“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.”
The Tidings
Adam turned his face towards Broxton and walked
with his swiftest stride, looking at his watch with
the fear that Mr. Irwine might be gone out—hunting,
perhaps. The fear and haste together produced
a state of strong excitement before he reached the
rectory gate, and outside it he saw the deep marks
of a recent hoof on the gravel.
But the hoofs were turned towards the gate, not away
from it, and though there was a horse against the
stable door, it was not Mr. Irwine’s: it
had evidently had a journey this morning, and must
belong to some one who had come on business.
Mr. Irwine was at home, then; but Adam could hardly
find breath and calmness to tell Carroll that he wanted
to speak to the rector. The double suffering
of certain and uncertain sorrow had begun to shake
the strong man. The butler looked at him wonderingly,
as he threw himself on a bench in the passage and
stared absently at the clock on the opposite wall.
The master had somebody with him, he said, but he
heard the study door open—the stranger seemed
to be coming out, and as Adam was in a hurry, he would
let the master know at once.
Adam sat looking at the clock: the minute-hand
was hurrying along the last five minutes to ten with
a loud, hard, indifferent tick, and Adam watched the
movement and listened to the sound as if he had had
some reason for doing so. In our times of bitter
suffering there are almost always these pauses, when
our consciousness is benumbed to everything but some
trivial perception or sensation. It is as if semi-idiocy
came to give us rest from the memory and the dread
which refuse to leave us in our sleep.
Carroll, coming back, recalled Adam to the sense of
his burden. He was to go into the study immediately.
“I can’t think what that strange person’s
come about,” the butler added, from mere incontinence
of remark, as he preceded Adam to the door, “he’s
gone i’ the dining-room. And master looks
unaccountable—as if he was frightened.”
Adam took no notice of the words: he could not
care about other people’s business. But
when he entered the study and looked in Mr. Irwine’s
face, he felt in an instant that there was a new expression
in it, strangely different from the warm friendliness
it had always worn for him before. A letter lay
open on the table, and Mr. Irwine’s hand was
on it, but the changed glance he cast on Adam could
not be owing entirely to preoccupation with some disagreeable
business, for he was looking eagerly towards the door,
as if Adam’s entrance were a matter of poignant
anxiety to him.
