 - out of the suffering we feel
in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely metal enough there to make
an effective weapon. Our moral sense learns the manners of good society, and
smiles when others smile; but when some rude person gives rough names to our
actions, she is apt to take part against us. And so it was with Arthur: Adam's
judgment of him, Adam's grating words, disturbed his self-soothing arguments.
    Not that Arthur had been at ease before Adam's discovery. Struggles and
resolves had transformed themselves into compunction and anxiety. He was
distressed for Hetty's sake, and distressed for his own, that he must leave her
behind. He had always, both in making and breaking resolutions, looked beyond
his passion, and seen that it must speedily end in separation; but his nature
was too ardent and tender for him not to suffer at this parting; and on Hetty's
account he was filled with uneasiness. He had found out the dream in which she
was living - that she was to be a lady in silks and satins; and when he had
first talked to her about his going away, she had asked him tremblingly to let
her go with him and be married. It was his painful knowledge of this which had
given the most exasperating sting to Adam's reproaches. He had said no word with
the purpose of deceiving her, her vision was all spun by her own childish fancy;
but he was obliged to confess to himself that it was spun half out of his own
actions. And to increase the mischief, on this last evening he had not dared to
hint the truth to Hetty: he had been obliged to soothe her with tender, hopeful
words, lest he should throw her into violent distress. He felt the situation
acutely; felt the sorrow of the dear thing in the present, and thought with a
darker anxiety of the tenacity which her feelings might have in the future. That
was the one sharp point which pressed against him; every other he could evade by
hopeful self-persuasion. The whole thing had been secret; the Poysers had not
the shadow of a suspicion. No one, except Adam, knew anything of what had passed
- no one else was likely to know; for Arthur had impressed on Hetty that it
would be fatal to betray, by word or look, that there had been the least
intimacy between them; and Adam, who knew half their secret, would rather help
them to keep it than betray it. It was an unfortunate business altogether,
