She took out her money from her purse, and looked at it.  She had still two-and-twenty shillings; it would serve her for many days more, or it would help her to get on faster to Stonyshire, within reach of Dinah.  The thought of Dinah urged itself more strongly now, since the experience of the night had driven her shuddering imagination away from the pool.  If it had been only going to Dinah—­if nobody besides Dinah would ever know—­Hetty could have made up her mind to go to her.  The soft voice, the pitying eyes, would have drawn her.  But afterwards the other people must know, and she could no more rush on that shame than she could rush on death.

She must wander on and on, and wait for a lower depth of despair to give her courage.  Perhaps death would come to her, for she was getting less and less able to bear the day’s weariness.  And yet—­such is the strange action of our souls, drawing us by a lurking desire towards the very ends we dread—­Hetty, when she set out again from Norton, asked the straightest road northwards towards Stonyshire, and kept it all that day.

Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face and the hard, unloving, despairing soul looking out of it—­with the narrow heart and narrow thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own, and tasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness!  My heart bleeds for her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet, or seated in a cart, with her eyes fixed vacantly on the road before her, never thinking or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes her desire that a village may be near.

What will be the end, the end of her objectless wandering, apart from all love, caring for human beings only through her pride, clinging to life only as the hunted wounded brute clings to it?

God preserve you and me from being the beginners of such misery!

Chapter XXXVIII

The Quest

The first ten days after Hetty’s departure passed as quietly as any other days with the family at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily work.  They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten days at least, perhaps a little longer if Dinah came back with her, because there might then be something to detain them at Snowfield.  But when a fortnight had passed they began to feel a little surprise that Hetty did not return; she must surely have found it pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one could have supposed.  Adam, for his part, was getting very impatient to see her, and he resolved that, if she did not appear the next day (Saturday), he would set out on Sunday morning to fetch her.  There was no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it was light, and perhaps getting a lift in a cart by the way, he would arrive pretty early at Snowfield, and bring back Hetty the next day—­Dinah too, if she were coming.  It was quite time Hetty came home, and he would afford to lose his Monday for the sake of bringing her.