you'll
take the trouble to tell me what the poor lad's doing."

"Don't put yourself under any restraint, Bartle," said Mr. Irwine. "The
fact is, I'm very much in the same condition as you just now; I've a
great deal that's painful on my mind, and I find it hard work to be
quite silent about my own feelings and only attend to others. I share
your concern for Adam, though he is not the only one whose sufferings I
care for in this affair. He intends to remain at Stoniton till after the
trial: it will come on probably a week to-morrow. He has taken a room
there, and I encouraged him to do so, because I think it better he
should be away from his own home at present; and, poor fellow, he still
believes Hetty is innocent--he wants to summon up courage to see her if
he can; he is unwilling to leave the spot where she is."

"Do you think the creatur's guilty, then?" said Bartle. "Do you think
they'll hang her?"

"I'm afraid it will go hard with her. The evidence is very strong. And
one bad symptom is that she denies everything--denies that she has had
a child in the face of the most positive evidence. I saw her myself, and
she was obstinately silent to me; she shrank up like a frightened animal
when she saw me. I was never so shocked in my life as at the change in
her. But I trust that, in the worst case, we may obtain a pardon for the
sake of the innocent who are involved."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Bartle, forgetting in his irritation to whom
he was speaking. "I beg your pardon, sir, I mean it's stuff and nonsense
for the innocent to care about her being hanged. For my own part, I
think the sooner such women are put out o' the world the better; and the
men that help 'em to do mischief had better go along with 'em for that
matter. What good will you do by keeping such vermin alive, eating the
victual that 'ud feed rational beings? But if Adam's fool enough to care
about it, I don't want him to suffer more than's needful....Is he very
much cut up, poor fellow?" Bartle added, taking out his spectacles and
putting them on, as if they would assist his imagination.

"Yes, I'm afraid the grief cuts very deep," said Mr. Irwine. "He looks
terribly shattered, and a certain violence came over him now and then
yesterday, which made me wish I could have remained near him. But I
shall go to Stoniton again to-morrow, and I have confidence enough in
the strength of Adam's principle to trust that he will be able to endure
the worst wit