"Well, they'll save me the trouble of going to Margate," he said as lightly as he could, and moved towards the door. Denis stopped him.
"Wait. Think. If you're taken now, like this, you'll not be allowed bail. You'll be in prison till the February Assizes."
"—Break me in by degrees!" said Gardiner in a sort of gasp, still pressing towards the door. Denis still held him back.
"Will you cut it?"
"How can I?"
"Quite simple. The monoplane's out at the back—I told Simpson to have her ready. He'll swear anything I like to tell him, and Miss Simpson never saw you at all. You've only to say the word, and I'll set you down in France within the hour."
"You, Denis? You advise me to run?"
"Why not?" said Denis. "I think the point-of-honor stunt is overdone. It doesn't pay."
Gardiner's ideas of right and wrong were all tumbling about his ears. That Denis should advise such a thing! It went more than half-way towards making it seem right. It showed, too, that he dreaded the ordeal of the witness-box, and lent a specious color of unselfishness to the plan. And in those last moments of liberty Gardiner, like the prisoner of the Inquisition, seemed to feel the flaming walls sliding together, contracting, closing in upon his life to drive him into the pit.... "If you're afraid of a thing"—That voice again! There was the touchstone.
"No," said Gardiner. "No, I'm damned if I will!"