He was alone with his conscience. He fell on his knees and covered his face. "God, Thy judgments are terrible," he groaned. CHAPTER XXII. There was a short cut at the back of the office which would take Hetty on to the high road without passing round by the front of the house. It so happened that no one saw her when she arrived, and no one also saw her go. When she reached the road she stopped still to give vent to a deep sigh of satisfaction. Things were not right, but they were better than she had dared hope. Of course the Squire remembered--he could not have looked at her as he had done the night before, if memory had not fully come back to him. He remembered--he told her so, but she was also nearly certain that he would not confess to the world at large the crime of which he was guilty. "I'll keep him to that," thought Hetty. "He may think nought o' himself--it's in his race not to think o' theirselves--but he'd think o' his wife and p'raps he'd think a bit o' me. There's Mrs. Everett and there's her son, and they both suffer and suffer bad, but then agen there's Mrs. Awdrey and there's me--there's two on us agen two," continued Hetty, rapidly thinking out the case, and ranging the pros and cons in due order in her mind, "yes, there's two agen two," she repeated. "Mrs. Everett and her son are suffering now--then it 'ud be Mrs. Awdrey and me--and surely Mrs. Awdrey is nearer to Squire, and maybe I'm a bit nearer to Squire than the other two. Yes, it is but fair that he should keep the secret to himself." The sun had long set and twilight had fallen over the land. Hetty had to walk uphill to reach the Gables, the name of her husband's farm. It would therefore take her longer to return home than it did to come to the Court. She was anxious to get back as quickly as possible. It would never do for Vincent to find out that she had deceived him. If he slept soundly, as she fully expected he would, there was not the least fear of her secret being discovered. Susan never entered the house after four in the afternoon. The men who worked in the fields would return to the yard to put away their tools, but they would have nothing to do in connection with the house itself--thus Vincent would be left undisturbed during the hours of refreshment and restoration which Hetty hoped he was enjoying.