’No.  I can’t quite understand how the matter rests. . . .  Ah!  Edward, too, who started with such promise; that he should now have become such a careless fellow—­not a month in one place.  There, Mr. Graye, I know what it is mainly owing to.  If it hadn’t been for that heart affair, he might have done—­but the less said about him the better.  I don’t know what we should have done if Miss Aldclyffe had insisted upon the conditions of the leases.  Your brother-in-law, the steward, had a hand in making it light for us, I know, and I heartily thank him for it.’  He ceased speaking, and looked round at the sky.

‘Have you heard o’ what’s happened?’ he said suddenly; ’I was just coming out to learn about it.’

‘I haven’t heard of anything.’

’It is something very serious, though I don’t know what.  All I know is what I heard a man call out bynow—­that it very much concerns somebody who lives in the parish.’

It seems singular enough, even to minds who have no dim beliefs in adumbration and presentiment, that at that moment not the shadow of a thought crossed Owen’s mind that the somebody whom the matter concerned might be himself, or any belonging to him.  The event about to transpire was as portentous to the woman whose welfare was more dear to him than his own, as any, short of death itself, could possibly be; and ever afterwards, when he considered the effect of the knowledge the next half-hour conveyed to his brain, even his practical good sense could not refrain from wonder that he should have walked toward the village after hearing those words of the farmer, in so leisurely and unconcerned a way.  ’How unutterably mean must my intelligence have appeared to the eye of a foreseeing God,’ he frequently said in after-time.  ’Columbus on the eve of his discovery of a world was not so contemptibly unaware.’

After a few additional words of common-place the farmer left him, and, as has been said, Owen proceeded slowly and indifferently towards the village.

The labouring men had just left work, and passed the park gate, which opened into the street as Owen came down towards it.  They went along in a drift, earnestly talking, and were finally about to turn in at their respective doorways.  But upon seeing him they looked significantly at one another, and paused.  He came into the road, on that side of the village-green which was opposite the row of cottages, and turned round to the right.  When Owen turned, all eyes turned; one or two men went hurriedly indoors, and afterwards appeared at the doorstep with their wives, who also contemplated him, talking as they looked.  They seemed uncertain how to act in some matter.

‘If they want me, surely they will call me,’ he thought, wondering more and more.  He could no longer doubt that he was connected with the subject of their discourse.

The first who approached him was a boy.

‘What has occurred?’ said Owen.