During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope.  In the very first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield, the thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with modes of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that intolerable thought.  Some accident had happened.  Hetty had, by some strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne:  she had been taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know.  But this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a rush of distinct agonizing fears.  Hetty had been deceiving herself in thinking that she could love and marry him:  she had been loving Arthur all the while; and now, in her desperation at the nearness of their marriage, she had run away.  And she was gone to him.  The old indignation and jealousy rose again, and prompted the suspicion that Arthur had been dealing falsely—­had written to Hetty—­had tempted her to come to him—­being unwilling, after all, that she should belong to another man besides himself.  Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to Ireland—­for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase.  Every sad look of Hetty’s, since she had been engaged to Adam, returned upon him now with all the exaggeration of painful retrospect.  He had been foolishly sanguine and confident.  The poor thing hadn’t perhaps known her own mind for a long while; had thought that she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily drawn towards the man who offered her a protecting, faithful love.  He couldn’t bear to blame her:  she never meant to cause him this dreadful pain.  The blame lay with that man who had selfishly played with her heart—­had perhaps even deliberately lured her away.

At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a fortnight ago—­wasn’t likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in a hurry—­was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with the horses and had never set eyes on her again.  Adam then went straight to the house from which the Stonition coach started:  Stoniton was the most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be her destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief coach-roads.  She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three or four days.  He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at the inn where the coach put up.  So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must of necessity wait and try to rest till morning—­nay, till eleven o’clock, when the coach started.