k better there."

The Hermitage had never been entered since they left it together, for
Arthur had locked up the key in his desk. And now, when he opened the
door, there was the candle burnt out in the socket; there was the
chair in the same place where Adam remembered sitting; there was the
waste-paper basket full of scraps, and deep down in it, Arthur felt in
an instant, there was the little pink silk handkerchief. It would have
been painful to enter this place if their previous thoughts had been
less painful.

They sat down opposite each other in the old places, and Arthur said,
"I'm going away, Adam; I'm going into the army."

Poor Arthur felt that Adam ought to be affected by this
announcement--ought to have a movement of sympathy towards him. But
Adam's lips remained firmly closed, and the expression of his face
unchanged.

"What I want to say to you," Arthur continued, "is this: one of my
reasons for going away is that no one else may leave Hayslope--may leave
their home on my account. I would do anything, there is no sacrifice
I would not make, to prevent any further injury to others through
my--through what has happened."

Arthur's words had precisely the opposite effect to that he had
anticipated. Adam thought he perceived in them that notion of
compensation for irretrievable wrong, that self-soothing attempt to
make evil bear the same fruits as good, which most of all roused his
indignation. He was as strongly impelled to look painful facts right in
the face as Arthur was to turn away his eyes from them. Moreover, he
had the wakeful suspicious pride of a poor man in the presence of a rich
man. He felt his old severity returning as he said, "The time's past for
that, sir. A man should make sacrifices to keep clear of doing a wrong;
sacrifices won't undo it when it's done. When people's feelings have got
a deadly wound, they can't be cured with favours."

"Favours!" said Arthur, passionately; "no; how can you suppose I meant
that? But the Poysers--Mr. Irwine tells me the Poysers mean to leave the
place where they have lived so many years--for generations. Don't you
see, as Mr. Irwine does, that if they could be persuaded to overcome the
feeling that drives them away, it would be much better for them in the
end to remain on the old spot, among the friends and neighbours who know
them?"

"That's true," said Adam coldly. "But then, sir, folks's feelings are
not so easily overcome. It'll be hard for Martin