Going back upon that evening, Janet began to trace with horror the evidence that might be got together. There were the people at the library who saw them meet and speak to each other, and who might have seen them walk off together, thus identifying her at least. And Meredith himself would know that she must have witnessed the attack upon him. Her anxieties had been quieted by this long want of cessation from all progress. But now that he was getting well! Oh, Julia was right. He would let no one off; he would take full vengeance for his injuries. All the world would know how she was mixed up in it! She would have to appear, to be cross-examined, to tell all she knew, and explain how she was there, and it would be in all the newspapers. This was what chiefly struck Janet with anguish and terror unspeakable. Everybody would know it! Her friends would look upon her darkly; the vicarage--even that kind house would close its doors. To be traitor to the people who had been so kind to her--to meet another woman’s lover, the betrothed of the daughter of the house! Who would have anything to say to a governess who had done that? And though she might tell the episode of the papers, and thus account for her communications with Meredith, who would believe her? Janet had an hour or two of extreme anguish turning this all over in her mind. After this, however, she grew a little more composed. Perhaps Meredith would be kept back by the fact that he himself would be affected as much as she by any such revelation. Probably he would not, for his own sake, like it to be known that he had clandestine meetings with the governess. This was of all others the thing that would damn him, not only in St. John’s Wood, but wherever there were families to which he might wish to recommend himself. If it all came out, Gussy would no doubt be lost to him (if he had ever cared for Gussy), and not only Gussy but every young lady in his own position, and the mother of every young lady. To have clandestine meetings with the governess--to make love behind backs to the governess! Janet’s heart calmed down in its tumultuous beating when this blessed thought came into her mind. No, he would not betray himself in that way. He might not care for betraying her, but he would not betray himself. He would not allow himself to be held up to the contempt of the world, put into all the papers, perhaps into _Punch_, with a shabby girl clinging to him in the dock.