the time was come for some of that bitterness to rise.  At the first moment, Arthur had felt pure distress and self-reproach at discovering that Adam’s happiness was involved in his relation to Hetty.  If there had been a possibility of making Adam tenfold amends—­if deeds of gift, or any other deeds, could have restored Adam’s contentment and regard for him as a benefactor, Arthur would not only have executed them without hesitation, but would have felt bound all the more closely to Adam, and would never have been weary of making retribution.  But Adam could receive no amends; his suffering could not be cancelled; his respect and affection could not be recovered by any prompt deeds of atonement.  He stood like an immovable obstacle against which no pressure could avail; an embodiment of what Arthur most shrank from believing in—­the irrevocableness of his own wrongdoing.  The words of scorn, the refusal to shake hands, the mastery asserted over him in their last conversation in the Hermitage—­above all, the sense of having been knocked down, to which a man does not very well reconcile himself, even under the most heroic circumstances—­pressed on him with a galling pain which was stronger than compunction.  Arthur would so gladly have persuaded himself that he had done no harm!  And if no one had told him the contrary, he could have persuaded himself so much better.  Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences—­out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused:  there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon.  Our moral sense learns the manners of good society and smiles when others smile, but when some rude person gives rough names to our actions, she is apt to take part against us.  And so it was with Arthur:  Adam’s judgment of him, Adam’s grating words, disturbed his self-soothing arguments.

Not that Arthur had been at ease before Adam’s discovery.  Struggles and resolves had transformed themselves into compunction and anxiety.  He was distressed for Hetty’s sake, and distressed for his own, that he must leave her behind.  He had always, both in making and breaking resolutions, looked beyond his passion and seen that it must speedily end in separation; but his nature was too ardent and tender for him not to suffer at this parting; and on Hetty’s account he was filled with uneasiness.  He had found out the dream in which she was living—­that she was to be a lady in silks and satins—­and when he had first talked to her about his going away, she had asked him tremblingly to let her go with him and be married.  It was his painful knowledge of this which had given the most exasperating sting to Adam’s reproaches.  He had said no word with the purpose of deceiving her—­her vision was all spun by her own childish fancy—­but he was obliged to confess to himself that it was spun half out of his own actions.  And to increase the mischief, on this last evening he had not dared to hint the truth to Hetty; he had been obliged to soothe