I stepped across the cracking earth and knew
’Twould yawn behind me. I must walk right on,
... Fate has carried me
’Mid the thick arrows; I will keep my stand,
Not shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast
To pierce another: oh, ’tis written large
The thing I have to do.
—George Eliot.
The following morning Anna sent for Oliver. Word had reached her that he was about to leave Fraternia. In the depth of her present distress and perplexity a thought which “had no form, a suffering which had no tongue” had arisen. Gregory, she knew, had left the village hastily that night under stress of powerful emotion, perhaps in a condition of mental excitement exceeding his own control. It seemed to her possible that somewhere on the way from Fraternia to Spalding he might have encountered Keith. The letter brought by Oliver indicated, she was more and more convinced, that he had really been on his way to her. If this were true, some event had interposed, something had occurred to hinder his coming. What could it have been, supposing him to have been but two miles away, save some mysterious, unthinkable effect of an interview with Gregory, if such there had been? It was no longer possible, no longer justifiable, to await events. She must herself discover all that Oliver knew, even if the discovery were to mean despair.
Alone, in her own cabin, she received Oliver. If Keith had been in Fraternia, or John Gregory, it would not have been permitted; but her intense anxiety and suspense overbore her usual shrinking from contact with the man, and Everett yielded to her wish to see him alone.