Arthur held out his hand, but Adam sat still.

“I don’t like to say ‘No’ to that, sir,” he said, “but I can’t shake hands till it’s clear what we mean by’t.  I was wrong when I spoke as if you’d done me an injury knowingly, but I wasn’t wrong in what I said before, about your behaviour t’ Hetty, and I can’t shake hands with you as if I held you my friend the same as ever till you’ve cleared that up better.”

Arthur swallowed his pride and resentment as he drew back his hand.  He was silent for some moments, and then said, as indifferently as he could, “I don’t know what you mean by clearing up, Adam.  I’ve told you already that you think too seriously of a little flirtation.  But if you are right in supposing there is any danger in it—­I’m going away on Saturday, and there will be an end of it.  As for the pain it has given you, I’m heartily sorry for it.  I can say no more.”

Adam said nothing, but rose from his chair and stood with his face towards one of the windows, as if looking at the blackness of the moonlit fir-trees; but he was in reality conscious of nothing but the conflict within him.  It was of no use now—­his resolution not to speak till to-morrow.  He must speak there and then.  But it was several minutes before he turned round and stepped nearer to Arthur, standing and looking down on him as he lay.

“It’ll be better for me to speak plain,” he said, with evident effort, “though it’s hard work.  You see, sir, this isn’t a trifle to me, whatever it may be to you.  I’m none o’ them men as can go making love first to one woman and then t’ another, and don’t think it much odds which of ’em I take.  What I feel for Hetty’s a different sort o’ love, such as I believe nobody can know much about but them as feel it and God as has given it to ’em.  She’s more nor everything else to me, all but my conscience and my good name.  And if it’s true what you’ve been saying all along—­and if it’s only been trifling and flirting as you call it, as ’ll be put an end to by your going away—­why, then, I’d wait, and hope her heart ’ud turn to me after all.  I’m loath to think you’d speak false to me, and I’ll believe your word, however things may look.”

“You would be wronging Hetty more than me not to believe it,” said Arthur, almost violently, starting up from the ottoman and moving away.  But he threw himself into a chair again directly, saying, more feebly, “You seem to forget that, in suspecting me, you are casting imputations upon her.”

“Nay, sir,” Adam said, in a calmer voice, as if he were half-relieved—­for he was too straightforward to make a distinction between a direct falsehood and an indirect one—­“Nay, sir, things don’t lie level between Hetty and you.  You’re acting with your eyes open, whatever you may do; but how do you know what’s been in her mind?  She’s all but a child—­as any man with a conscience in him ought to feel bound to take care on.  And whatever you may think, I know you’ve disturbed her mind.  I know she’s been fixing her heart on you, for there’s a many things clear to me now as I didn’t understand before.  But you seem to make light o’ what she may feel—­you don’t think o’ that.”