No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his own sentiment of right, and the effect was the stronger in Arthur because of that very need of self-respect which, while his conscience was still at ease, was one of his best safeguards.  Self-accusation was too painful to him—­he could not face it.  He must persuade himself that he had not been very much to blame; he began even to pity himself for the necessity he was under of deceiving Adam—­it was a course so opposed to the honesty of his own nature.  But then, it was the only right thing to do.

Well, whatever had been amiss in him, he was miserable enough in consequence:  miserable about Hetty; miserable about this letter that he had promised to write, and that seemed at one moment to be a gross barbarity, at another perhaps the greatest kindness he could do to her.  And across all this reflection would dart every now and then a sudden impulse of passionate defiance towards all consequences.  He would carry Hetty away, and all other considerations might go to....

In this state of mind the four walls of his room made an intolerable prison to him; they seemed to hem in and press down upon him all the crowd of contradictory thoughts and conflicting feelings, some of which would fly away in the open air.  He had only an hour or two to make up his mind in, and he must get clear and calm.  Once on Meg’s back, in the fresh air of that fine morning, he should be more master of the situation.

The pretty creature arched her bay neck in the sunshine, and pawed the gravel, and trembled with pleasure when her master stroked her nose, and patted her, and talked to her even in a more caressing tone than usual.  He loved her the better because she knew nothing of his secrets.  But Meg was quite as well acquainted with her master’s mental state as many others of her sex with the mental condition of the nice young gentlemen towards whom their hearts are in a state of fluttering expectation.

Arthur cantered for five miles beyond the Chase, till he was at the foot of a hill where there were no hedges or trees to hem in the road.  Then he threw the bridle on Meg’s neck and prepared to make up his mind.

Hetty knew that their meeting yesterday must be the last before Arthur went away—­there was no possibility of their contriving another without exciting suspicion—­and she was like a frightened child, unable to think of anything, only able to cry at the mention of parting, and then put her face up to have the tears kissed away.  He could do nothing but comfort her, and lull her into dreaming on.  A letter would be a dreadfully abrupt way of awakening her!  Yet there was truth in what Adam said—­that it would save her from a lengthened delusion, which might be worse than a sharp immediate pain.  And it was the only way of satisfying Adam, who must be satisfied, for more reasons than one.  If he could have seen her again!  But that was impossible; there was such a thorny hedge of hindrances between them, and an imprudence would be fatal.  And yet, if he could see her again, what good would it do?  Only cause him to suffer more from the sight of her distress and the remembrance of it.  Away from him she was surrounded by all the motives to self-control.