"Then do you mean to say you're running away?"
"Claro. What else would you have me do?"
"You might stay and face it."
He shook his head. "Not good enough. I did knock him down, and he did die. I should pretty certainly be convicted of manslaughter, and might get quite a stiff sentence."
"Not if you explained the provocation."
"I think so, even then." Gardiner could not tell her, as he had told Tom, that on the vital point his tongue was sealed. She knew too much. He temporized. "You see, it was the wrong sort of provocation. All I could say would be that he was telling stories that weren't very pretty, and you'd never get a British jury to sympathize with a fancy scruple of that sort. Besides, I've damaged my own case by not owning up at once. That would tell against me very heavily—very heavily indeed. No, I'm afraid there's nothing for it but to clear out."
Lettice said nothing, but her face continued to express complete and solid disagreement. She rose to clear the table. Gardiner, who had his chair tilted back and his fork balancing on one finger, after one glance at her, proceeded to develop his argument.
"It would, as I say, mean prison; and prison is precisely the one thing I'm not prepared to stand. It's not the hardships—they're luxury compared to what I've put up with in my time—it's the confinement, the restraint, the—the utter beastliness of never being able to get away from somebody's eyes! I assure you it gives me the blue divvles even to think of. I am convinced it would drive me off my head. I should go must, and brain a warder—no, I think it would be the doctor for choice: I met him once, he was a sympathetic little brute as ever stepped. I'd far rather be hanged out of hand."
Lettice, still mute, took away his fork. Gardiner perseveringly glanced up into her small pale face for a change of opinion. The more she disapproved, the more he wanted to win her over to his own way of thinking. He was growing quite absurdly anxious to propitiate this exacting critic.
"Don't you think, in view of all the circumstances—the feelings of my family, the unpleasant scandal, and my own state of blue funk—don't you think the best thing I can do is to clear out?"