Everett and Mrs. Everett would assuredly suffer; but what of that if many others were saved from suffering? Yes, it was his bounden duty to live now for the honor of the old name; he had also his descendants to think of. True his child was gone, but other children would in all probability yet be his--he must think of them. Yes, the future lay before him; he must carry the burden of that awful secret, and he would carry it so closely pressed to his innermost heart that no one should guess by look, word, manner, by a gloomy eye, by an unsmiling lip, that its weight was on him. He would be gay, he would be brave, he would banish grief, he would try to banish remorse, he would live his life as best he could. "I must pay the cost some day," he muttered to himself. "I put off the payment, and that is best. There is a tribunal, at the bar of which I shall doubtless receive full sentence; but that is all in the future; I accept the penalty; I will reap the wages by and by. Yes, I'll keep my secret to the death. The girl, Hetty, knows about it, but she must be silenced." Awdrey rode quickly home in the sweet freshness of the lovely spring evening. He remembered that he was to meet Hetty; the meeting would be difficult and also of some importance, but he would be guarded, he would manage to silence her, to quiet her evident fears. Hetty was a guileless, affectionate, and pretty girl; she had been wonderfully true to him; he must be good to her, for she had suffered for his sake. It would be best to make an excuse to send Hetty and her husband to Canada; Vincent, who was a poor man, would doubtless be glad to emigrate with good prospects. Yes, they must go; it would be unpleasant meeting Hetty, knowing what she knew. Mrs. Everett must also not again be his guest; her presence irritated him, he disliked meeting her eyes; and yet he knew that while she was in the house he dared not shirk their glance; her presence and the knowledge that her pain was killing her made the sharp voice within him speak more loudly than he could quite bear. Yes, Mrs. Everett must go, and Hetty must go, and--what was this memory which made him draw up his horse abruptly?--his lost walking-stick. Ridiculous that such a trifle should worry a man all through his life; how it had haunted him all during the six years when the cloud was over his brain. Even now the memory of it came up again to torment him. He had murdered his man with that stick; the whole thing was the purest accident, but that did not greatly matter, for the man had died; the ferrule of Awdrey's stick had entered his brain, causing instant death. "Afterward I hid it away in the underwood," thought Awdrey. "I wonder where it is now--doubtless still there--but some day that part of the underwood may be cut down and the stick may be found. It might tell tales, I must find it."