"I could never forget my obligation to you," she began; "that must be lifelong. You say that I should return to England to save my husband; but surely it would be the wiser thing to remain. If they do not know all the facts, why should they seek Sir Luton Delayne? May we not hope that this question of identity will protect him to the end? Indeed, I am beginning to believe that my first duty is to him, to go to him, Mr. Benson, and to forget! If he were really guilty of a monstrous crime, it would be another thing. But can we believe that he is?—unless passion itself be such a crime. I cannot say that; his sins have been greatly punished, and am I to judge him at such an hour? Not so, surely. I will go to Italy whatever the cost. I feel it is my duty." He was amazed to hear her. His primitive knowledge of woman had prepared him for an issue so very different. She would have been humbled utterly by the disclosure, he thought, overwhelmed and incapable of any clear purpose. And here she was prepared for an act of madness which, whatever its sublimity, must bring down the house of his hopes with a crash. Let her go to Italy and the end might be at hand. Which is to say, that he doubted his own hypothesis, and put little faith in identity as an ally. Had not Sir Luton been followed from Grindelwald? Why, there would be twenty ready to bear witness. "My dear lady," he said, hardly knowing how to put it to her, "your wish does you great credit, but do not forget that if you are followed from here to Locarno, it will not take the authorities very long to guess what is going on. Perhaps I was wrong to advise a journey at all. The Swiss police are no fools. They will remember that this English lady came to spend some weeks at Andana; she took a chalet; she appeared to have settled down. Then she goes without warning. Suppose, upon the top of that, they remember that a certain Sir Luton Delayne left Grindelwald in a hurry—don’t you think they are capable of getting at the truth? Why, he might be arrested in the next four-and-twenty hours; and if he were, God help him. No, it would be madness to go—madness to think of it. He’s safe where he is, and there will be just two people in all Europe who share this secret. Let us leave well alone—we have done our best and can do no more." She saw the reason of it, but her distress was very great. All that she had suffered at her husband’s hands went for nothing in the hour of cataclysm. In a way the defects of his character made a new appeal to her: his life might have been so very different; his intellect might have led him so far. And here he was, a veritable outcast, despised by all, a fugitive to be named with contempt, even by the vulgar.