I walked on a few paces before getting the force of this figure of speech. "You mean that Mrs. Brokenshire--" "Quite so. I see you get what I'd like you to know." He went on, brokenly: "It isn't that I don't want it myself as much as ever. I only see, as I didn't see before, what it would mean to her. If I were to take her at her word--as I must, of course, if she insists on it--" I had to think hard while we continued to walk on beneath the leafing elms, and the village people watched us two as city folks. "It's for to-morrow, isn't it?" I asked at last. He nodded. "How did you know that?" "Near the Baptist church?" "How the deuce do you know? I motored up here last week to spy out the land. That seemed to me the most practicable spot, where we should be least observed--" We were still walking on when I said, without quite knowing why I did so: "Why shouldn't you go away at once and leave it all to me?" "Leave it all to you? And what would you do?" "I don't know. I should have to think. I could do--something." "But suppose she's counting on me to come?" "Then you would have to fail her." "I couldn't." "Not even if it was for her good?" He shook his head. "Not even if it was for her good. No one who calls himself a gentleman--" I couldn't help flinging him a scornful smile. "Isn't it too late to think in terms like that? We've come to a place where such words don't apply. The best we can do is to get out of a difficult situation as wisely as possible, and if you'd just go away and leave it to me--" "She'd never forgive me. That's what I'd be afraid of." "There's nothing to be afraid of in doing right," I declared, a little sententiously. "You'll do right in going away. The rest will take care of itself." We came to the edge of the town, where there was a gate leading into a pasture. Over this gate we leaned and looked down on a valley of orchards and farms. He was sufficiently at ease to take out a cigarette and ask my permission to smoke. "What would you say of a man who treated you like that?" he asked, presently. "It wouldn't matter what I said at first, so long as I lived to thank him. That's what she'd do, and she'd do it soon." "And in the mean time?" "I don't see that you need think of that. If you do right--" He groaned aloud. "Oh, right be hanged!" "Yes, there you go. But so long as right is hanged wrong will have it all its own way and you'll both get into trouble. Do right now--" "And leave her in the lurch?" "You wouldn't be leaving her in the lurch, because you'd be leaving her with me. I know her and can take care of her. If you were just failing her and nothing else--that would be another thing. But I'm here. If you'll only do what's so obviously right, Mr. Grainger, you can trust me with the rest."