The scene shifts to Stoniton on the eve of the trial. Adam and Bartle are lodged in a small room. Adam has changed greatly; he looks like a man who has just passed through a serious illness. Mr. Irwine comes in and reports that Hetty refuses to see Adam; indeed, since her arrest, she has refused to see or speak to anyone but just sits and stares, quiet and sullen. Adam asks if Arthur has come back yet. Mr. Irwine says he has not, and Adam delivers another tirade against Arthur, insisting that all the guilt for Hetty's crime lies on Arthur's head. Mr. Irwine tries to calm him; Arthur will suffer too, he says, and he urges Adam to give up any desire for revenge. Any act of vengeance on Adam's part will not solve anything and will just make a bad situation worse. Adam is silent for a moment, then wonders out loud if Dinah could have helped Hetty. But no one knows where Dinah is.
On the day of the trial, Adam sits in his room weighed down with despair. Bartle comes back from the court and tells him that things are going badly; conviction seems certain. He tells Adam how frightened Hetty looked, and that she will admit nothing, not even the proven fact that she has borne a child. Under the pressure of this news, Adam has a change of heart and decides not to stay away from the trial any longer. Immediately "he stood upright again, and looked more like the Adam Bede of former days."
