It was a resolve, indeed, not to be regarded lightly; for with what thunderbolts did it not threaten that old unconscious head! Into the peaceful chamber of his meditations I was to flounce with fire and brimstone--murder, blackmail and, worst of all, to some minds, sick dishonour. For, as to that last, my determination to speak the truth was one with all the rest. Lady Skene had laid no embargo on me, but had rather implied, I thought, an acquiescence in my possible advocacy of her cause. And, indeed, it was out of all my heavy duty the task I feared the least, since, I believed, it would prove the one the least disturbing to his lordship; and that for reasons given long ago. The lesson of that deceit, I suspected, would lack all but a roguish moral in his eyes. But, for his boy; his murdered heir! How would he take that ghastly revelation, and how decide to deal with it? Yet there was no other course--none that I could see; and I confess, for myself, that the prospect of shifting the whole burden of my responsibilities to the shoulders of that shrewd legal understanding was not, in my then state of exaltation, an unwelcome one. I wanted freedom in myself for the range of lovelier thoughts. Why should I retain for ever the sole thankless wardenship of that secret? I was quite ready to forego my part of principal there, and decline upon the humbler rank of scout or agent to his lordship. Yet, when it came to the prick of decision, I lingered and lingered out the moments. The old man had been good to me. He was happy and secure in his ignorance. Would he hold the profits of this débâcle to compensate its losses, and thank me for an interference, which could bring no gains to him but disillusionment? The substantial gains, indeed, were more for me than him--and so for Ira. I owed them, after all, to her. Though I hated my iconoclastic part, it was that tender debt must hold me inexorably to it. I had informed Geoletti of my purpose; and he had answered “It is well, signore. That which you decide is good, is good.” Then he bestirred himself to do my household work, and, when all else was finished, retired into the little kitchen to scrub pots and pans.