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.

When he had given the brief answer to her question he could find no more words.  But Adela spoke.

‘What do you wish to say to me, Mr. Eldon?’

Whether or no he interpreted her voice by his own feelings, she seemed to plead with him to be manly and respect her womanhood.

’Only to say the common things which anyone must say in my position, but to say them so that you will believe they are not only a form.  The circumstances are so strange.  I want to ask you for your help; my position is perhaps harder than yours and Mr. Mutimer’s.  We must remember that there is justice to be considered.  If. you will give me your aid in doing justice as far as r am able—­’

In fault of any other possible reply he had involved himself in a subject which he knew it was far better to leave untouched.  He could not complete his sentence, but stood before her with his head bent.

Adela scarcely knew what he said; in anguish she sought for a means of quitting him, of fleeing and hiding herself among the trees.  His accent told her that. she was the object of his compassion, and she had invited it by letting him see her tears.  Of necessity he must think that she was sorrowing on her own account.  That was true, indeed, but how impossible for him to interpret her grief rightly?  The shame of being misjudged by him all but drove her