“Oh, it doesn’t matter, I don’t mind about it,” said Hetty, who had been pale and was now red.

“Not matter?” said Adam, gravely.  “You seemed very frightened about it.  I’ll hold it till you’re ready to take it,” he added, quietly closing his hand over it, that she might not think he wanted to look at it again.

By this time Molly had come with bonnet and shawl, and as soon as she had taken Totty, Adam placed the locket in Hetty’s hand.  She took it with an air of indifference and put it in her pocket, in her heart vexed and angry with Adam because he had seen it, but determined now that she would show no more signs of agitation.

“See,” she said, “they’re taking their places to dance; let us go.”

Adam assented silently.  A puzzled alarm had taken possession of him.  Had Hetty a lover he didn’t know of?  For none of her relations, he was sure, would give her a locket like that; and none of her admirers, with whom he was acquainted, was in the position of an accepted lover, as the giver of that locket must be.  Adam was lost in the utter impossibility of finding any person for his fears to alight on.  He could only feel with a terrible pang that there was something in Hetty’s life unknown to him; that while he had been rocking himself in the hope that she would come to love him, she was already loving another.  The pleasure of the dance with Hetty was gone; his eyes, when they rested on her, had an uneasy questioning expression in them; he could think of nothing to say to her; and she too was out of temper and disinclined to speak.  They were both glad when the dance was ended.

Adam was determined to stay no longer; no one wanted him, and no one would notice if he slipped away.  As soon as he got out of doors, he began to walk at his habitual rapid pace, hurrying along without knowing why, busy with the painful thought that the memory of this day, so full of honour and promise to him, was poisoned for ever.  Suddenly, when he was far on through the Chase, he stopped, startled by a flash of reviving hope.  After all, he might be a fool, making a great misery out of a trifle.  Hetty, fond of finery as she was, might have bought the thing herself.  It looked too expensive for that—­it looked like the things on white satin in the great jeweller’s shop at Rosseter.  But Adam had very imperfect notions of the value of such things, and he thought it could certainly not cost more than a guinea.  Perhaps Hetty had had as much as that in Christmas boxes, and there was no knowing but she might have been childish enough to spend it in that way; she was such a young thing, and she couldn’t help loving finery!  But then, why had she been so frightened about it at first, and changed colour so, and afterwards pretended not to care?  Oh, that was because she was ashamed of his seeing that she had such a smart thing—­she was conscious that it was wrong for her to spend her money on it, and she knew that Adam disapproved of