"Do you think that I shall be happy?"
"I don't know," cried Hetty. "Perhaps you'll forget after a bit, and that voice inside you won't speak so loud. It used to trouble me once, but now—now it has grown dull."
"It will never cease to speak. I know myself too well to have any doubt on that point, but all the same I may take the downward course. I can't say. Conscience has only just begun to trouble me. I may obey its dictates, or I may deliberately lead the life of a hypocrite. If I choose the latter, can you stand the test?"
"I have stood it for five years."
"But I have not been at home—the Court has been shut up—an absentee landlord is not always to the front in his people's thoughts. In the future, things will be different. Look at me for a moment, Hetty Vincent. You are not well—your cheeks are hollow and your eyes are too bright. Mrs. Everett is persuaded that you carry a secret. If she thinks so, others may think the same. Your aunt also knows."
"Aunt is different from me," said Hetty. "She didn't see it done. It don't wear her like it wears me. But I think, sir, now that you have come back, and I am quite certain that I know your true mind, and when I know, too, that you are carrying the burden as well as me, and that we two,"—she paused, her voice broke—"I think, sir," she added, "that it won't wear me so much in the future."
"You must on no account be tried. If I resolve to keep the secret of my guilt from all the rest of the world, you must leave the country."
"Me leave the country!" cried Hetty—her face became ghastly pale, her eyes brimmed again with tears. "Then you would indeed kill me," she said, with a moan—"to leave you—Mr. Robert, you must guess why I have done all this."
"Hush," he said in a harsh tone. He approached the window, where the blind was drawn up. He saw, or fancied he saw—Mrs. Everett's dark figure passing by in the distance. He retreated quickly into the shaded part of the room.
"I cannot afford to misunderstand your words," he said, after a pause, "but listen to me, Hetty, you must never allude to that subject again. If I keep this thing to myself I can only do it on condition that you and your husband leave the country. I have not fully made up my mind yet. Nothing can be settled to-night. You had better not stay any longer."