Delayne understood the situation perfectly, and was upon the point of confessing as much. He knew how sure was his wife's influence over men, and for an instant a savage impulse of jealousy impelled him to turn on the man who would have befriended him for his wife's sake and to say all that was in his mind. From this an instinct of prudence saved him at the last moment. He remembered the words: "The man is dead," and began to shudder. Yes, flight was his only chance—but flight must imply guilt!
"Oh," he exclaimed, after a moment's hesitation, "that's all very well, but if I go, what will they say? And my valet, Paul—what of him? Is he ready to hold his tongue, do you think?"
"I think nothing. Send him to Paris by the Simplon to-night. Tell him you're following later. You're not going to say that you've been mad enough to take him into your confidence?"
"Nothing of the kind; but he's a Swiss. They may question him about me?"
"In Paris—"
Delayne shrugged his shoulders.
"If I go, I admit that the police had the right to molest me."
"If you stay, by God, they'll guillotine you. Don't you understand that—don't you see that this man was in the service of the State? Lord, a child would know better. And you're losing the minutes. I say, the minutes; and every one may be the most precious you'll ever live."
Delayne still hesitated, pacing the room, and muttering all the jargon of defence he had recited a hundred times since the instant of his passion. Despite his dilemma, certain instincts of his pride remained. How should he tell this bull-dog of an engineer that he was at his wits' end to pay his hotel bill? He would never have told him had not Benny guessed it from the first.
"You want money, perhaps?" he said, speaking in a new tone, which a sense of delicacy forced upon him. "Well, I'll see you through this, and you can pay me when you like. I'll give you a hundred at Brigue, and you can run the shanty with that until I come. Ten pounds should see your man to Paris—let him go to a back-street hotel until you come. You know the place well enough for that, and can direct him. I'm going down to order the sleigh. It'll be at the cross-roads above the Palace in half an hour. If you're not there when I bring it, a telegram will go to Sierre. As sure as I stand here, I'll dispatch that if you keep me waiting five minutes. Now go, and do what I tell you—you've played the fool long enough."