"What!
It will take you a day to mend this wheel?"
"A day, and a good long one."
"If you set two men to work?"
"If I set ten men to work."
"What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?"
"That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is in a bad state, too."
"Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?"
"No."
"Is there another wheelwright?"
The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of the head
"No."
He felt an immense joy.
It was evident that Providence was intervening.
That it was it who had broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road.
He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made every possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and scrupulously exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the season, nor fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to reproach himself.
If he went no further, that was no fault of his.
It did not concern him further. It was no longer his fault.
It was not the act of his own conscience, but the act of Providence.
He breathed again.