"Oblige me by not drawing comparisons," he said—for him—quite fiercely. "If I have come out of the ordeal of the last few days unscathed, and with the honor of my house untarnished, it is in great part due to Alec’s loyalty to a poor weak coward. Had I done my duty I should have gone to the police the moment Lestrade unfolded her plot, instead of embarking on a course of secrecy and moral cowardice which kept alive the danger to Senator Sherman and his charge. I did not see it at the time, but the gang would assuredly have matured some other plan for trying for the plunder, using some other wretched tool, perhaps, if they hadn’t been gammoned into believing that I had caved in. It was gross moral cowardice of me to give them the chance." The torrent of words flowed so quickly that neither of his hearers was able to check it, and it was so evidently the outcome of deep emotion that it was equally impossible to ignore it. The Senator, with a twinkle in his shrewd gray eyes, laid a warning hand on the General’s shoulder and took it upon himself to answer—with a question which had the instant effect of soothing Beaumanoir, for it implied a concession of the position he desired to take up. "What should you have done in the same circumstances, but with this difference—that you had landed in England a simple commoner instead of the representative of an ancient and noble family?" the Senator inquired. "Informed the authorities, of course," the Duke replied without hesitation. "Good! Then assuming for the sake of argument your charge against yourself to be correct, you incurred a mortal peril voluntarily, not from personal considerations affecting yourself, but for fear of involving other people—most of them dead, by the way—in disgrace. I don’t see how you can make moral cowardice out of that." "_I_ do," said Beaumanoir, bluntly. "But," proceeded the Senator, with bland insistence, "you might have avoided the peril to your own life and the besmirching of the family name by the simple expedient of carrying out the behests of Ziegler and Company. You had every facility for pulling the job off without a breath of suspicion ever touching you." The diplomatic opening, the psychological moment, for which poor, blundering Beaumanoir had been hoping, had arrived. It would be uncharitable to suggest that it was proffered to him, as a card is "forced," by an American gentleman with a taste for strawberry leaves; but be it as it may, Beaumanoir was not too dull to seize his chance. "I might have done that—I was tempted to," he blurted out. "In fact, I believe I should have done it if—if I hadn’t come over in the same ship with your—with Mrs. and Miss Sherman." The General, sitting up stiffly with his chin on the knob of his malacca cane, turned his head sharply to hear his old friend’s judgment on this amazing confession. It was pronounced with Trans-Atlantic briskness.