon is a gentleman—he can never exact his legal rights to the full extent. He has too much delicacy of feeling for that.’ Adela glanced at her mother with a curious openness of look—the expression which by apparent negation of feeling reveals feeling of special significance. Mrs. Waltham caught the glance and checked her flow of speech.
‘Oh, he could never do that!’ she murmured the next moment, in a lower key, clasping her hands together upon her knees. ‘I am sure he wouldn’t.’
‘You must remember, mother,’ remarked Adela with reserve, ‘that Mr. Eldon’s disposition cannot affect us.’
‘My dear child, what I meant was this: it is impossible for him to go to law with your husband to recover the uttermost farthing. How are you to restore money that is long since spent? and it isn’t as if it had been spent in the ordinary way—it has been devoted to public purposes. Mr. Eldon will of course take all these things into consideration. And really one must say that it is very strange for a wealthy man to leave his property entirely to strangers.’
‘Not entirely,’ put in Adela rather absently.
‘A hundred and seven pounds a year!’ exclaimed her mother protestingly. ‘My dear love, what can be done with such a paltry sum as that!’
‘We must do a good deal with it, dear mother. It will be all we have to depend upon until Richard finds—finds some position.’
‘But you are not going to leave the Manor at once?’
‘As soon as ever we can. I don’t know what arrangement my husband is making. We shall see Mr. Yottle again to-morrow.’
‘Adela, this is positively shocking! It seems incredible I never thought such things could happen. No wonder you looked white when you went out of church. How little I imagined! But you know you can come here at any moment. You can sleep with me, or we’ll have another bed put up in the room. Oh, dear; oh, dear! It will take me a long time to understand it. Your husband could not possibly object to your living here till he found you a suitable home. What will Alfred say? Oh, you must certainly come here. I shan’t have a moment’s’ rest if you go away somewhere whilst things are in this dreadful state.’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Adela replied with a reassuring smile. ‘It might very well have happened that we had nothing at all, not even the hundred pounds; but a wife can’t run away for reasons of that kind—can she, Letty?’
Letty gazed with her eyes of loving pity, and sighed, ‘I suppose not, dear.’
Adela sat with them for only a few minutes more. She did not feel able to chat at length on a crisis such as this, and the tone of her mother’s sympathy was not soothing to her. Mrs. Waltham had begun to put a handkerchief to her eyes.
‘You mustn’t take it to heart,’ Adela said as she bent and kissed her cheek. ‘You can’t think how little it troubles me—on my own account. Letty, I look to you to keep mother cheerful. Only think what numbers of poor creatures would dance for joy if they had a hundred a year left them! We must be philosophers, you see. I couldn’t shed a tear if I tried ever so hard. Good-bye, dear mother!’
Mrs. Waltham did not rise, but Letty followed her friend into the hall. She had been very silent and undemonstrative; now she embraced Adela tenderly. There was still something of the old diffidence in her manner, but the effect of her motherhood was discernible. Adela was childless—a circumstance in itself provocative of a gentle sense of protection in Letty’s heart.
‘You’ll let us see you every day, darling?’
‘As often as I can, Letty. Don’t let mother get low-spirited. There’s nothing to grieve about.’
Letty returned to the sitting-room; Mrs. Waltham was still pressing the handkerchief on this cheek and that alternately.
‘How wonderful she is!’ Letty exclaimed. ‘I feel as if I could never again fret over little troubles.’
‘Adela has a strong character,’ assented the mother with mournful pride.
Letty, unable to sit long without her baby, fetched it from the nurse’s arms. The infant’s luncheon-hour had arrived, and the nourishment was still of Letty’s own providing. It was strange to see on her face the slow triumph of this ineffable bliss over the grief occasioned by the recent conversation. Mrs. Waltham had floated into a stream of talk.
‘Now, what a strange thing it is!’ she observed, after many other reflections, and when the sound of her own voice had had time to soothe. ‘On the very morning of the wedding I had the most singular misgiving, a feeling I couldn’t explain. One would almost think I had foreseen this very thing. And you know very well, my dear, that the marriage troubled me in many ways. It was not the match for Adela, but then—. Adela, as you say, has a strong character; she is not very easy to reason with. I tried to make both sides of the question clear to her. But then her prejudice against Mr. Eldon was very strong, and how naturally, poor child! Young people don’t like to trust to time; they think everything must be done quickly. If she had been one to marry for reasons of interest it might look like a punishment; but then it was so far otherwise. How much better it would have been to wait a few years! One really never knows what is going to happen. Young people really ought to trust others’ experience.’
Letty was only lending half an ear. The general character of her mother-in-law’s monologues did not encourage much attention. She was conscious of a little surprise, even now and then of a mild indignation; but the baby sucking at her breast lulled her into a sweet maternal apathy. She could only sigh from time to time and wonder whether it was a good thing or the contrary that Adela had no baby in her trials.
CHAPTER XXVI
Mutimer did not come to the Manor for luncheon. Rodman, who had been spending an hour at the works, brought word that business pressed; a host of things had to be unexpectedly finished off and put in order. He, Alice, and Adela made pretence of a midday meal; then he went into the library to smoke a cigar and meditate. The main subject of his meditation was an interview with Adela which he purposed seeking in the course of the afternoon. But he had also half-a-dozen letters of the first importance to despatch to town by the evening post, and these it was well to get off hand. He had finished them by half-past three. Then he went to the drawing-room, but found it vacant. He sought his wife’s chamber. Alice was endeavouring to read a novel, but there was recent tear-shedding about her eyes, which had not come of the author’s pathos.
‘You’ll be a pretty picture soon if that goes on,’ Rodman remarked, with a frankness which was sufficiently brutal in spite of his jesting tone.
‘I can’t think how you take it so lightly,’ Alice replied with utter despondency, flinging the book aside.
‘What’s the good of taking it any other way? Where’s Adela?’
‘Adela?’ She looked at him as closely as her eyes would let her. ‘Why do you want her?’
‘I asked you where she was. Please to get into the habit of answering my questions at once. It’ll save time in future.’
She seemed about to resent his harshness, but the effort cost her too much. She let her head fall forward almost upon her knees and sobbed unrestrainedly.
Rodman touched her shoulder and shook her, but not roughly.
‘Do not be such an eternal fool!’ he grumbled. ‘Do you know where Adela is or not?’
‘No, I don’t,’ came the smothered reply. Then, raising her head, ‘Why do you think so much about Adela?’
He leaned against the dressing-table and laughed mockingly.
‘That’s the matter, eh? You think I’m after her! Don’t be such a goose.’
‘I’d rather you call me a goose than a fool, Willis.’
‘Why, there’s not much difference. Now if you’ll sit up and behave sensibly, I’ll tell you why I want her.’
‘Really? Will you give me a kiss first?’
‘Poor blubbery princess! Pah! your lips are like a baby’s. Now just listen, and mind you hold your tongue about what I say. You know there used to be something between Adela and Eldon. I’ve a notion it went farther than we know of. Well, I don’t see why we shouldn’t get her to talk him over into letting you keep your money, or a good part of it. So you see it’s you I’m thinking about after all, little stupid.’
‘Oh, you really mean that! Kiss me again—look, I’ve wiped my lips, You really think you can do that, Willis?’
‘No, I don’t think I can, but it’s worth having a try. Eldon has a soft side, I know. The thing is to find her soft side. I’m going to have a try to talk her over. Now, where is she likely to be?—out in the garden?’
‘Perhaps she’s at her mother’s.’
‘Confound it! Well, I’ll go and look about; I can’t lose time.’
‘You’ll never get her to do anything for me, Willis.’
‘Very likely not. But the things that you succeed in are always the most unlikely, as you’d understand if you’d lived my life.’
‘At all events, I shan’t have to give up my dresses?’
‘Hang your dresses—on the wardrobe pegs!’
He went downstairs again and out into the garden, thence to the entrance gate. Adela had passed it but a few minutes before, and he saw her a little distance off. She was going in the direction away from Wanley, seemingly on a mere walk. He decided to follow her and only join her when she had gone some way. She walked with her head bent, walked slowly and with no looking about her. Presently it was plain that she meant to enter the wood. This was opportune. But he lost sight of her as soon as she passed among the trees. He quickened his pace; saw her turning off the main path among the copses. In his pursuit he got astray; he must have missed her track. Suddenly he was checked by the sound of voices, which seemed to come from a lower level just in front of him. Cautiously he stepped forward, till he could see through hazel bushes that there was a steep descent before him. Below, two persons were engaged in conversation, and he could hear every word.
The two were Adela and Hubert Eldon. Adela had come to sit for the last time in the green retreat which was painfully dear to her. Her husband’s absence gave her freedom; she used it to avoid the Rodmans and to talk with herself. She F was, as we may conjecture, far from looking cheerfully into the future. Nor was she content with herself, with her behaviour in the drama of these two days. In thinking over the scene with her husband she experienced a shame before her conscience which could not at first be readily accounted for, for of a truth she had felt no kind of shame in steadfastly resisting Mutimer’s dishonourable impulse. But she saw now that in the judgment of one who could read all her heart she would not come off with unmingled praise. Had there not been another motive at work in her besides zeal for honour? Suppose the man benefiting by the will had been another than Hubert Eldon? Surely that would not have affected her behaviour? Not in practice, doubtless; but here was a question of feeling, a scrutiny of the soul’s hidden velleities. No difference in action, be sure; that must ever be upright But what of the heroism in this particular case? The difference declared itself; here there had been no heroism whatever. To strip herself and her husband when a moment’s winking would have kept them well clad? Yes, but on whose behalf? Had there not been a positive pleasure in making herself poor that Hubert might be rich? There was the fatal element in the situation. She came out of the church palpitating with joy; the first assurance of her husband’s ignominious yielding to temptation filled her with, not mere scorn, but with dread. Had she not been guilty of mock nobleness in her voice, her bearing? At the time she did not feel it, for the thought of Hubert was kept altogether in the background. Yes, but she saw now how it had shed light and warmth upon her; the fact was not to be denied, because her consciousness had not then included it She was shamed.
A pity, is it not? It were so good to have seen her purely noble, indignant with unmixed righteousness. But, knowing our Adela’s heart, is it not even sweeter to bear with her? You will go far before you find virtue in which there is no dear sustaining comfort of self. For my part, Adela is more to me for the imperfection, infinitely more to me for the confession of it in her own mind. How can a woman be lovelier than when most womanly, or more precious than when she reflects her own weakness in clarity of soul?
As she made her way through the wood her trouble of conscience was lost in deeper suffering. The scent of undergrowths, which always brought back to her the glad days of maidenhood, filled her with the hopelessness of the future. There was no return on the path of life; every step made those memories of happiness more distant and thickened the gloom about her. She could be strong when it was needful, could face the world as well as any woman who makes a veil of pride for her bleeding heart; but here, amid the sweet wood-perfumes, in silence and secrecy, self-pity caressed her into feebleness. The light was dimmed by her tears; she rather felt than saw her way. And thus, with moist eyelashes, she came to her wonted resting-place. But she found her seat occupied, and by the man whom in this moment she could least bear to meet.
Hubert sat there, bareheaded, lost in thought. Her light footfall did not touch his ear. He looked up to find her standing before him, and he saw that she had been shedding tears. For an instant she was powerless to direct herself; then sheer panic possessed her and she turned to escape.
Hubert started to his feet.
‘Mrs. Mutimer! Adela!’
The first name would not have stayed her, for her flight was as unreasoning as that of a fawn. The second, her own name, uttered with almost desperate appeal, robbed her of the power of movement. She turned to bay, as though an obstacle had risen in her path, and there was terror in her white face.
Hubert drew a little nearer and spoke hurriedly.
‘Forgive me! I could not let you go. You seem to have come in answer to my thought; I was wishing to see you. Do forgive me!’
She knew that he was examining her moist eyes; a rush of blood passed over her features.
‘Not unless you are willing,’ Hubert pursued, his voice at its gentlest and most courteous. ‘But if I might speak to you for a few minutes—?’
‘You have heard from Mr. Yottle?’ Adela asked, without raising her eyes, trying her utmost to speak in a merely natural way.
‘Yes. I happened to be at my mother’s house. He came last night to obtain my address.’
The truth was, that a generous impulse, partly of his nature, and in part such as any man might know in a moment of unanticipated good fortune, had bade him put aside his prejudices and meet Mutimer at once on a footing of mutual respect. Incapable of ignoble exultation, it seemed to him that true delicacy dictated a personal interview with the man who, judging from Yottle’s report, had so cheerfully acquitted himself of the hard task imposed by honour. But as he walked over from Agworth this zeal cooled. Could he trust Mutimer to appreciate his motive? Such a man was capable of acting honourably, but the power of understanding delicacies of behaviour was not so likely to be his. Hubert’s prejudices were insuperable; to his mind class differences necessarily argued a difference in the grain. And it was not only this consideration that grew weightier as he walked. In the great joy of recovering his ancestral home, in the sight of his mother’s profound happiness, he all but forgot the thoughts that had besieged him since his meetings with Adela in London. As he drew near to Wanley his imagination busied itself almost exclusively with her; distrust and jealousy of Mutimer became fear for Adela’s future. Such a change as this would certainly have a dire effect upon her life. He thought of her frail appearance; he remembered the glimpse of her face that he had caught when her husband entered Mrs. Westlake’s drawing-room, the startled movement she could not suppress. It was impossible to meet Mutimer with any show of good-feeling; he wondered how he could have set forth with such an object. Instead of going to the Manor he turned his steps to the Vicarage, and joined Mr. Wyvern at luncheon. The vicar had of course heard nothing of the discovery as yet. In the afternoon Hubert started to walk back to Agworth, but instead of taking the direct road he strayed into the wood. He was loth to leave the neighbourhood of the Manor; intense anxiety to know what Adela was doing made him linger near the place where she was. Was she already suffering from brutal treatment? What wretchedness might she not be undergoing within those walls!
He said she seemed to have sprung up in answer to his desire. In truth, her sudden appearance overcame him; her tearful face turned to irresistible passion that yearning which, consciously or unconsciously, was at all times present in his life. Her grief could have but one meaning; his heart went out to her with pity as intense as its longing. Other women had drawn his eyes, had captured him with the love of a day; but the deep still affection which is independent of moods and impressions flowed ever towards Adela. As easily could he have become indifferent to his mother as to Adela. As a married woman she was infinitely more to him than she had been as a girl; from her conversation, her countenance, he knew how richly she had developed, how her intelligence had ripened how her character had established itself in maturity. In that utterance of her name the secret escaped him before he could think how impossible it was to address her so familiarly. It was the perpetual key-word of his thoughts; only when he had heard it from his own lips did he realise what he had done.