If you spare him, I'll expose him!"
"I think your demand is just, Adam," said Mr. Irwine, "but when you are
calmer, you will judge Arthur more mercifully. I say nothing now, only
that his punishment is in other hands than ours."
Mr. Irwine felt it hard upon him that he should have to tell of Arthur's
sad part in the story of sin and sorrow--he who cared for Arthur with
fatherly affection, who had cared for him with fatherly pride. But he
saw clearly that the secret must be known before long, even apart from
Adam's determination, since it was scarcely to be supposed that Hetty
would persist to the end in her obstinate silence. He made up his mind
to withhold nothing from the Poysers, but to tell them the worst at
once, for there was no time to rob the tidings of their suddenness.
Hetty's trial must come on at the Lent assizes, and they were to be
held at Stoniton the next week. It was scarcely to be hoped that Martin
Poyser could escape the pain of being called as a witness, and it was
better he should know everything as long beforehand as possible.
Before ten o'clock on Thursday morning the home at the Hall Farm was
a house of mourning for a misfortune felt to be worse than death. The
sense of family dishonour was too keen even in the kind-hearted Martin
Poyser the younger to leave room for any compassion towards Hetty.
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