At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven Hetty would not be in the town again till night.  When he did come he remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her, quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not laughed when he joked her.  But he declared, as the people had done at the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down.  Part of the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town from which a coach started—­(all in vain, for you know Hetty did not start from Stonition by coach, but on foot in the grey morning)—­and then in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of road, in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there.  No, she was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam was to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm.  As to what he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him while he went to and fro.  He would not mention what he knew of Arthur Donnithorne’s behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for it:  it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure might be an injury or an offence to her.  And as soon as he had been home and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further absence, he would start off to Ireland:  if he found no trace of Hetty on the road, he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make himself certain how far he was acquainted with her movements.  Several times the thought occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but that would be useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the secret about Arthur.  It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant occupation of his mind about Hetty, should never have alighted on the probability that she had gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no longer there.  Perhaps the reason was that he could not conceive Hetty’s throwing herself on Arthur uncalled; he imagined no cause that could have driven her to such a step, after that letter written in August.  There were but two alternatives in his mind:  either Arthur had written to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, she could not love him well enough, and yet was afraid of her friends’ anger if she retracted.

With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur, the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he had traced her as far as possible.