"It is a question that means a good deal to me, of course, and I don't
know just what it means to you: that is the point I am up against. I
may have no choice in the matter, but I must decide what to try to do
if I have one. Am I to remember first that he is your husband?"

There was a silence. "What shall I say--what can I say? God help me,
how am I to answer a question like that?"

"How am I to answer it?"

Her voice was low and pitiful when her answer came: "You must do your
duty."

"What is my duty then? To serve the paper that has been given to me, I
know--but not necessarily to defend my life at the price of his. The
play of a chance lies in deciding that; I can keep the chance or give
it away; that is for you to say. Or take the question of duty again.
You are alone and your friends are few. Haven't I any duty toward you,
perhaps? I don't know a woman's heart. I used to think I did, but I
don't. My duty to this company that I work for is only the duty of a
servant. If I go, another takes my place; it means nothing except
taking one name off the payroll and putting another on. Whatever he
may have done, this man is your husband; if his death would cause you
a pang, it shall not be laid at my door. We ought to understand each
other on that point fairly before I start to-night."

"Can you ask me whether you ought not to take every means to defend
your own life? or whether any consideration ought to come before that?
I think not. I should be a wicked woman if I were to wish evil to him,
wretched as he has made me. I am a wretched woman, whichever way I
turn. But I should be less than human if I could say that to me your
death would not be a cruel, cruel blow."

There was a moment of silence. "Dicksie understood you to say that you
were in doubt as to whether you ought to go away with him when he
asked you to go. That is why I was unsettled in my mind."

"The only reason why I doubted was that I thought by going I might
save better lives than mine. I could willingly give up my life to do
that. But to stain it by going back to such a man--God help me!"

"I think I understand. If the unfortunate should happen before I come
back I hope only this: that you will not hate me because I am the man
on whom the responsibility has fallen. I haven't sought it. And if I
should not come back at all, it is only--good-by."

He saw her clasp her hands convulsively. "I will not say it! I will
pray on my knees that you do co