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.

His project was quite ap