He went up the stairs, Kondo noticed, still absently holding his watch in his hand. Warden controlled his nervousness before entering his wife's room,--where she had just finished dressing to go out,--so that she did not at first sense anything unusual. In fact, she talked with him casually for a moment or so before she even sent away her maid. He had promised a few days before to accompany her to a concert; she thought he had come simply to beg off. When they were alone, she suddenly saw that he had come to her to discuss some serious subject. "Cora," he said, when he had closed the door after the maid, "I want your advice on a business question." "A business question!" She was greatly surprised. She was a number of years younger than he; he was one of those men who believe all business matters should be kept from their wives. "I mean it came to me through some business--discoveries." "And you cannot decide it for yourself?" "I had decided it." He looked again at his watch. "I had quite decided it; but now--It may lead to some result which I have suddenly felt that I haven't the right to decide entirely for myself." Warden's wife for the first time felt alarmed. She could not well describe his manner; it did not suggest fear for himself; she could not imagine his feeling such fear; but she was frightened. She put her hand on his arm. "You mean it affects me directly?" "It may. For that reason I feel I must do what you would have me do." He seized both her hands in his and held her before him; she waited for him to go on. "Cora," he said, "what would you have me do if you knew I had found out that a young man--a man who, four or five years ago, had as much to live for as any man might--had been outraged in every right by men who are my friends? Would you have me fight the outfit for him? Or would you have me--lie down?" His fingers almost crushed hers in his excitement. She stared at him with only pride then; she was proud of his strength, of his ability to fight, of the power she knew he possessed to force his way against opposition. "Why, you would fight them!" "You mean you want me to?" "Isn't that what you had decided to do?" He only repeated. "You want me to fight them?" "Of course." "No matter what it costs?" She realized then that what he was facing was very grave. "Cora," he said, "I didn't come to ask your advice without putting this squarely to you. If I go into this fight, I shall be not only an opponent to some of my present friends; I shall be a threat to them--something they may think it necessary to remove." "Remove?" "Such things have happened--to better men than I, over smaller matters." She cried out. "You mean some one might kill you?" "Should that keep me from going in?" She hesitated. He went on: "Would you have me afraid to do a thing that ought to be done, Cora?" "No," she said; "I would not."