Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his chair.  At last he lifted a piteously humble face.

“What would you suggest my doing, Duncan?”

There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in the position which he had contrived for himself.  To tell him this had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed opportunity only came after an hour’s hard wrangle—­in current metaphor after an hour’s artillery preparation for attack.  He looked so battered, poor old Anthony, that I felt almost ashamed of the success of my bombardment.

“It’s not a question of suggesting,” said I.  “It’s a question of things that have to be done.  You need a holiday.  You’ve been working here at high pressure for nearly a couple of years.  Go away.  Put yourself in the hands of Cliffe, and go to Bournemouth, or Biarritz, or Bahia, or any beastly place you can fix up with him to go to.  Go frankly For three or four months.  Go to-morrow.  As soon as you’re well out of the place, tell Edith the whole story.  Then you can take counsel and comfort together.”

He was in the state of mind to be impressed by my argument.  I followed up my advantage.  I undertook to send a ruthless flaming angel of a Cliffe to pronounce the inexorable decree of exile.  After a few faint-hearted objections he acquiesced in the scheme.  I fancy he revolted against even this apparent surrender to Gedge, although he was too proud to confess it.  No man likes running away.  Sir Anthony also regarded as pusillanimous the proposal to leave his wife in ignorance until he had led her into the trap of holiday.  Why not put her into his confidence before they started?

“That,” said I, “is a delicate question which only you yourself can decide.  By following my plan you get away at once, which is the most important thing.  Once comfortably away, you can choose the opportune moment.”

“There’s something in that,” he replied; and, after thanking me for my advice, he left me.

I do not defend my plan.  I admit it was Machiavellian.  My one desire was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a season.  Just think of the horrible impossibility of their maintaining social relations with the Boyces ....

By publicly honouring Boyce, Sir Anthony had tied his own hands.  It was a pledge to Boyce, although the latter did not know it, of condonation.  Whatever stories Gedge might spread abroad, whatever proofs he might display, Sir Anthony could take no action.  But to carry on a semblance of friendship with the man responsible for his daughter’s death—­for the two of them, mind you, since Lady Fenimore would sooner or later learn everything—­was, as I say, horribly impossible.